One last chance to go hit one of my old spots before heading south for the winter, so I loaded up the camper and headed out. This place is about 4.5-5 hours away from home.
While it's private property, and I have permission, the owner allows anyone in to look so there's always footprints and signs of others there when I go.
Nevertheless, I've always found stuff there.
But this was probably my worst experience in the 27 years I've been going there.
First, the weather forecast was WAY off! It was much colder than it was supposed to be.
Second, the number of cattle ran here has increased dramatically, resulting in lots of broken artifacts and churned up ground that's tough to hunt.
Third, invasive cheat grass has completely taken over. Places that used to be sand or hard pack are now completely covered with it.
For those reasons, this may have been my last trip here.
The finds:
Everything I found was from a very small area that the cheat grass has not yet covered.
The Elko Corner-notched would have been a real peach had it not suffered damage.
As an example of the cheat grass problem, here's a spot that used to be smooth sand where I would find points that the wind had exposed on almost every visit. No more!
When I first started coming here this house was perfectly functional, and I even slept in there a few times on pronghorn hunts. So sad.
This was at 8:30am when I was ready to hit the road for home. It was 4 degrees colder when I started packing up at 6am.
Some cool looking rock formations near Vya, Nevada:
On the very East end of scenic CA Hwy 299 I could see Mt. Shasta peeking over the mountain top to the west:
It was a great spot for so many years. Very sad to me to say goodbye to this old friend.
While it's private property, and I have permission, the owner allows anyone in to look so there's always footprints and signs of others there when I go.
Nevertheless, I've always found stuff there.
But this was probably my worst experience in the 27 years I've been going there.
First, the weather forecast was WAY off! It was much colder than it was supposed to be.
Second, the number of cattle ran here has increased dramatically, resulting in lots of broken artifacts and churned up ground that's tough to hunt.
Third, invasive cheat grass has completely taken over. Places that used to be sand or hard pack are now completely covered with it.
For those reasons, this may have been my last trip here.
The finds:
Everything I found was from a very small area that the cheat grass has not yet covered.
The Elko Corner-notched would have been a real peach had it not suffered damage.
As an example of the cheat grass problem, here's a spot that used to be smooth sand where I would find points that the wind had exposed on almost every visit. No more!
When I first started coming here this house was perfectly functional, and I even slept in there a few times on pronghorn hunts. So sad.
This was at 8:30am when I was ready to hit the road for home. It was 4 degrees colder when I started packing up at 6am.
Some cool looking rock formations near Vya, Nevada:
On the very East end of scenic CA Hwy 299 I could see Mt. Shasta peeking over the mountain top to the west:
It was a great spot for so many years. Very sad to me to say goodbye to this old friend.
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