Nevada High Points #123 — Lost Creek Hills

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A coyote woke me in the dark, sometime in the early morning. I had set camp at an intersection of dirt tracks along the road to Lost Creek Pass, having arrived late the previous evening. Earlier, Des and I completed a breeding bird survey in Surprise Valley while visiting some wonderful friends for other excursions, but we parted ways midway through the weekend. Now, a nearby bark, maybe disturbed by the presence of a truck and tent along a well-traveled path, pierced the pre-dawn silence. I had set the tent without its fly so I could feel the breeze and watch the turning stars. I hoped the song dog might saunter curiously by, so I waited silently but a sighting never came. The barks faded into the distance, only once answered by a brief but exuberant chorus in the far distance — a good morning start.

I am in the Lost Creek Hills, a jumbled group of rhyolitic ash flow tuffs capped by small tablelands of basalt at the western edge of the Cottonwood Caldera. This is the caldera of the Bordwell Group obsidian, a common toolstone in the archaeological record of the northern and western Great Basin. I would visit some early collection localities as I traversed toward the high point of this small set of hills.

Stopping where an upper, dry tributary of Cherry Creek passed beneath the drooping cables of the LADC power line, I got out to pack my gear for a rolling, three-mile walk to the rounded summit of the Lost Creek Hills. I heard a car door slam. How is it that in the middle of nowhere, I stop and inevitably, so it seems, someone drives up? And this is early on a Sunday morning. They are donning packs, as I am, so I wander over to say hello. Turns out it is a vegetation survey team working for BLM; they will be walking down Clover Creek, so I head happily in the opposite direction.

I walk through burn scars with skeletal ghosts of juniper trees, while pronghorn antelope eye me curiously before darting single-file to the opposite slopes. I find a primary outcrop of obsidian, unusual with its angular and almost tabular cobbles occurring here. Most nearby obsidian localities show rounded cobbles weathered by millennia of erosion and water wear. I document the outcrop, collecting a few natural cobbles (not archaeology) for future geochemical assay. Clearly Bordwell obsidian, but one cannot assume and thereby miss some internal variability around the caldera. Along the way I notice patterned depressions typically a few meters deep and several meters across, curving across gradual slopes at the caldera margin. They seem to be associated with the outcrops of angular obsidian fragments; only later do I notice their broad patterning on aerial imagery. I am now anxious to look at this patterned ground in the near future — maybe cooling blisters in the glassy ignimbrite formed prior to the caldera collapse.

The walk is easy but longer then I expected. I follow sparse two-tracks and cut cross-country to gain the summit ridge. The views are nice. The vast caldera drops away to the east, I can see its volcanic margins where I have found so many obsidian localities. To the west, Duck Flat sits below the southern Warner Mountains, as young volcanos rise further west in California. I only capture a few images in the direct light of approaching noon. I could do more to practice in these conditions, but I typically get motivated by the walk and forget to take time to see smaller scenes that I could work with.

The day warms as I walk back to Clover Creek. An ancient strand of barbed wire draws blood from my leg as I fail to be attentive to the wire at one of the fence crossings; I think my tetanus is up to date, so no real worries even if it looks a bit ghastly as blood trickles into my sock. I’ll make it.

I have a long drive home through Black Rock country, crossing the playa at a stretch before hitting pavement again at Gerlach. A slow end to a long excursion; happy to have the discipline to get a high point walk in and explore the margins of the caldera once again. Where will next month take me?

Keep going.