Friday, Saturday, Sunday June 7,8 & 9, 2019

Base Camp: After many miles on washboard, unpaved roads I found this beautiful free campground on BLM public land. It was at 8,000 feet and the June nighttime temperatures dropped to the mid twenties. I slept in the car wearing a snowmobile suit, but I was fasting and still got so cold I had to run the car heater several times. But I was glad to wake up and look at the sky. Unfortunately no pictures of the night sky, but hundreds of miles from any city this sky was unlike anything I have ever seen. I saw dozens of satellites and falling stars. It was surreal. This was that base camp:

This cave was hard to find and difficult to get to:

Nevada has many Petroglyphs which are ancient drawings etched into rock that may be 500 to 2000 years old. But these are pictographs that are much older are made using pigments painted on the rock by the earliest inhabitants of North America. The pigments are not indigenous to this area but were brought from more distant regions and suggest the great importance of these drawings to these ancient people.

trip4-275x300 Lost in Nevada, Trading Break

Native Americans are uncertain as to the origins or meaning of these drawings, but they hold this site and these drawings sacred. In order to protect the site from vandals access is made difficult and the cave is behind bars:

trip5-300x227 Lost in Nevada, Trading Break

In order to explore the vast and largely uninhabited interior of Northern Nevada I traveled nearly 100 miles on rough dirt roads averaging about 10 to 15 miles per hour to avoid flat tires and damage to my car. I saw only two buildings on this entire stretch and no fences. I did see many antelope and wild horses. The antelope were very shy, but the horses were curious and seemed to want to interact with me. At no time during this entire 100 miles did I see another human or car or truck. I felt that I was truly seeing the wild West they way it used to be and before the settlers came:

trip11-300x200 Lost in Nevada, Trading Break

This is “Diana’s Punch Bowl.” There are no signs or directions and it is not on maps. I discovered it while examining Google satellite imagery.

It looks like a small volcano with steam coming out. I was fearful of getting too close to the edge and falling in and being boiled to death; a fitting end to a stock trader: