Lake Mead (click here)
Nevada
For many of us, the word "Nevada" brings up either an image of Las Vegas, or images of long hot stretches of highway that you take when headed somewhere more interesting. My experiences of Nevada, however, have shown it to be a far more complex and interesting state.
My initial experiences of Nevada were relatively standard -- as hot, dry, and uninteresting. But, I found myself regularly going back. Part of the reason for spending so much time there was simply convenience. Living for the past 20 years in California coastal cities (SF, LA, or San Diego), Nevada was always an easy one day drive when I wanted to get away from the frenzy of California -- to go camping, to explore, and to just relax. Luckily, the more time that I spent in Nevada, the more I realized that it was interesting not only as a place to escape but also as a source of reflection on Native American and American history.
Away from the metropolitan areas of southern Nevada or the Carson City/Reno area, you see smaller towns, farming, mining, and open range areas that have clearly gone through cycles of cultural development and then retraction due to periods of being awash in money followed by periods of having very little money. The city I know best in these terms is Ely, which I've been through 10 to 20 times over the past 25 years. The first time I was there, there was an old copper mine west of town that had slowed down in production, the town itself had a small older downtown (about 6 blocks), lots of older housing, some motels built in the 60's, and not much else -- overall, people seemed relaxed and friendly. A few years later, when a new method for extracting gold from nearby areas had been developed, there was a modern strip mall with the first large supermarket, single-family housing developments that were 2-3 miles out of town, trailer parks, new motels, and a very hurried sense in the restaurants and grocery store. Most recently, the town felt depressed again -- the gold mining methods were apparently not providing the employment that had been expected. (See 'Reflections' link (below) for some thoughts on mining and the environment.)
Despite (or because of) this sort of cyclic history, I find Nevada interesting -- once off the main roads, one gets a sense of stable, natural vastness and subtle beauty that endures long beyond the various boom and bust cycles. The center of the state mainly consists of very long north-south mountain ranges separated by very wide (15-20 miles wide) valleys with long, empty stretches of two lane highway where you pass 1 or 2 cars in the span of an hour. Even though much of the state looks like desert, there are surprising stretches of swamp or wetlands in these valleys, and buried in the woods of the nearby mountain ranges are haunting abandoned towns suggesting past periods of high-living -- and unexpected reminders of former Native American inhabitants.
Nevada, as I've experienced it, can roughly be divided into six areas:
As of 2009, pictures of Nevada have been moved to Flickr -- links below will take you to Flickr sets.
|
Lake Mead (click here) |
|
 |
Lincoln County -- southeast Nevada along US 93 through Caliente to Pioche (click here) |
|
Northeast around Ely and Great Basin National Park (click here) |
 |
 |
Northwest area from Wellington to Pyramid Lake. Pictures for this section are currently part of the California Backsides pictures (click here) |
|
Railroad Valley, Belmont, Tonopah, and Goldfield (click here) |
 |
 |
Gold Point, Beatty (Rhyolite), to Pahrump area (click here) |
Considering the amount of time I've spent in Nevada and how valuable it is as a place to visit, I've also written an ending page of reflections on abandoned towns, mining, and other uniquely Nevadan facts of life.