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          Northwest Nevada Desert Vacation 2008

Still fairly early in the year... sometime around the end of March, Dad and Brent decided to take a 9-day vacation and do some fishing, ATV riding, and sight seeing.  We left right after school on Friday afternoon and headed for a place north of Gerlach, Nevada, called Squaw Creek Reservoir.

We setup camp the first night in the dark, and it's a good thing we have done this before.  We had to camp up on the hill due to poor road condition getting down to the upper end of the reservoir. 

This is Brent and his famous bobber cast technique. All we had to do was let the wind drift the bobber downwind and we had a mess of fish in a very short time.
Yep, this was breakfast.  We took the fish back to camp, cooked them up and then headed out on an ATV exploration. 
East of Squaw Creek Reservoir we made our way up an old mining road.  It got pretty narrow along the last few hundred yards.  As you can see from the snow on the mountains, it is still fairly early in the spring.
This picture is a sheep herder on a bicycle.  He also had two very large dogs helping to guard the sheep.  I think I took this picture from the door of the camper. The sheep ended up coming right through camp as they fed their way down to the reservoir.
That afternoon we decided we had better get camp ready.  Brent ran the generator to charge up the batteries in the game toys and the laptop computer. 
Then Brent chopped the wood before dark.  He stayed at it until we had a nice pile of wood for the evening.  We had already loaded up the ATV's to be ready for the next day's travels northward. 

We enjoyed a nice fire that evening and had to douse it early due to the wind. 

The next day we headed back to Gerlach, Nevada and then drove northward along dirt road #34 past Fly Hot Springs.  We were hoping for a closer look at the hot springs, but it is fenced with "No Trespassing" signs along the roadway.  So, this was the best picture we could get. 
We decided to spend the next couple of nights are Little High Rock Canyon Reservoir.  There isn't any fish there, but we are hoping to do some ATVing north of the reservoir.  We had heard the high desert was real pretty this time of year. 

We saw lots of wild horses along the drive to Little High Rock Canyon Reservoir.   

More horses...
More horses...
and, more horses...
...and, still... more horses. 
We also came upon a petrified forest.  We had read about it and since it was a point on the map of our travels we decided to stop there. 
The stop definitely paid off.  These petrified logs are stacked up for a great view.  The fence must be to keep the dishonest people honest. 
I took this picture through the fence opening.  The log laying on the ground is a monster. 
This picture is of tree trunks.  There must have been about 10 or so that were awesome to look at. 
Apparently George Lund was able to make this site a protected place... my hats off to him.  His efforts truly are appreciated. 
This is a meadow near Little High Rock Canyon Reservoir.  The actual reservoir was fairly dry this time of year.  With the snow melt I kind of expected it to be full.
I can't remember the name of this old homestead.  There was a running stream just above it that would make a great springtime resort location.  The only problem is the road is probably closed during the winter months and spring is fairly short up here in the high desert. 
The second day we road the ATV's northward of Little High Rock Canyon Reservoir.  The farther we went the deeper the snow got.  It was an all day trek, and we finally ended up turning around because of the snow.  The wider tires on the Yamaha Warrior were throwing mud and snow all over me, and the Kawasaki Bayou (with its bald tires) was leaving Brent stranded a few times in the snow banks.  So, we decided to go back and call it a day. 
The next day we traveled south in hopes of making a large circle and ending up back at camp. 
As you can see, there was plenty of snow. This a picture of my skiing tracks down a large snow drift.  This is the location Brent and I got separated for a couple of hours.  Fortunately Brent has a good outdoors brain and he went back to the last place we saw each other.  He stayed there until I showed up from my search and rescue mission.  It was nice to see he used his instincts.  Being stranded or lost out here would surely end up in badly. 
This is a picture of Little High Rock Canyon Reservoir, and as I mentioned above, you can see there is little water in it. 
The next night we started running a little low on firewood, so Brent went on a scouting trip.  He came back with quite a load.  We had a great fire that night, with popcorn, and I believe we may have even cooked up some marshmallows. 
The next morning we decided to travel onward to Susanville, California, for lunch.  These does were camped out under someone's tree in their yard.  I think we counted 18 of them. 
After a few trials to find the correct road we traveled northward to Adel, Oregon.  These deer were feeding and stopped eating long enough to pose for a picture. 
This is the entrance to the Sheldon National Antelope Refuge.  I had always wanted to make this drive... finally, we have made the dream come true.
 
I can't remember the name of the reservoir, but it is in Oregon, so our Nevada fishing license wouldn't have done us any good. 

From here we traveled to Virgin Valley hot springs, Bog Hot hot springs, and then returned to Winnemucca, Nevada.  We met up with family at Virgin Valley and that adventure is on the next web site for 2008.