Having spend two days in Death Valley, it was time to head to Las Vegas and our flight home. However, we had two more places to see before returning home. Both of them were wildlife refuges. The US Fish and Wildlife Service manages refuges across the country. Their purpose is to protect and preserve native wildlife. We had visited wildlife refuges before in Washington and Hawaii. For the two that we visited in Nevada, the purpose was to protect desert life.
The first refuge we visited was Ash Meadows. We drove by the entrance to this refuge when we drove to Death Valley the previous two days. This day we would stop and check it out. The refuge is a ways back from the road. In fact it was over four miles to get to any of the locations. The big challenge was the road itself. Unfortunately this was a gravel road, and in places it was pretty rough. In fact we had just turned onto the road when an oncoming truck flagged us down. The driver thought we were going too fast and told us to slow down.
Our first stop was at a place called Point of Rocks. This was a very nice location with a good set up for visitors. A wide boardwalk lead us through the area. The boardwalk contained visitors so they would not go out into the landscape and cause harm to the environment. There was very much a desert feel to the area, but then as we walked along we saw something amazing, water. A stream flowed through the area. It was small, but it changed the environment. There were tall grasses in places and green plants, something that was rare in the desert.
Eventually we came to a pool of water. Moss was growing on the bottom of the pool and small bluish minnow like fish were swimming in the pool. These fish were one of the main reasons for this wildlife preserve. They are a rare fish called pupfish that have managed to survive in the pools here.
The boardwalk continued on past an area where one can see indentations in the rocks. These were used by the native women to pound out their food in a mortar and pestle type of situation. The boardwalk then lead up to a pavilion where one can look out across the desert to the mountains beyond. At one point as I was walking along I noticed what looked like steam rising in the distance. I was a little startled by that but quickly grabbed my camera to get a shot of this phenomenon. Then I realized what it was, dust being kicked up by cars on the road. Sadly it was not a phenomenon of nature.
It should also be noted that plans had been made to build homes in this area as recently as the 1980s. Fortunately, turning it into a wildlife refuge saved the land and preserved this rare oasis in the desert.
From Point of Rocks we drove over to the Crystal Reservoir. Here much of the water is collected into a small lake. It was advertised as a place where waterfowl like to reside, but I didn’t see any on our visit although I didn’t go to the far end of the reservoir.
We only stopped briefly at the reservoir before heading to the visitor center. There is a lot of good information here on display. The building itself is quite modern. Behind it is a nearly one mile boardwalk that takes visitors out to the creek that runs through the property. Again it is easy to see where the creek is because of the amount of vegetation around it. In observing the stream, I saw some interesting cone shaped nets made from chains in a couple of places. It turns out the purpose of them is to catch invasive fish which are not native to the area. The native fish are small and can swim through the nets.
As is always the case, it seems, time did not allow us to see everything at the refuge as we needed to keep moving. The two other interesting points to note include Devil’s Hole which is an extremely deep hole filled with water. In fact divers have not been able to determine how deep it goes. The other is the Longstreet Spring and Cabin. The cabin was build from railroad ties and is being restored.
About an hour away and just a short distance outside of Las Vegas is the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. This also happens to be the largest wildlife refuge in the lower 48 covering 1.6 million acres. The good news is that one doesn’t have to cover such a large territory to enjoy this refuge. Checking out the visitor’s center and its surrounding area can be a great experience.
The visitor center is also about four miles off the highway, but here it is paved so one can zip over to the center more quickly. The Corn Creek Visitor Center is located where a ranch used to be, and there are some of the parts of the ranch still around.
The inside of the visitor center offers a number of exhibits and information that include the original native peoples of the area as well as information about the ranch. It seems that descendants of the family who owned the ranch still live in the area and return to check it out from time to time.
However, it is the area around the visitor center that is most interesting. A series of trails connects with each other and lead visitors through a number of locations with differing environments. The center will provide visitors with a map. These short trails have names related to the various animals. We walked around through the various paths, and it was barely two miles in total.
We started with the Bighorn Loop. The name is significant here as saving and protecting the bighorn sheep was one of the first priorities when this wildlife refuge was established. Unfortunately, we did not encounter any bighorn sheep nor did we expect to. Seeing a bighorn sheep in the wild is still on my bucket list, however. I just haven’t managed to be at the right place at the right time yet.
The Bighorn Loop takes one more towards the desert area. One obvious observation is that mountains pretty much surround this area. They seem to be in all directions.
Another area of interest is the Refugium. What’s that? Basically a big enclosed fish tank. Remember the pupfish from Ash Meadows? Well there were some in the water around here, and they were thriving. However, somehow non-native fish were introduced into the water, and they began to eat the pupfish. In order to preserve the pupfish, the refuge built the Refugium to protect the fish until the dangerous fish could be eliminated. That is still ongoing.
Also similar to Ash Meadows, a cabin made from railroad ties sits near the Refugium. It is a two room building. One room for living, cooking, etc. and then a bedroom. The cabin was not open to go into, but we could peak through the windows and see inside.
After visiting these two sites, the trail took visitors out into more of the desert areas. Here there were occasional clumps of trees which had no leaves during the winter season. Winter trees are some of my favorite things to photograph.
Remember I said there were parts of the old ranch around. Well a row of fruit trees are one obvious element. They are still surviving there in the desert. Of most interest to me were the pomegranates. For one thing I had never seen a pomegranate tree before. In the refuge the pomegranates still hung on the trees. There was a sign asking visitors not to pick the pomegranates as they were for the birds to eat.
A ranch could survive in this desert area because a stream flows through it. As a result there were some different flora than one might expect in a desert. In particular some very tall trees cluster together near the stream. On the other side of the visitor center the refuge has also created a reservoir to preserve some of the water.
With our exploration of wildlife over, we headed for our hotel in North Las Vegas. Unexpectedly that turned into quite an adventure. We were following Google maps, and it indicated we needed to get off the highway at a certain exit. We were following the directions when a policeman waved us to a stop. He said we couldn’t go the way we were headed without a four wheel drive. He asked us where we were going, and then he gave us some fairly easy directions to the area where he thought the hotel would be.
We got back on the highway, and decided to give Google another shot figuring it would simply redirect, and it would be no problem. That was a mistake. We followed the most convoluted directions through various neighborhoods and streets only to finally arrive at our hotel which was near a freeway exit. I told my wife that it seemed that Google was avoiding freeways. She checked her settings, and sure enough the setting indicated avoiding freeways and highways. What should probably have been a ten minute trip turned into a half hour ordeal. Now we (and you) know to check our map settings if things seem off.
Have you had a chance to visit any wildlife refuges in your area or while you were on vacation? I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comment section below. Looking forward to your comments, likes and shares.