Peak 5695 5695 ft (1736 m) – 1050 gain 2021.10.15 Peak 5965 – Bird Spring Range Photo Collection Thankfully, my time in Vegas was about over. Leaving the conference hotel in the early evening, I worked my way south toward Jean, Nevada, eventually turning west toward Goodsprings. I hit the…
Nevada High Points #90 – Madelin Mesa
Rowland Mountain (‘Rocky’) 6911 ft (2107 m) – 650 ft gain 2021.09.24 The mornings have the feel of autumn, but the midday still holds the heat of summer; it is that time of year. Here, at the close of September, I had a landform mapping project in support of archaeological…
Nevada High Points #88 – Butte Spring Hills
Peak 6507 6507 ft (1983 m) – 910 ft gain 2021.09.11 On Nevada Highway 34, a wonderful dirt road north of Gerlach, there is a steep right-hand turn just after the Lund Petrified Forest. The forest consists of a couple of upright trees trapped behind a fenced enclosure, but we…
Nevada High Points #86 – East Gate Range
Grayback Mountain 7510 ft (2289 m) – 1200 ft gain 2021.07.11 Well, that didn’t take long. I must have gotten a little sleep. It is, at most, four hours after returning from Peak 6632, which we summited soon after midnight, and Darren and I are headed for our approach to…
Nevada High Points #85 – Broken Hills
Peak 6632 6632 ft (2021 m) – 600 ft gain 2021.07.10 It has been a strange week, but maybe this is just how they are now. A 5.9-magnitude earthquake shook our house, Portland hit 113° (and Gardnerville not much less), the Beckwourth Fire Complex continues to rampage, and monsoon-like storms…
Nevada High Points #83 – Toiyabe Range
Arc Dome 11,788 ft (3593 m) – 4005 ft gain 2021.05.14 Sometimes life gets in the way. As Second Friday approached, it appeared the workaday world required more that its usual allocation. Although I am fortunate to have spent much of my career working outside and have been overlanding since…
Nevada High Points #82 – Mount Irish Mountains
Mount Irish 8473 ft; 2665 m. 2200 ft gain. 2021.04.11 It is April’s Second Friday, so that means it is time for a backcountry recce, but first, I get vaccinated. It is my second shot. Although I had no side-effects other than a sore arm the first time around, I…
Wildlife Photography: Getting Lost with the Red-headed Woodpecker
Ok, this is not a bird photography website. It just happens that this was an interesting week. Six-Mile Woodpecker Collection After our brief birding excursion along the East Walker River, Desna heard that a Red-headed Woodpecker had taken up brief residence in Six Mile Canyon in the Virginia Range, just…
Wildlife Photography: Birds of the East Walker River, Nevada
Here is a slightly different angle for the LightOpt Photography blog. My wife and I teamed up on a quick camp trip to the East Walker River to check out birds in the Walker River State Recreation Area, a relatively new component of the state park system. I had passed…
Nevada High Points #81: Little High Rock Mountains
Mahogany Mountain 6979 ft (2127m) — 1510 ft gain 2021.03.27 Although I had been able to visit the Cuprite Hills on the journey south, fieldwork along the Gila Mountains of southern Arizona postponed our Second Friday overland recce for March. To keep our run going, however, we took to northwestern…