Trip Report
"Welcome to
Nowhere Nevada"
My first ever trip report! This was a long weekend for Presidents' Day, so NVTami and I took off for Clark County to visit her son - and warmer weather! We planned on making a few stops during the trip down, but deep snow and slick mud shortened our time at both Bellehelen and Tem Piute. Undissuaded, we made some unplanned stops at Mt. Irish, Hiko, and Ash Springs along the way.
Since we were visiting Tami's son in Mesquite, we decided to make the Eureka Hotel our home base. Our original plan was to hit Valley of Fire on Saturday and then head over to Zion National Park on Sunday. Saturday started off without a hitch, and our first stop was a cool, forgotten recreation area built by the CCC in the earliest days of Valley of Fire's existence. Then we ventured into the park. We hadn't anticipated the crowds that would be there over the weekend, and most parking areas were full. We drove the park, and after making a few quick stops decided to move on. Outside Valley of Fire, we checked out little-known Hupton - the site of the White Star Plaster Company's mill in the early 1920s. After another quick stop at Riverside, we called it a night and prepared for the next day.
Although we planned on going to Zion Sunday, our plans changed at the last minute (and we were glad to avoid the inevitable masses). Instead we opted to trek out to Gold Butte National Monument, a first for both of us. We only had half a day before meeting Tami's son for dinner, so we decided our best course of action would be to start at the furthest point and work our way back. After 50 miles of rough pavement and dirt roads, we reached the Gold Butte townsite. While we waited for others that were there before us, we took a look at Tami's Benchmark atlas to see if anything else was close and saw the name "Copper City" just up the road. A quick search on author Shawn Hall's old website on the Wayback Machine helped us narrow down the location, and off we went. Once we got closer to the site, we sent up a drone to save time and see if we could even find any signs of habitation. Copper City was a camp that developed below the Lincoln Mine in the early 1900s, and I was able to find one dugout foundation near the supposed location. Not wanting to spend too much time, we moved on, but Copper City will be worth more research and a later visit with more time to spend.
Back at Gold Butte, we took off on foot to find the famed arrastra before taking off for points further north. We stopped at the Devil's Throat and a wash with both petroglyphs and axle grease signatures on our way to Little Finland, named for its 'fins' made of windswept and eroded sandstone. After realizing that the hike would take too much time for the day, we vowed to return at a later date. We stopped at Whitney Pocket and took a short hike to the "Falling Man" petroglyph before closing the afternoon with a stop at the old Key West copper mine. Amazingly, after the miles we covered and places we saw, we made it back to Mesquite by 4:00 and in time to take Tami's son to dinner in St. George.
Monday, the day of our return to reality, we started with a good breakfast before hitting the road home. Our original plan called for a detour through Reveille, but after Friday's encounter with snow and mud we elected to keep our stops further south and at a lower elevation. A quick scenic detour through Warm Springs, then brief stops at Evergreen Flat (site of an unsuccessful irrigation project that drained Maynard Lake) and the Dr. Hoyt Gravesite provided a nice closure to a great weekend of exploring.
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