Nevada High Points #126 – Adobe Range

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This is a long outing, I am headed for fieldwork on the Old River Bed in the West Desert of Utah, and then on to visit my parents in Grand Junction, Colorado. But first, I cannot pass up a chance to check out a Nevada high point along the way. The Adobe Range rises north of Elko, Nevada, in a generally south-to-north-trending jumble of volcanic hills flanked by broad sedimentary pediments. The hills are not prominent in any dramatic sense, but I have worked several projects along their flanks without taking the opportunity to visit the range’s higher elevations. It was time to change that with an afternoon walk.

Originally deciding on Coal Mine Canyon as an east-side entry, but after squeezing through private property, I found a good road leading to some corrals well south of my target. It looked nice, with some fall color around high springs in an otherwise late-season, sagebrush landscape. Even where good roads lead higher, I always pick a spot that is minimally 1.5 miles from the summit, where I hope I can at least get 1500 feet of vertical gain — these ‘rules’ can be difficult in the smaller hills that have found their way onto my ‘list’ of named mountain ranges. In any case, high point excursions are about the experience and not the statistics — other than keeping the list going.

I decided to document this walk, basically a random choice, as a quiet video, experimenting with other ways of sharing the Nevada high point experience. I am not a skilled videographer by any stretch, but I thought this relatively easy walk might be a good chance to experiment with video scenes bringing the viewer along. I have included my effort here. I really want to focus on photos and maps, working to bring landforms to life to the best of my limited abilities, so I will be curious to hear what you think.

A small grove of cottonwoods and willows has held its color, but it is fading quickly. The slopes of the Adobe Range are wide open, with only a few cliffs and outcrops below the summit ridge. While the walk is a pleasure, the distant scenes of the Ruby Mountains, East Humboldt Range, and the headwaters of the Humboldt River in the Tuscarora Mountains, come along as added value. The skies are low with gossamer overcast. Concerned about the coming journey east, I wish I had more time. I am glad to work these into my fieldwork schedules, but these mountains deserve more attention. Here, I am surprised by small patches of snow, left by a recent storm, telling signs of the change of seasons. The walk feels good, and provides a nice break from the drive, but it is now time to head east and find a camp. The days are noticeably short, and I am in shadow throughout the short descent. I have miles to drive before I can rest for the night.

The Adobes rise from an old landscape of eroded hills, so I do not encounter any young landforms of any map scale. The drainages are in erosional guillies leading to broad inset floodplains of Humboldt River tributaries, such as Coal Mine Canyon. The tributary drainages can hold young terraces preserving records of archaeological landscapes and recent change, but my route today was high above these. I focus on the views overlooking the tributary valleys before continuing my journey eastward.

Keep going.

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing