by John C. Evanoff
November, 2006
North of Winnemucca about 31 miles on Highway 95,
Nevada State Route 140 proceeds into the northwest Nevada badlands
towards Denio and Denio Junction. This road into northern Humboldt
County runs by some spectacular geography including the Quinn River
Valley, Jackson Mountains and the Pine Forest Range. The geology
of this area was produced by fault uplift, volcanic magma movements
and the ancient inland sea called Lake Lahontan. You can see some
of the sea’s remains along the hillsides as a stratified beach
mark and traces of magma flows running down worn down volcano mounds.
As you cross the Quinn River at about the ten mile
mark things really become remarkable. The valley and river are more
spectacular if you can get up on the hillsides and look down on
them but just traveling through allows you to capture some of the
reasons many people have raised entire generations here without
leaving. The Quinn Lakes (Dry most of the time) and Quinn River
Ranch along the way are good places to hike, four wheel drive, mountain
bike, and horseback ride. Further along, the Quinn River Crossing
was where many settler’s wagons and later supply wagons crossed
the river at or near this area. The easy fording was created by
earlier settlers who filled the river with rocks from the nearby
hillsides to make the crossing easier. As you travel through this
long valley, look for mule deer and antelope. There are also coyote
and bobcat looking down on you from the knolls. On the left as you
travel north is the Pine Forest Range. When I was younger, I remember
coming upon a flock of chucker numbering over a hundred. I was so
amazed at all the birds in the air at the same time; I never got
off a shot. I will always cherish that memory the rest of my life.
The thunderous flutter of so many chucker wings was astonishing.
I have yet to ever see so many game birds in one flight although
my father told me stories of flights of sagehen even larger in the
late nineteen-forties.
At Denio Summit, take a hike up into the hills. These
hills are full of opals and I mean plumb full of them. All you have
to do is walk a few hundred yards and you will probably pick up
a couple small specimens of Nevada Opal. West of Denio Junction
about 25 miles on NSR140, are the Bonanza Opal Mine, the Royal Peacock
Mine and Rainbow Ridge where you can pay a small fee from late May
through September to find larger specimens of the famous Virgin
Valley Opal. The Nevada Fire Opal is found all over northern Nevada
but especially in northern Humboldt and Washoe Counties. The area
was heavily wooded many millions of years ago and with volcanic
eruptions and subsequent laying down of silica from hot water fissures
into the wood’s cracks and then tons of pressure from mile
high glacier ice and resulting inland seas, the famous stone was
born. Some pieces are white with a fiery sliver of gold colored
mica running through them and others are black with rainbow bolts
of colors throughout the entire rock. Others are red and yellow
with cracks of clear quartz-like veins within them. These hills
are fun to walk and hunt for opals but remember to ask if you happen
upon private land or a mining claim. There is a fully equipped RV
campground at the head of the valley and a motel in Denio and don’t
forget to try a Denio Burger while you are there in town.
Denio got its name from a hard working man named Aaron
Denio, born in Illinois in 1824, who lived for a time on ranches
he owned in Paradise Valley between 1865 and 1874. He had businesses
with associates and with the miners moving to and from the strikes
in central Nevada and southern Oregon and Idaho. He had worked as
a miner for short periods all his early life including some in Nevada
and Idaho like Humboldt, Starr and Silver City and understood the
need for beef and bread to keep the miners alive. After many hard
years in the area though, he moved his family in 1885 to a little
sod and mud hut he built in Pueblo Valley on the Nevada/Oregon border
and began to farm and mine. He opened a station for travelers to
stop at which eventually became the post office in 1897 and Aaron
became its postmaster. Denio Station was born and the area became
a regular crossroads for freight wagons and settlers moving north
from Winnemucca and Paradise to Fields, Burns, and eventually the
Willamette Valley.
The Pine Forest Recreation Area is a large area that
looks extremely desolate at first, but the more you explore, the
more you’ll discover including Bog Hot Creek. The geothermal
activity in the area is fascinating in the cool dry autumn months.
The wisps of steam can be seen for miles from the ridges of the
Pine Forest Range. Bog Hot Creek is nine miles west of Denio Junction
to a gravel road turn off that proceeds four miles until you reach
a ditch of steaming water. Follow the ditch to the shallow ponds
made by bathers and make sure to check the water before you hop
in so you don’t cook. There are also some warm stretches of
water along the Virgin Valley Warm Creek. I found both of these
as great places to relax after hunting and horseback riding excursions.
Throughout the Virgin Valley are constant reminders
of why Northern Nevada is so amazing. Ruts in some of the dry gulches
were left by Conestoga wagon trains passing through the area into
Oregon country. Some of the emigrants were guided on this detour
because of the perilous passage along the Snake River and the Oregon
Trail in Idaho. The Modoc, Klamath and Northern Shoshone Tribes
raided the livestock of the early travelers and eventually several
Calvary camps and forts were built in the region including Fort
Bidwell, Fort McGarry and Fort McDermitt. The US Calvary began to
hunt down the bands of Indians and several large battles almost
wiped out whole families of the Modoc and Klamath. But many of the
emigrants still sought out quieter trails like the Applegate to
cross into Oregon into Klamath Falls and the Denio Detour to Surprise
Valley and Lakeview in Southern Oregon. It was calming to the settlers
to be able to look so far without seeing an Indian raiding party
but the trip was still arduous.
This region will calm your spirit too. The nights
are really dark when there is no moon in the sky and that helps
if you are an amateur astronomer and have a telescope or binoculars.
In fact, the Leonid Meteor showers during the middle of November
around the 17th put on their fascinating show every year and if
you park yourself on one of the many ridges around the east and
west parts of the Virgin Valley, you’ll see them more spectacularly
than anywhere else. Every year, the Earth flies through the meteor
stream left from Comet Tuttle. Some years, you can count one or
two a minute and then other years you might encounter twenty to
forty a minute in an amazing storm of falling stars. The fireworks
can be spectacular but whatever meteor shower occurs, this is by
far the best place to view it in Northern Nevada in November. The
meteor showers are one of the reason I like the area in November
but finding a Nevada Fire Opal in the quiet solitude of this region
is amazingly refreshing and invigorating indeed.
A little further west on NSR140, you will find a gravel
road that leads west and then southwest approximately 15 miles to
an unimproved road heading southeast into the Summit Lake Indian
Reservation. For hundreds of years, the Northern Paiute called this
part of Nevada their home, from Summit Lake to Lovelock. And Summit
Lake is the only reason Pyramid Lake is the famous fishery it is
today. The lake has the only native populations of the ancient Lake
Lahontan cutthroat trout which were used genetically to bring back
the Pyramid Lake cutthroat species we have today. President William
H. Taft set aside the area for a reservation in 1913 for the Northern
Paiute at Summit Lake and inadvertently saved the trout and Numa
(“People” in the Paiute language) from extinction. There
is no camping, hunting or fishing allowed on the reservation but
the vistas are exceptional.
The mountain south of Summit Lake is Pahute Peak at
more than 8,500 feet and it makes for a great day hike from the
High Rock Canyon side. Two spots can be seen from the top that we
will venture to next month. High Rock Canyon and Soldier Meadows
are famous for their presence as natural paths for the emigrants
using one of the variations of the Appelgate Trail and by John C.
Fremont and Kit Carson who came through them as they mapped the
region moving south into the Black Rock Desert and Pyramid Lake.
I will discuss this area and the region north of High Rock known
as the Sheldon Antelope Range in the next column.
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