Index for Category - Searchlight Nevada & Nipton California

This page last updated on 12/26/2017

Click on a Title to View Searchlight Nevada Searchlight - Summary Page Cottonwood Cove - Cottonwood Cove Rd. Walking Box Ranch - Summary Page Walking Box Ranch Road Walking Box Ranch Tour Wee Thump Joshua Tree Wilderness Area - Summary Page Wee Thump Joshua Tree Wilderness Area - Nipton Rd. Southern Nevada (Spokane) Mine Nipton California Nipton California Lucy Gray Mine Crescent Peak Mine Road Crescent Peak and Nippeno Mine

Cottonwood Cove Wildflower Visit

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This page last updated on 04/14/2017

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04/14/2017 Trip Visit: Every couple of years I try to make a drive down the 13.5 mile long Cottonwood Road that runs to Cottonwood Cove Marina on the banks of Lake Mohave in search of wildflower pictures. This year my friend Jim Herring accompanied Connie and I. Because the flowering of wildflowers and cactus differs each year depending upon the weather, rain and temperatures, getting the timing right is always a wild guess. In 1913 Connie and I went on March 26th  and had great luck. Last year I visited with Jim and we didn't find any. Even though we seemed a little early for this year, we had pretty good luck. Most of the cactus had yet to bloom. The Joshua trees usually bloom between late February and April, and showed none; though some years they don't bloom at all. Many of the flowers and bushes we observed had lots of buds that had yet to open. Globe mallow, seen in the collage above (Fig. 01) were very abundant and seemed to be everywhere. There we only a handful of Beavertail Cactus like those shown in the college in (Fig. 04). All in all we had a good day and got the pictures shown below.
                       

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Wee Thump Joshua Tree Wilderness Area - Summary Page

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This page last updated on 06/12/2017

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Directions: From the Stratosphere Casino head northeast on Las Vegas Blvd about 3 miles and bear right to merge onto US-515/93/95 south towards Boulder City. Follow US-93/95 for 17 miles and then merge onto US-95 South (Veterans Memorial Hwy) toward Searchlight/Laughlin/Needles. When you reach Searchlight, about 36 miles, turn right, west, onto NV-164 (known at the Joshua Tree Highway) towards Nipton. The trailhead and the Wee Thump East Road is located on the right (Fig. 02), about 8.2 miles west of Searchlight.

Description: First, it must be noted that the large sign shown in (Fig. 01) that once stood at the entrance to the Trailhead (TR) and the Wee Thump East Road (Fig. 02) has been vandalized by locals and no longer exists. "Wee Thump" is Paiute for "ancient ones."
                         
The Southern Nevada area has been in a drought for the past 15 years. Even though rain and snowfalls fluctuate year to year, on average over the past 16 years water tables throughout the state have been dropping like a rock. As a whole the desert is a harsh environment of mostly sand and rock where the evaporation rate far exceeds precipitation. Even though plants and animals have special adaptions to deal with harsh conditions such as extreme heat, cold and lack of water for long periods, the drought is finally reaching a point where many are near the end of their life cycles. I have evidenced many cacti which can go years without proper watering are beginning to just dry up and die. Wildlife levels, do to a scarcity of adequate plant-life to feed upon, have noticeably fallen over the same period. In spite of all this, there is the ever enduring Joshua tree, that is in fact, not a tree.
                           
It's a tree-like succulent that is actually a member of the agave family. For more information on the Joshua Tree check out the following page ... Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia). It is impossible to estimate their age as their trunks are filled with fibers instead of the growth rings found in typical trees. Its primary pollinator is the yucca moth that nurses its large, soccer ball-sized flower with its cream-colored petal. It appears to be a malformed peculiarity with gangling and odd shaped branches that seem to point in no particular direction. It is found in mostly Mojave Desert ecozones.
                                   
At first glance, this flat, gently sloped alluvial plain between Searchlight NV and Nipton CA appears rather plain and boring; however, it offers a wide variety of plant life and occasionally, for the patient, glimpses of birds, lizards and other desert animals. Wee Thump Joshua Tree is a relatively small (6,050 acres) wilderness area that was established to protect a forest of dense, old-growth Joshua trees. The wilderness area is relatively flat, sloping gently from west to east at elevations ranging from about 5,000 to 4,100 feet, in a roughly triangular valley (Fig. 02) between the McCullough and Highland ranges and the north shoulder of the New York Mountains, just west of Searchlight, NV. The area lies on the bajada below the South McCullough Mountains.  The bajada, composed entirely of outwash materials from the McCullough Mountains, dominates the local geology. Alluvial soils are deep and well sorted, with few rocks of any size in the wilderness area. The soils appear to be coarse-grained decomposed granite, but they are the decomposition products of metamorphic rocks.

There are several places along the highway between Searchlight and Nipton where one can spend hours visiting this and other areas looking for rocks and snapping pictures of Joshua trees, the  Prickly Pear Cactus, the  Buckhorn Cholla, the Mojave (Banana) Yucca, Blackbrush, the Creosote Bush (Larrea tridentata and a variety of other low-growing desert shrubs. The Joshua trees in this area were some of the largest I've ever seen. The only place on earth in which they live is the Mojave Desert. The area is also known for a diverse community of Mojave desert life, including kit fox, great horned owl, the gilded flicker (which is known to occur in Nevada only at this location) and the federally threatened desert tortoise.

Trip Notes: The purpose of this page is to act as a summary by providing links with pictures and descriptions of my various hiking visits to this spot over the past several years. Obviously, the primary focus here are the Joshua Trees. For more information on the Joshua Tree check out the following page ... Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia). The trip notes below provide information and pictured from each of my previous visits.
                                         
10/22/2016 Trip Notes: My most recent visit was with my friend Jim Herring, who had never been here before. Because this was my third visit, I didn't take very many pictures. On today's visit we drove about half way into the wilderness, further than I had hiked on my previous visits (Fig. 03). As you can see from (Fig. 04), with Jim standing in front of it, we did encounter some very large trees.
                                                   

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10/06/2011 Trip Notes: The link found here actually provides pictures and descriptions of two visits to "Wee Thump" in 2011. Even though there isn't  lot to photograph here, it is just the stark the beauty of these wonderful old Joshua Trees against the backdrop of the surrounding mountains. The solitude of this desert plateau has lots of desert grasses, almost making you feel like you are in the grassy plains of the mid-west. Depending upon the time of year when you visit, and the amount of recent rain can provide you will a variety of interesting and colorful vegetation scattered about the landscape. Click here for pictures and descriptions of these two visits ... Wee Thump Joshua Tree Wilderness Area - 10/06/2011 Trip Notes.

(OPTION 1) Each show is designed to run automatically in place, without leaving the current browser window. If the show is not already running, just click the large "Play" button in the middle of the picture and let it run. (OPTION 2) Running the cursor over the picture being shown will PAUSE the show and bring up a navigation bar at the bottom of the slideshow window with Pause, Forward and Back buttons, allowing you to start, stop or manually forward or back up pictures one at a time.

Slideshow Description: The slideshow above contains 49 pictures that were taken inside the Wee Thump Wilderness Area and at various stops along the "Joshua Tree Highway".

Eldorado and Cottonwood Valley - 01/14/16 Trip Notes

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This page last updated on 06/15/2017

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Directions: Searchlight is situated in the Colorado River Basin in Clark County, Nevada on U.S. 95 and State Route 164, midway between Las Vegas and Laughlin (Fig. 02). From the Stratosphere Casino head northeast on Las Vegas Blvd about 3 miles and bear right to merge onto US-515/93/95 south towards Boulder City. Follow US-93/95 for 17 miles and then merge onto US-95 South (Veterans Memorial Hwy) for 36 miles to Searchlight. At the light, turn left onto NV-164 (Cottonwood Valley Rd.) and travel about a mile and then turn left onto 157 (Gas Pipeline Rd.). Travel on this dirt road about a half mile until you come to a large clearing (parking area). Park here and use this as a staging area.

Area Description: Even though I have visited here on several occasions, I always have a difficult time trying find the right label to describe this area. Some maps call the vast desert area due east of Searchlight, NV, nestled between the Eldorado Mountains to the north and the Newberry Mountains to the south, Cottonwood Valley. West to east, the area between Searchlight and Lake Mohave (Colorado River), is divided down the middle and managed by two agencies, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and the NRA (National Recreation Area). The northern portion of this large valley is bordered by the Ireteba Wilderness Areas and the Nellis Wash Wilderness and Spirit Mountain Wilderness areas to the south (Fig. 02).

01/14/2016 Trip Notes: Harvey Smith, my friend Jim Herring and I decided to do some four-wheeling around the Cottonwood Valley area, east of Searchlight. After reaching the staging area on Gas Pipeline Road, we unloaded the quad and Ranger (Fig. 01) and began our journey by heading out in a northeast direction toward the Oakland Mine site and then on to Lake Mohave. The "yellow" on the map on (Fig. 02) highlights the routes we traveled on this visit.  Even though Harvey and I had both been here before, we began by giving Jim an extensive tour of the mine sites around the Oakland Mine. With numerous adits and shafts, mine heads, water tanks, a 4 stamp battery mechanical crusher, and other numerous debris, this site offers much to explore (Fig. 03). The stamp battery crusher seen in the collage was probably quite noisy and somewhat awkward to operate. Its traditional use was for the processing of mineral extraction, whether it be copper, silver, gold, or any other metal contained within host rock. The stamps were heavy metal weights that were lifted and dropped on the ore by a crankshaft. The crushed ore would then be further refined, usually by a mercury or cyanide process. From what I have learned, there appears to be more than one mine claim located here. The remains of the mine located on the hill south of the Oakland Mine appears to be a separate claim (Fig. 04). When searching around this site, I found a mine claim (Fig. 05) located in a pipe that was buried in the ground indicating that this site was the Berkley Mine Claim. Located on the top of this hill is what appears to be a steam driven piston and belt system (Fig. 06) that was made by the Ingersoll Rand company of New York. It appears that it was used to drive the pulley at the hoist equipment. Looking into the barred off shaft, it is apparent that this shaft is quite deep. (refer to the bottom right picture in Fig. 03). (trip notes con't below)

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Trip Notes Continued: After touring these sites, we began our journey through the hills and out across the valley by going though an area that was populated with hundreds of Pencil Cactus and Joshua Trees (Figs. 07 & 08).  We then followed a wash that paralleled Cottonwood Cove Road, east towards Lake Mohave (Fig. 09).  Refer to (Fig. 02). Driving down this wash along the road we encountered a car graveyard (Fig. 10). After reaching Rockefeller Road, we headed northeast toward the Irebeta Peaks, across a section of the valley that is covered with thousands of Jumping Cholla Cactus (Fig. 11). We then turned right onto Copper Mountain Cove Road and followed it down to Copper Mountain Cove (refer to Fig. 02) along the edge of Lake Mohave (Fig. 12). This peaceful spot was full of cat-n-tails, thick tamarisk salt cedar, an was a great spot to grab bite. While here we even spotted a fisherman that was boating out on the lake (Fig. 13). From here he drove back up Copper Mountain Road to Rockefeller Road and to the intersection of Solicitor Mine Road. This road travels northwest up the side of a mountain and a power-line at the top. The view in (Fig. 14) was looking back toward Lake Mohave. When we reached the power-line we weren't sure which way we needed to go. We decided to turn left and head down, following the power-line. Unfortunately, we should have followed the route (noted in red on the map in (Fig. 02), across the power-line road. Even though the route we chose took us somewhat out of our way, it provided some really great scenery and views (Fig. 15). All-in-all, it was another great day exploring abandoned gold mines and roaming around Cottonwood Valley.

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Walking Box Ranch - Summary Page

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This page last updated on 04/27/2017

New Entrance Sign

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Directions: From the Stratosphere Casino, head northeast on Las Vegas Blvd about 3 miles and bear right to merge onto US-515/93/95 south towards Boulder City. Follow US-93/95 for 17 miles and then merge onto US-95 South (Veterans Memorial Hwy) toward Searchlight/Laughlin/Needles. When you reach Searchlight, about 36 miles, turn right, west onto NV-164 (a.k.a. Joshua Tree Highway and Nipton Rd) towards Nipton California. About 6 miles south of Searchlight, turn left onto Walking Box Ranch Road. On a recent visit I noticed that the Red Rock-Sloan Field Office and The Nature Conservancy has installed a new permanent sign at the property road entrance (New Sign above). Then go about 0.75 miles to the ranch property (Fig. 03). Walking Box Ranch History: The 160-acre ranch Walking Box Ranch was the desert home of Hollywood stars Clara Bow and Rex Bell in the 1930s and 40s. In 1931, Hollywood silent film stars Clara Bow (aka "The It Girl") and Rex Bell bought a 400,000 acre cattle ranch in the desert located about 6 miles west of Searchlight, Nevada. The land was originally part of the massive Rock Springs Land & Cattle Company. They built the Walking Box Ranch for a place to get away from it all and relax. The entrance to the Walking Box Ranch (Fig. 01) is from the graded Walking Box Ranch Road, about 0.75 miles south of Highway 164. They named it the Walking Box Ranch in reference to a box camera on a tripod, which in old-time Hollywood was referred to as a "walking box camera." The ranch logo is a stylized image of a walking box camera. At one time there was more than 1,800 head of cattle on the ranch. The facilities include a two-story home, barn, caretaker’s residence, guesthouse, swimming pool, tennis court, cactus garden and a covered patio with a built-in barbecue. Still in relatively good shape, the main building is a 5,000 square-foot, two-story Spanish Colonial Revival ranch house. On the first floor is a grand living room featuring a dramatic stone fireplace that looks like it was hewn out of a cliff; upstairs, Rex and Clara’s bedroom overlooks seemingly endless waves of pristine Joshua forest. Over the years, Rex and Clara entertained many notable Hollywood figures, including Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Errol Flynn, and Lionel Barrymore. Bow and Bell lived here, raising two boys in the ranch house they built, until the mid-1940's when they moved to Las Vegas. Bow faded into history, while Bell went into politics and served as lieutenant governor of Nevada from 1955 until 1962. The property continued as an operating cattle ranch under Bell and the subsequent ownership of Karl Weikel through the 1980's until it was sold to Viceroy Gold Corporation in 1990. It was markedly upgraded in the 1990's by the Viceroy Gold Corporation for a field office and executive retreat. They rehabilitated and remodeled the ranch house, replaced the bunkhouse, constructed tennis courts, and removed some older buildings. The site remains more-or-less unchanged since the Viceroy era. The ranch area itself covered 160 acres at the time it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 30, 2009. It includes four primary buildings (Fig. 02) and is owned by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) Public Lands Institute, in a joint management agreement with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), is developing Walking Box Ranch as an academic site for desert studies and an interpretive center. A Save America’s Treasures grant enabled the consortium client to hire a team led by ARG (Architectural Resources Group) to produce a Master Plan, a Preservation Plan, and a Cultural Landscape Assessment.  UNLV currently addresses security issues for the property through the presence of the caretaker and two Metro Officers who reside on the property in two recreational vehicles. The BLM hopes to have all the restoration activities of thr historic proprtiy completed by thr end od 2015. In addition to the gradual restoration of the original ranch house, the stated vision is to create a museum on the site. (See the “Side Note on Clara Bow” at the bottom of the page)

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04/27/2017 Trip Notes Today Bob Croke, Blake Smith, Jim Herring and myself had a guided tour of the Walking Box Ranch that showcased some of the recently finished renovations. Much of the work performed, parking lot, sidewalks and a visitor center, was to make the property more accessible to the public. Other renovations included needed preservation of the site's buildings and the main house. Any new pictures and information from this tour was added to the page (below) of my previous (06/30/2015) tour.

06/30/2015 Trip Notes:  The purpose for today's visit was for a special tour inside the property and its main residence by the BLM that was set up by the Henderson Heritage Parks' Senior Facility rock-hound trip organizer, Linda Groft. Having found something online last year concerning possible tours of the property, Linda has been working for nearly a year trying to get this set up. I think I can speak for everyone when I say, "that it was a great tour that lasted for nearly three hours." Click this link for pictures and information regarding my tours of the ranch ... Walking Box Ranch Site Tours.

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09/25/2014 Trip Notes: Even though I have driven by here on two previous occasions, I never made it a point to spend any time taking in the ranch property. On today’s visit, starting with the main gate, several of us walked the rugged, wooden and barbed wire fence line (Fig. 04) that surrounds the entire property (the yellow line in Fig. 02). All of the pictures from today's visit (figures 04 thru 14) were taken from outside the property. Just to the right of the main entrance gate (Fig. 01), is the original barn and ice house (Figs. 05 & 14). Looking straight back, towards the rear of the property is the main ranch house (Fig. 06). Unfortunately, because it is surrounded by Joshua trees, and because the property is not open to the public, you can’t get close enough to capture any really good pictures. As we walked around the property, views from the east (Fig. 07) and south sides (Fig. 08), revealed just how large the house really is. As we rounded the northeast corner of the property (see Fig. 02), we walked by what was once the garage (Fig. 09). At the rear of the properly, a few hundred feet from the main house is the pump house and water holding tank (Fig. 10) that currently supplies the water to the property. On the northwest corner of the property, adjacent to the barn (Fig. 14) are several cattle holding corrals (Fig. 11), one of which leads to a steel holding chute that was used for dehorning and branding (Figs. 12 & 13). I’m still waiting for the day when the property will be opened to the public and we get a chance to tour the inside of the ranch house.
                                  

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Side Note on Clara Bow: Clara Bow was the famed "IT Girl" of the Hollywood silent film era and leading sex symbol of the “roaring 20’s”. She was America’s premier silent film actress. Even today, critics and historians talk about her of her plainspoken, tomboyish sex appeal like an otherworldly force on the screen. At the height of her productivity, she was staring in dozens of exploitative films. Suffering from chronic insomnia and a grueling schedule, it's no wonder she began to succumb to a case of burnout. So in 1931 she closed her home in Beverly Hills and moved to a remote, 400,000 acre cattle ranch, with her husband-to-be, silent film actor Rex Bell. After marrying Rex, they built the Walking Box Ranch, where they lived for nearly 15 years, raising two sons and hosting frequent parties at the ranch. When Rex drove their cattle overland to Nipton for shipment by rail to the California slaughter yards, he would be accompanied by Clara, who would pick up her fan mail from the post office, and visit with her friends Harry and Ella Trehearne. Clara, it is said, preferred Room #3 in the Hotel Nipton (Fig. 15) for her stays. Today Room #3 is called the Clara Bow Room. Because Clara and Rex often entertained the Hollywood crowd at Nipton and on their ranch, trainloads of guests would arrive in Nipton for the overland auto ride to their Walking Box Ranch. Bow was plagued with insomnia. Bell built her a soundproof room at the ranch. But emotional disturbances and sleep deprivation prompted her to leave Nevada, which was lacking proper health facilities, and seek seclusion in Southern California where she visited a sanitarium in Culver City, trying to conquer a nervous condition developed from the insomnia. Bell and Bow separated in the mid-1940's and Bell went on to serve as Nevada's lieutenant governor for seven years. She remained married to Bell until his death from a heart attack in 1962, a couple of months after he filed his candidacy for Nevada governor. After years of health issues she became socially withdrawn and was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. Bow spent her last years in Culver City, Los Angeles under the constant care of a nurse, living off an estate worth about $500,000 at the time of her death. She died of a heart attack on September 27, 1965 at the age of 60.

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10/03/2012 Trip Notes:  After turning onto Walking Box Ranch Road from Nipton Road, we drove past the site of the Walking Box Ranch and continued for approximately 7.5 miles before stopping at one of at least three aging holding corrals that we passed along the way. Follow this link to the page with pictures and information on this drive down Walking Box Ranch Road ... Walking Box Ranch Road - 10/03/2012 Trip Notes.