We’ve returned to Las Vegas from Nevada’s north-western frontier refreshed and ready for new adventures. A map check reveals that Las Vegas is the southern gateway to a range of great national and state parks both in Nevada and south-west Utah, so off we head up Route 93 to find out what they have to offer.
ABOUT 90 MILES NORTH THE ARID landscape is transformed into a fertile marshland known as the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, its name derived from the Paiute Idian word for “a valley of shining waters”. Watered by large thermal springs and located on the Pacific Flyway, which attracts thousands of migratory birds each year, it is toward the southern end of Lincoln County, known for its Native American rock art, colourful mining towns, both alive and dead, and for the largest concentration (six) of Nevada’s state parks. Just past Ash Springs, Rt 93 heads east but we divert west on Route 375, best known as the Extraterrestrial Highway. It runs along the perimeter of a top-secret US military base where, rumour has it, there had been contacts with aliens, so who knows what we might find.
Alas, nothing unusual appears but at the tiny community of Rachel, ‘UFO Central’, a local resident swears she once saw a UFO hovering over the highway. Retracing our route we stop in Caliente to photograph the 1923 rail depot and peek into its adjacent Boxcar Museum. There is no time to explore the nearby canyon-sited Kershaw-Ryan and reservoir-featuring Beaver Dam state parks as we were headed for what is reputedly the most spectacular of them all, Cathedral Gorge outside the small town of Panaca.
Cathedral Gorge certainly lives up to its name with great spires, canyons and cliffs of buff-coloured clay moulded into exotic shapes over the centuries by volcanic eruptions, water activity and erosion. We can’t help but wonder what the Native Americans who lived in this region as far back as 10,000 years ago made of this surreal site in their midst.
Once considered the “baddest town in the West”, the formerly rip-roaring mining community of Pioche is today the quiet seat of Lincoln County. Best known for its ‘Million Dollar Courthouse’, a monument to financial ineptitude and corruption, it’s the gateway to two more state parks featuring reservoirs: Echo Canyon and Spring Valley.
We speed instead toward the Great Basin National Park, a vast area of sagebrush-covered valleys and massive mountain ranges featuring 13 peaks above 11,000 feet. Our target is underground: the subterranean wonderland known as Lehman Caves. As we wander through atmospherically-lit narrow passageways into large chambers we marvel at not only the spectacular stalactites and stalagmites but also at the rare, circular rock formations known as ‘shields’, often dripping with hanging ‘draperies’ which made them resemble giant jellyfish.
Approaching nightfall we arrive in the old mining and railroad town of Ely. After checking into a local inn, we stroll along the streets admiring the colourful murals adorning both business and residential buildings and later visit the town’s Heritage Village. This assembly of restored houses provides a glimpse into the lifestyle of the various ethnic groups in town in the 1900s. The highpoint of the visit is the Steam Spectacular at the Nevada Northern Railway Museum. It features a tour of the museum’s rolling stock and witnessing some of them huffing and puffing out of the station. If we’d arrived during the late spring to early autumn tourist season we could have taken an excursion on the so-called Ghost Train to such places as Ruth, site of one of the world’s largest copper mining pits.
The Nevada Northern Railway takes steam train buffs on excursions out of Ely
Headed south-west down Rt 21 into Utah we turn into Interstate 15 which links the state’s capital, Salt Lake City, with Las Vegas, turning off on Rt 143 at Parowan to dine at the Brian Head Ski Resort’s Grand Lodge restaurant. Set at 9,600 feet, the resort (which is also open in the summer) has the highest base elevation in Utah. It’s also adjacent to Cedar Breaks National Monument, known for its dramatic rock formations, hiking trails, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling and impressive displays of spring wildflowers and autumn foliage.
We briefly tour attractive Cedar City, home to he Utah Shakespeare Festival, some of it staged in a replica of London’s Globe Theatre, before arriving by moonlight at Zion National Park’s romantically rustic Zion Lodge. Stepping out of the lodge’s front entrance at daybreak we are stunned by the awesome scenery, There are the towering monoliths known as the Patriarchs, the gentle little Virgin River luring us back into a slot canyon so narrow we would have to wade in the river to explore it, and farther afield the Emerald Pools, Kolob Canyon and Angels Landing (a perilous climb not recommended for vertigo sufferers).
Emerald Pool waterfalls in Utah’s Zion National Park
A quick swing through a sliver of Arizona and we are on the home stretch back to Las Vegas. Although the former farming community of Mesquite may have been best known in the past for its brace of casino hotels, it has become known more recently for such popular golf courses and resorts as the Palms and the Casa Blanca. It also, rather surprisingly, boasts several arts and crafts and performing arts venues. I pop into the Virgin Valley Artists Association and buy a rather funky hand-made mosaic watch to give to Sally. It will remind her of time well spent in the outback of Nevada and Utah.
