Soldier Meadows, High
Rock Canyon
and The Sheldon Antelope Range
December, 2006
By John Evanoff
Last month, we took Highway 95 from Winnemucca north to NSR 140
into Denio and then on a gravel road heading west into the Summit
Lake Indian Reservation. The best method to reach our destination
this month is to head north on NSR447 out of Wadsworth east of Reno
and just past Gerlach to a fork and then go right on a unpaved road.
You proceed on the south east side of the Granite Range where you
will come to another fork. If you have some time, go to the right
till you reach a sign pointing to Double Hot Springs. You’ll
see some strange colorful mounds built up by minerals bubbling from
the hot earth. From there, you can venture further along the Calico
Hills to find Jackson Reservoir, Mud Meadows Creek and Reservoir
and Soldier Meadows next to the Soldier Meadows Ranch. Soldier Meadows
has an abundance of wildlife including the endangered Desert Dace,
a small fish which only lives in the hot springs feeding Mud Meadows
Creek. The four wheel drive roads from here continue on into the
Summit Lake Indian Reservation to the northeast and High Rock Canyon
to the west.
Let’s go back to the fork in the road at
the top of the Black Rock Desert and head left at the fork we went
right on and head north again where you will be just east of to
the Granite Range and their spectacular cliffs of white and grey
granite. Just past 8,533 foot Division Peak on your right, there
are several points of interest for those who would like to see and
explore some of Northern Nevada’s most beautiful and desolate
high desert country. High Rock Canyon and High Rock Lake can be
driven into by four wheel drive. You can also horseback ride or
hike into the area but however you wish to enter the area doesn’t
matter. Once you find the canyon and lake, you’ll want to
make the trip many more times and during different periods of the
year. If you plan to go, take a good topographic map of the area
to find the better four wheel drive roads leading into the High
Rock Canyon region and the topography to judge your hiking trail
difficulty.
The fly fishing is great at High Rock Lake for Rainbow, German Brown
and Bass. The lake is relatively murky except for early winter and
the dark wooly bug in purple and black is the best imitation of
the crawfish or dragonfly nymph living in the lake. During the winter,
some of the roads can be treacherous and I wouldn’t try them
unless you knew them already and then only with enough provisions
and gear to get out if you happen to get stuck.
The Northern Shoshone Indians traveled through
High Rock Canyon for thousands of years from the valleys both south
and north of the canyon. The hunting was always good and the tribe
spent much of their time in the area in the late spring and summer.
John C. Fremont and his trusted guide Kit Carson came through the
canyon and mapped the area in 1844 and on that same trip discovered
Pyramid Lake to the south. The Applegate clan came through the canyon
in 1846 and in 1849 the Applegate Trail became a well trodden path
to Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The fifteen or so miles of
the High Rock Canyon are great for hiking and wildlife viewing.
You will see coyote, fox, badger, cottontail, jackrabbit, sage grouse,
chuker, quail, deer, antelope and many raptors. The geography was
left by a volcanic rift zone that tore through the area millions
of years ago. The many landslides from the resulting fault cliffs
created the natural lake and you can view the eons of movement of
ice and water along the canyon walls. This is a great place to horseback
ride because of its ruggedness. If you take a passenger car it’s
a great day hike if you stop at the base of the canyon next to the
creek and proceed from there.
North of Soldier Meadows and the High Rock Canyon
is the Sheldon Antelope Range and Vya. No other high desert plateau
wilderness area in the United States is as magnificent and isolated
as this region. The Sheldon National Antelope Refuge encompasses
more than 550,000 acres and range from 4,500 to more than 8,000
feet in elevation. The plateau was carved by a giant ice shelf a
mile thick in places which moved across the area during the last
ice age between 60,000 and 15,000 years ago the results of which
can be seen by the many flattened tops of hills and mountains in
the area. When the ice melted, the ancient Lake Lahontan grew to
its peak covering about 8,000 square miles of Northern Nevada. Only
a few bodies of water remain from that great inland sea including
Pyramid and Walker Lakes. The roads in and around the refuge are
tough traveling. A good time to journey on them is in the late summer
and early fall when they are dry and the herds of game are moving
through and into the valleys. I’ve seen more than five hundred
antelope in one binocular sweep from the top of Catnip Mountain
looking west into the Swan Lake Reservoir valley. I’ve also
seen herds of as many as two hundred mule deer moving in the early
morning through the canyons of Badger Creek. One day while horseback
riding north of Massacre Lake I spotted two mountain lions running
down a small antelope. They only needed about two minutes to take
it down and another ten to haul it up into the cliffs for lunch.
Nevada is respected by hunters and fisherman from
all over the world and many Boone and Crockett records have been
established from this region including yearly antelope, mule deer
and the desert big horn sheep trophies. The more you explore the
Sheldon Antelope Range, the more you will appreciate why Northern
Nevada is so close to my heart. Just walking around the many canyons
and valleys and suddenly coming up on a high desert oasis full of
wildlife, water, juniper, willow, cottonwood and such a wide variety
of wildlife is awe inspiring indeed.
Most all the roads west of the Sheldon Antelope
Range lead to a little way-stop called Vya. If you drive south from
Vya you eventually return to Gerlach. Along the way, you may see
some protected fenced areas along the road. If you stop, you’ll
see stumps of fossilized giant red wood trees that stood more than
a hundred feet high and were as much as ten feet across or more
and once covered thousands of square miles of this region. About
eight million years ago, Northwest Nevada was heavily forested and
animals such as camel, bison, mastodon, giant ground sloth and the
saber-toothed tiger roamed the hillsides and valleys. The ice age
and inland ocean erased the forests and animals and left the visual
emptiness you observe for miles in every direction.
Whenever exploring the Nevada wilderness, take
care to bring along enough supplies and first aid to handle emergencies.
A four wheel drive vehicle is worthless if you don’t have
good off-road tires, a spare, a full five gallon gas can and enough
equipment to get you out of any predicament. Also take abundant
water. They don’t call this the high dry desert for nothing.
Next month I will take you from Gerlach north on
NSR447 to Squaw Creek Valley, Squaw Creek Reservoir and to Wall
Creek Canyon. A friend of mine caught a nine pound German Brown
Trout at Wall Canyon on a Little Cleo brass lure in the late 1970’s
and I’ve caught three and four pound black bass at Squaw Creek
Reservoir.
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