The Dining Issue

Drink, Eat, and Be Merry

’TIS THE SEASON TO BANISH YOUR HUMBUGS WITH FINE SPIRITS AND GREAT FOOD. WE’LL GET YOU STARTED!

The Shops at Fontainebleau

ALAÏA’S ONLY LAS VEGAS LOCATION. SAINT LAURENT’S LARGEST STORE IN THE U.S. SHOP THESE AND OTHER LUXURY STORES EXCLUSIVELY AT FONTAINEBLEAU.

Luxury has

The Culinary Collection

INDULGE IN 30+ RESTAURANTS AND BARS

SAVOR DIM SUM IN A THEATRICAL SETTING AT WASHING POTATO, OR INDULGE WITH A TOP-TIER WINE PROGRAM AND STEAKHOUSE CLASSICS AT DON’S PRIME.

new home

DON’S PRIME

WASHING POTATO

THIS WINTER

PUT YOUR WATER USE ON ICE

Winter will soon be arriving in Southern Nevada—which means it’s time to change your watering/irrigation clock and continue doing your part to help the community save water.

FROM NOV. 1 THROUGH FEB. 28, the community’s mandatory winter watering restrictions limit sprinkler irrigation to ONE ASSIGNED DAY PER WEEK; sprinkler irrigation is prohibited on Sunday.

Find your assigned winter watering day at snwa.com

Set your spray irrigation for grass to WATER DURING THE MID-MORNING HOURS to avoid freezing and prevent ice from forming on lawns and sidewalks.

Water grass only on your ONE ASSIGNED WATERING DAY.

Change the time on your irrigation clock to coincide with the end of DAYLIGHT-SAVING TIME on Sunday, Nov. 2.

Follow the seasonal watering restrictions year-round. The average customer can SAVE UP TO $300 ANNUALLY on their water bills.

Take advantage of winter’s cooler temperatures—and help your plants and trees thrive even during the coldest months of the

year—by running your drip irrigation system on a recommended schedule of once every seven to 14 days for 30 to 90 minutes. Remember a simple five-word rule: Drip It, Don’t Drown It!

Reducing outdoor water used for landscape irrigation is critical because it cannot be reclaimed or reused. Indoor water, on the other hand—from cooking, bathing, and washing your clothes —is collected, highly treated and returned to Lake Mead. Indoor water use is reclaimed and used over and over again, helping to extend our community’s water supply. That’s why every drop counts, especially when it comes to outdoor watering.

For more ways to save water all year—and money on your monthly bill—visit snwa.com.

JAMES BEARD AWARD-WINNING

CHEF KWAME ONWUACHI

From Chef Kwame Onwuachi comes his next destination dining experience: Maroon, debuting this winter at SAHARA Las Vegas.

Maroon reimagines the steakhouse through a Caribbean lens, blending heritage, re, and bold creativity with the unmistakable signature that has made Kwame one of the country’s most in uential chefs. With Maroon, he introduces a new culinary chapter — where storytelling, culture, and avor meet on the Strip in an experience unlike anything else in Las Vegas.

CHEF KWAME’S NEXT CHAPTER BEGINS IN LAS VEGAS

BY KWAME ONWUAC HI

Three groups keep the festival faith alive

big museum gets an even bigger update

culturist will be at these events. Will you?

Four writers wax poetic on their favorite public art pieces

Ballet Theatre gets a new (old)

PHOTO BY Angelo Clinton

Editor’s Note

On Friday, October 10, the Las Vegas Aces beat the Phoenix Mercury on their home court 97-86, giving the Aces their third WNBA championship title. Woot! With interest in women’s basketball at an all-time high, it’s likely that more of you are celebrating this win than the past two — good for you, and good for our lady ballers (who also happen to be in the midst of contract negotiations with the league).

It’s nice to have a win to celebrate. Yet even when the Aces were down — including the devastating 53-point loss to the Minnesota Lynx on August 2 — this four-time season ticket holder stayed for games until the final buzzer. I believe a strong community sticks together in good times and bad, perhaps more so in the bad. This time it paid off; that historic loss was followed by a historic winning streak. And now, a trophy!

So, yeah, it’s more than just winning that makes rooting for a team rewarding. We look at the community of sports in this issue with a trio of stories on big-ticket boxing (p. 13), the NBA Summer League (p. 42), and alternative leagues for nontraditional athletes. If your sport’s not covered, write to me about it! We’ll post it online.

And sports is not the only place where Las Vegans find comfort in the familiar. For his essay on escaping the apocalyptic news cycle, our editor-at-large Scott Dickensheets asked a few friends where they go to find solace. From Ice Age Fossils State Park to Paseo Verde Library, their answers (p. 16) are a map to the best art, views, and food the Valley has to offer.

Speaking of food, you perhaps picked up this copy expecting to find our annual restaurant awards, which arrives around this time each winter. This year, we’re trying something new: Rather than a profile collection of aspirational chefs, dishes, and restaurants, we’re giving you a series of thoughtful pieces by our best food writers exploring Southern Nevada’s culinary scene (p. 79). You’ll learn the history behind our current bread cred, meet an award-winning chef who shares his culture — and supports the community — through food, and get an answer to the question, Why doesn’t Las Vegas have much Basque food? Plus, good news from downtown for cocktail bar aficionados.

It’s a lot to digest. But the holidays approach, and you’ll have time for that. May you find life’s sweetness without extinguishing the fire that keeps you fighting for a better world. And may we meet at a great — or heartbreaking — game soon.

Now ... Go, Knights, go!

Heidi

NOTES & LETTERS

For her August 2025 story “Seeds of Discontent,” freelance food writer and Desert Companion contributor Sarah Bun approached the anti-seed oil movement with a healthy dose of skepticism, including an interview with a registered dietitian and nutrition professor at UNLV’s medical school. But that didn’t stop readers from scoffing at the trend. Denise Signorelli, who taught nutrition for 25 years at CSN, was among those who were unimpressed. She homed in on this sentence from the article: “In Las Vegas, an increasing number of restaurants have eliminated seed oils in favor of beef and Wagyu tallow, olive, avocado, coconut, and palm oils.” Signorelli retorted: “Beef tallow is clearly not a seed oil. But olive, avocado, coconut and palm oils are all extracted from seeds of those plants.  Giggling over here figuring that RFK (U.S. Director of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) and his ilk don’t realize if you plant a coconut a new tree will grow — pretty much the definition of a seed (same for avocado, olive, and palm fruit).”

CORRECTION

Regarding the August 2025 issue: In “The Short List,” the music in the play Stereophonic is from the discography of Arcade Fire’s Will Butler; in “The Business of Giving” Architect Jeff Roberts was incorrectly quoted as saying “wash,” in place of the correct, “waste.” Desert Companion regrets the errors.

PRESIDENT & CEO Favian Perez

MANAGING EDITOR Heidi Kyser

ART DIRECTOR Scott Lien

ASSISTANT EDITOR Anne Davis

EDITOR-AT-LARGE Scott Dickensheets

GRAPHIC DESIGNER Ryan Vellinga

KNPR PRODUCERS AND REPORTERS

Paul Boger, Yvette Fernandez, Mike Prevatt , Jimmy Romo-Buenrostro

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Allison Hall, Markus Van’t Hul, Britt Quintana

DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

Marlies Daebritz

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Jeff Jacobs

CONTRIBUTING

WRITERS

Josh Bell, Meg Bernhard, Elijah Dulay, Chris Falite, Aleza Freeman, Melissa Gill, Alex Hager, Janis Hashe, Andrew Kiraly, Lorraine Blanco Moss, Reannon Muth, Lissa Townsend Rodgers, Kaleb Roedel, Daniel Rothberg, Jen Smith, Sonia Cho Swanson, Erica Vital-Lazare

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Rick Arevalo, Tim Bower, Ronda Churchill, Miguel Manich, Michael Plyler, Jeff Scheid, Rick Sealock, Mark E. Silverstein, Louiie Victa, Donna Victor

CONTACT

EDITORIAL: Heidi Kyser (702) 259-7855 heidi@desertcompanion.com

ART: Scott Lien (702) 258-9895 scott@knpr.org

ADVERTISING: (702) 259-7808 sales@nevadapublicradio.org

SUBSCRIPTIONS: Marlies Daebritz (702) 259-7822 marlies@desertcompanion.com

WEBSITE: www.desertcompanion.com

Desert Companion is published quarterly by Nevada Public Radio, 1289 S. Torrey Pines Dr., Las Vegas, NV 89146. It is available by subscription at desertcompanion.vegas, or as part of Nevada Public Radio membership. It is also distributed free at select locations in the Las Vegas Valley. All photos, artwork, and ad designs printed are the sole property of Desert Companion and may not be duplicated or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. The views of Desert Companion contributing writers are not necessarily the views of Desert Companion or Nevada Public Radio. Contact us for back issues, which are available for purchase for $7.95.

FOLLOW DESERT COMPANION

www.facebook.com/DesertCompanion

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SYNDEE WINTERS

MYRON’S AT THE SMITH CENTER

AMERICAN SINGER, RECORDING ARTIST AND BROADWAY ACTRESS

Syndee Winters brings her infectious energy to Myron’s at The Smith Center Saturday January 10.

Syndee Winters is an American singer, recording artist and Broadway actress best known for her roles as Nala in Disney’s The Lion King and the Schuyler Sisters in Hamilton. Join her Saturday January 10 as she brings her infectious energy to Myron’s at The Smith Center.

Saturday, January 10 thesmithcenter.com

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

OFFICERS

NEHME E. ABOUZEID | LaunchVegas, LLC chair

AMANDA MOORE-SAUNDERS | Conduit Entertainment vice chair

FAVIAN PEREZ | Nevada Public Radio secretary

DIRECTORS

CYNTHIA A. DREIBELBIS | Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck

ANDREA GOEGLEIN, PH.D | ServingSuccess

FRED J. KEETON | Keeton Iconoclast Consulting, LLC

EDWIN C. KINGSLEY, MD | Comprehensive Cancer Centers

SCOTT NIELSON | Nielson Consulting, LLC

JEFFREY REIMAN | The Broadband Group

ERNEST STOVALL | Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino

KELLIE VANDER VEUR | Retired

ROB ZIEMS | Gaming Arts, LLC

DIRECTORS EMERITI

CYNTHIA ALEXANDER | Dickinson Wright, PLLC

SUSAN M. BRENNAN | The Brennan Consulting Group, LLC

DAVE CABRAL | Business Finance Corp.

LOUIS CASTLE | Amazon Games Seattle

PATRICK N. CHAPIN, ESQ. | Patrick N. Chapin, Ltd.

ELIZABETH FRETWELL | C4ward Strategies, LTD

DON HAMRICK | Retired

GAVIN ISAACS | Consultant

CHRIS MURRAY |Avissa Corporation

JERRY NADAL | Luna Entertainment Consulting Services

WILLIAM J. “BILL” NOONAN | William J. Noonan Consulting

KATHE NYLEN | Retired

ANTHONY J. PEARL | Crown Resorts

MARK RICCIARDI, ESQ. | Fisher Phillips, LLP

MICKEY ROEMER | Roemer Gaming

TIM WONG | Arcata Associates

LAMAR MARCHESE | president emeritus

Beyond the city, you’ll find wide-open skies that are oh so pretty. Drive to Mt. Charleston to enjoy its snowy magic, or explore northern Nevada ski areas and make adventure a habit. Warm up with a Picon Punch, and grab a seat at a Basque dinner table. They’ll surely make room. Go explore the big heart of Nevada all winter long. Visit TravelNevada.com, chat with our AI travel planner to get started.

CULTURE

The Short List

Can your calendar handle this much good stuff?

BY Mike Prevatt

If social media were a theme park, then Reddit would be the roller coaster. Case in point: The twists, turns, and drops of a somewhat recent thread debating the best Beethoven symphony. By the time the train returned to the station, No. 9 had the most upvotes, but shortly behind it was No. 5 . You know the one-one-one-onnnnne. The Las Vegas Philharmonic famously last-minute swapped the piece into its first post-1 October concert, and it was a highlight of the group’s 2021-2022 season including all nine Ludwig Van symphonies. For this fall’s season opener (Nov. 1, 7:30p, Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, $35-$151, lvphil.org), the Phil has slotted Symphony No. 5 in as the finale, led by Phil music consultant Leonard Slatkin. Bonus: Soloing during the night’s second number — John Corigliano’s Mr. Tambourine Man, influenced by the words, not the music, of Bob Dylan — will be soprano Hila Plitmann.

Over at Vegas City Opera, the 16-year-old organization — along with Las Vegas Sinfonietta — saw an opportunity in Handel’s secular work Semele: What if they updated a baroque opera to reflect modern celebrity/influencer culture, red carpets and all? Could they stage a production that’s equal parts Ovid and Andy Cohen? We’re gonna find out November 16 (3p, Clark County Library, $40, vegascityopera.org ), when the Opera’s cast portrays Semele, Jupiter, and other notables of ancient mythology as their reality TV and Hollywood equivalents, all backed by the Sinfonietta’s 30-ish member ensemble. If they can pull this off, could a Homeric version of Survivor be next?

Speaking of recasting a chestnut in a far-flung context, Nevada Conservatory Theatre’s A Christmas Carol 1941 time-travels from mid1800s London to WWII-era Chicago,

where swing gave way to bebop and the effects of the Great Depression lingered despite the promise of a rearmament rebound. Enter Ebenezer Scrooge — always squeezing a buck, and giving off a chill that could shame a Lake Michigan breeze — the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, and everyone’s favorite redemption arc ( Nov. 28-Dec. 14, times vary, Judy Bayley Theatre, prices vary, unlv.edu/nct). If you’re looking for a stage production that’s even more reflective of the current times, A Public Fit has you covered with What the Constitution Means to Me, an exploration of the widely interpreted U.S. document through the lens of a former high school debater. Too soon, you say? Then note that Heidi Schreck’s historically sweeping play takes the edge off a touchy subject with humor and heart (through Nov. 23, times vary, Super Summer Theatre Studio Theater, $35-$45, apublicfit.org).

To those wondering (or worrying)

why the Las Vegas Museum of Art is so quiet: Fret not. Its first collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is already on display. The photographic Family Album doubles as a great excuse to check out the brand-new Civic Center Gallery downtown (through Jan. 9, 10a-3p Mon-Thu, free, lasvegasnevada.gov). And there’s more doubling-up at UNLV’s Barrick Museum, with two locals-dominated, multimedia group exhibitions. Living Here features Asian American/Pacific Islander artists exploring their heritages and diasporic history through the touchstones that occupy their everyday lives. And moving from the East, to the West Gallery: Perception forces you to question everything you see. Do your eyes deceive you? Is your brain gaslighting you? Trust me, this looks way cooler than it reads (through Dec. 20, 10a-5p Tue-Sat, free, unlv.edu/barrickmuseum).

Also at UNLV, the Performing Arts Center closes out its calendar year

with another guitar-centric masterclass. Colombia-born Vegas resident Ricardo Cobo is a six-stringer renowned for his spirited and expertly honed fretwork. The former UNLV professor returns to his old stomping ground with the show “Diary of Musical Images” — that’s three nouns that normally don’t go together, but trust the process, folks. If you haven’t experienced Latin American classical guitar by a literal maestro in person, avail yourself of this inexpensive opportunity (Dec. 11, 7:30p, Lee and Thomas Beam Music Center, $35-$39, unlv.edu).

To come full circle, it’s the holiday season. If you favor a more traditional celebration, but still like a bit of spectacle, then Santa’s Electric Night Parade in Boulder City strikes the balance. Imagine a local holiday version of Disneyland’s famous electric parade, minus the sugar-synth theme song. You know, if Southern Nevada were a theme park, then Boulder City would be its Main Street. Thankfully, there’s no mortgage payment-sized ticket price here ( Dec. 6, 4:30p, Historic District, free, tinyurl.com/santaelectric).✦

“11,111” BY EMMANUEL DAVID, IN LIVING HERE

RICARDO COBO

the wire between a local film and a film from outside of Vegas, will there be a little more consideration for the Vegas film? Yes.”

Local Film Fests Live On — in Niches

Las Vegans can choose from three special-interest events this fall

BY Josh Bell

It’s been more than five years since the last edition of the Las Vegas Film Festival, and more than 16 years since the last full edition of CineVegas, but the lack of a large-scale general-interest film festival hasn’t held the local scene back. Long-running events such as the Dam Short Film Festival (DSFF) and the Nevada Women’s Film Festival (NWFF) continue to thrive, and within the span of several weeks this fall, three smaller festivals made their mark on the Vegas film community.

The newest of these offerings is the Desert Waves Film Festival (DWFF), which hosted its second edition at Downtown Cinemas. Founder and president Alicia Borja moved to Las Vegas in 2018 and was inspired by her experiences at DSFF and NWFF to start her own event, with a focus on local filmmaking.

“After meeting more people in town in the industry and helping people with their film festivals, I was like, you know what, I’m going to do it,” she says. “Why not? I’m going to have all the delulu and audacity.”

That level of ambition has served Borja well, and this year the DWFF featured the acclaimed pop culture documentary Chasing Chasing Amy, from filmmaker and recent Vegas transplant Sav Rodgers, along with a lineup of shorts and a challenge that tasks teams with creating an entire short film in 48 hours. More than half the shorts at this year’s DWFF were from locals, and Borja remains committed to uplifting her fellow Vegas filmmakers: “If it’s possibly down to

The Las Vegas Filipino Short Film Festival has been around just a year longer than Desert Waves, but it’s already grown significantly, from a single-day program in a hotel ballroom to a three-day event at Galaxy Theatres in the Boulevard Mall. After meeting through a mutual friend, executive director Margie Gonzales and program director Shawn Rosen teamed up to celebrate their love of film and offer an opportunity to underserved creators. “We have a big Filipino community here in Vegas, and a lot of them are filmmakers,” Rosen says. “I think we saw that they didn’t really have an outlet here.”

“I specifically really wanted it to be Filipino,” Gonzales says, describing the festival plan. The community has responded in a big way, and last year Rosen flew to Manila for a separate awards ceremony for festival winners based there. “I think we had almost as many people there as we did in Vegas when we held it,” he says.

This year’s edition featured a short film by members of the Jabbawockeez, among other selections culled from an increasing pool of submissions. The event also took place right after the official unveiling of Las Vegas’ Filipino Town cultural district, which encompasses the theater itself. “We have the perfect location for the festival,” Gonzales says.

Compared to those other two festivals, Sin City Horror Fest (SCHF) is practically a Vegas institution, although the event that began in 2017 took 2024 off, with four of

LAS VEGAS FILIPINO SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

DESERT WAVES FILM FESTIVAL

High-Quality

the five cofounders moving on. But remaining cofounder and festival director Mike Lenzini wasn’t willing to see SCHF go the way of so many other Vegas film festivals, and he recruited DSFF alum Hava Brown as director of events to bring the festival back this year at the Palms’ Brenden Theatres. “The whole thing was always a labor of love,” he says. “I always planned on coming back. I just couldn’t let it go.”

Lenzini, too, sees local filmmakers as a key part of his festival, and this year’s SCHF includes a double feature of new movies from hometown hero Brandon Christensen, who’s become a staple of the indie horror scene. Christensen no longer lives in Vegas, but he’ll be back in town for the screenings of his feature films Night of the Reaper and Bodycam

SCHF is also showcasing locals in its shorts program, devoting its final day to work from local filmmakers. “I don’t remember a year when we’ve had nearly as many local films,” Lenzini says. “We love the people that come out, and we always have. And that’s why I can’t ever get away from it.”

All three festivals are looking to grow, expand, and take their place alongside veteran film events in the Vegas landscape. “I see us as being the South by Southwest of Vegas,” Borja says, referring to Desert Waves Film Festival. Rosen says she hopes Las Vegas Filipino Short Film Festival “can possibly become the Sundance of Philippine cinema here in the United States.”

Lenzini, whose festival will be holding a reception in the Brenden Celebrity Suite — a staple of CineVegas parties — envisions the possibility of a return to those high-profile film festival days. “If it’s run by the right people and for the right reasons, I think we could have something special like that back,” he says. In the meantime, festivals such as his, Borja’s, and Rosen’s are capably carrying the mantle.✦

Sin City Horror Fest, Nov. 7-9, Brenden Theatres at the Palms, $50$80 festival pass, sincityhorrorfest. com

Building a Legacy

At the Nevada Museum of Art, everything old is new again thanks to a massive, just-opened expansion

BY Paul Boger

The Nevada Museum of Art in Reno is the state’s only accredited art museum, and now there’s a lot more of it. A $60 million addition, the Charles and Stacie Mathewson Education and Research Center, opened in August. Paid for entirely with private funds, the expansion added 50,000 square feet, for a total of 120,000, including a new research library, classroom, rooftop garden, and plenty of extra gallery space.

Despite all this newness, continuity has been a top priority. “What we’ve done that I think is really incredible is that, by working with the same architect, we’ve connected a 22-year-old building with a brand-new building, and it all looks the same,” museum CEO David Walker says. “On the outside, you could see some articulation of the new with the old, but when you come in, we’ve redesigned so much of the interior that it feels like just one big museum. And we now own the whole block.”

Walker says this while standing in front of one of the museum’s newest fixtures, “Centuries of the Bristlecone,” an 11-foot pendulum clock that mea-

ART

AN ELEVATED TRADITIONAL STYLE TAVERNA, FEATURING CONTEMPORARY GREEK FARE, NAXOS TAVERNA SERVES APPROACHABLE MEDITERRANEAN SEAFOOD-FOCUSED CUISINE COOKED FROM THE SOUL.

BOASTING ONE OF THE CITY’S LARGEST AND FRESHEST SEAFOOD MENUS, RED ROCK OYSTER BAR SHOWCASES MORE THAN 25 TYPES OF FISH AND SEVERAL VARIETIES OF OYSTERS, ALONG WITH OTHER SEAFOOD SPECIALTIES, INCLUDING THE WORLD-FAMOUS PAN ROAST AT AN INTIMATE 16-SEAT BAR.

sures time as we perceive it as well as in bristlecone time, an homage to the state tree and one of the planet’s oldest living organisms. Walker calls it a work of art set inside a work of art. It also speaks to the museum’s emphasis on land art, the focus of its internationally recognized Institute for Art + Environment.

The expansion has been a decade in the making, Walker says. “We’ve been working with the architect for many years to look at how we could better accommodate and facilitate the vision for the museum to have a better connection to the community, and to do a better job of presenting the permanent collections, and to really put a fine point on our commitment to education, lifelong learning, and access,” he says. “And here we are standing today in what I think is one of the more beautiful buildings, certainly, in Nevada.”

Will Bruder is the architect. He designed the original museum, which opened in 2003. With his background in sculpting, he says, he wanted to create a building that would not just serve a purpose but also reflect the community. So, he looked to Nevada’s rugged landscapes.

“Things that tie the original building with this building, material-wise, are its blackness,” Bruder says, “with this inspiration from the nature of the Black Rock Desert and looking at how the sun plays on the natural geology.” Lining the exterior of the building are dark-gray rectangles, almost black, placed in long vertical lines.

They randomly alternate between smooth and craggy textures, like rock strata. They were produced specifically for this project, and Bruder worked side-by-side with the builder to ensure that each one was placed just so.

“It’s unglazed, it has this blackness, it has its iridescence, but it’s like belly buttons,” he says. “There are innies and outies. So, when you look closely at the skin, 50 percent of the skin is backward; it’s the back of the tile that’s out, rather than the inside. That’s how you get a play of variability, and again you’re playing with a geological metaphor. Anyway,

you’re trying to create something that feels so organic, so natural that it just happened.”

Currently on display are the works of Judith Lowry exploring Native American creation stories, legends, and traditions. There are shows of photography and pottery. There’s a small exhibit about Langston Hughes and his time in the Biggest Little City; it features a recording of the famed Harlem Renaissance poet. Another exhibit tells the story of Nevada’s prehistoric past.

Museum visitor Peter Barber and his wife, Karen, took in the sights as they walked down a hallway where toy dinosaurs hang from the ceiling and cast shadows on the wall.

“I’m just so proud of Reno,” Barber says. “That they’re able to do something like this ... that they have people here who would contribute to this, and the museum leadership, must be amazing. Hard to believe this is Reno, Nevada. It is pretty special.”

“Obviously, the stereotypes about Reno still persist, very much, and some of them are true,” museum-goer Alissa Surges says. “I mean, Reno is a town that’s definitely changing, but I think the

museum sort of reflects this kind of mix of what Reno has to offer.”

For Walker, the expansion underscores something he has known for a long time: Despite the Nevada Museum of Art’s relatively modest size compared to other institutions around the globe, it’s having an outsize impact on the art world.

Part of that renown comes from the museum’s permanent collections, which include more than 2,500 pieces of altered landscape photography. The museum has also expanded its Art of the Greater West Collection, which showcases Indigenous art and culture.

Those collections also help pay the museum’s $8 million annual operating budget.

“People think, ‘Oh, you work at the art museum, how much fun that must be,’” Walker says. “Well, it is fun, but it is a lot of work, too. There’s a lot to it, but we see that about 20 percent of our annual operating revenue comes from donors and foundations in L.A., Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and so forth, and that’s because the museum has a reputation. When you do great work, you get support in places you never expected.”

HEAR THIS KNPR News feature.

RIGHT PERSPECTIVE

art for all at the NMoA

Cox Innovation Labs are safe, inspiring places where kids can learn, create and connect.

Equipped with computers, modern furniture, 3D printers, high-speed internet and more, Cox Innovation Labs are the cornerstone of Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Club Tech Initiative designed to help young people build digital skills, explore new interests and prepare for the future.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada are home to 15 Cox Innovation Labs in clubhouses in Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas.

Cox is proud to be a part of the fiber of our community.

CULTURE

Shapes Up

Why we can't take our eyes off of these four public works of art

CAVALIER

By Bill Barrett, Sahara West Library

This sculpture suggests something equine to me. Positioned a few yards from the library’s entrance, it’s always just out of the corner of your eye, never in a direct line of sight. So, I was gratified to learn that its name is Cavalier — from the Latin caballus (horse), related to cavalry and chivalry. To call someone cavalier today is an accusation of swaggering, disdainful airs, but several hundred years ago, when the word was fresh, it meant they were gallant and knightly — a shift in language that mirrored centuries of disillusionment as knighthood lost its gleam. But this Cavalier is hardly swaggering. It’s eager, hopeful, perched on three legs like a pointer, watching us write and rewrite our heroes and villains, and maybe get it right some of the time. –Sonja Cho Swanson

OCTOSTEAM

By Adolfo Gonzalez, Pecos-McLeod Interconnect

Octosteam lurks like a good monster should. Gonzalez’ handsomely rusted sculpture trails its undulating tentacles from a concrete median on the east side, where Pecos-McLeod swoops northeast into Desert Inn, banking off the Las Vegas Wash. The mammoth train-mollusk mashup explicitly recalls multiple eras of the valley — from ocean primeval to bustling railroad node — but it evokes a personal epoch for me: countless ’tween weekends happily misspent sploshing in the cattail-clus-

tered wash not far from this spot, studiously harassing crawdads, water striders, frogs, and other fauna that held a monstrous fascination. Sure, great art invites deep contemplation, but I read this steampunk construct of drive-by whimsy as a private nod that says, East side is the beast side! –Andrew Kiraly

THE LOVE LOCKET

By

Nova May, East Fremont Street

Before Downtown Container Park, beside a fire-breathing praying-mantis art installation, stands The Love Locket. Created for the inaugural Life is Beautiful festival, this heart-shaped metallic artwork invites the passerby to attach love tokens, such as personalized locks or other metal keepsakes. The sculpture is adorned with locks that bear the names of people from all around the world. In 2016, a piece of the sculpture was stolen, but the community united to mend it, with proceeds benefiting the American Heart Association. For me, the downtown

fixture embodied another layer of meaning after its repair — compassion, healing, and resilience. –Melissa Gill

LIVING BLACK PILLARS

By Chase R. McCurdy, Legacy Park

Part obelisk, part celestial artifact, McCurdy’s Living Black Pillars embodies the very temporality of the lives and legacies inscribed on bronze placards throughout the park, while pointing to the boundless spirit of the many more unnamed activists, educators, poets, and laborers sown into the soil of the Historic Westside. McCurdy’s design sets stalks of black steel into the earth, forming bases for sunlit orbs that seem to hover over and reflect the expanse of the once-vacant lot at 1600 Mount Mariah Drive. It offers us a glimpse of ourselves positioned within the past even as we become part of a quantum radio signal casting us skyward into the future as broadcast, SOS, quiet but urgent invitation. –Erica Vital-Lazare

HEART IN ART Cavalier (far left); Octosteam (left); The Love Locket (below left); Living Black Pillars(below right)

A Fresh Nut to Crack

Nevada Ballet Theatre turns to Balanchine to give its holiday tradition an opulent 1930s reboot

BY Lissa Townsend Rodgers

Nevada Ballet Theatre has performed The Nutcracker for almost as long as the company has existed: For many Las Vegas families, the holiday season doesn’t begin until the curtain rises on that Victorian dollhouse set. But for 2025, the tradition will have a new twist — one with a Gatsby-esque glitter.

“The story remains the same, the intent remains the same, but we’re setting it in the 1930s, so it has an art deco feeling to it,” NBT Artistic Director Roy Kaiser says. The new production’s visual inspiration comes not just from the era’s luminously flamboyant style, but also from the graceful curves and grand staircases of The Smith Center itself, where the performances will take place.

The set and costumes are not the only part of the show that will get a bold new look. Nevada Ballet has retired the James Canfield choreography it has been using since 2012 in favor of the George Balanchine version, making NBT one of only a handful of companies the estate has approved to perform his production. “I think Balanchine’s is brilliant in being able to tell this story through the eyes of children. Marie and her prince are played by youngsters from our school, not adults,” Kaiser says. “I wanted

to take his production into a different era and create a

Michael Raiford, who designed the company’s recent The Wizard created the new Nutsets and costumes.

“I wanted someone where I might want to say, ‘That’s a little too much’ and pull them back, instead of having to encourage them,” Kaiser says. The first-act party scene features an enormous, sparkling tree that owes as as to St. Nick.

The second act’s nighttime visit to dreamland is lit by a crescent moon that looks like a silent-movie starlet’s

“The costumes match the art deco opulence of the period and The Smith Center architecture,” says Amanda Williams, the troupe’s wardrobe manager. In the opening party, the women swirl in silk velvet bias cuts partnered by men in tuxedos, while Drosselemeyer’s top hat and tails are as much Fred Astaire as mysterious magician. The second act’s trip to the Land of Sweets allows for even more extravagance, from waltzing Flowers in orchid ombré tulle to iridescent spangled Dewdrops to boldly dotted and striped Hot Chocolate.

“We are very excited about the elevated level of costuming,” Williams says. “We still ooh and ah over these pieces in our shop, so we know it’ll be even more once they hit the stage.”

Over the years, artistic directors and designers have offered multiple interpretations of The Nutcracker — Mark Morris’ mid-century-styled slapstick version; Seattle’s dark rendition, with Maurice Sendak’s art design; Donald Byrd’s Harlem Nutcracker , set to music by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. “Ballet companies around the country reimagine The Nutcracker periodically,” Kaiser says. With this art deco take on George Balanchine’s version, Nevada Ballet Theatre hopes to create a new tradition, uniquely its own and unique to Las Vegas.✦

DANCE

THREE QUESTIONS FOR…

Daz Weller

BY Janis Hashe

Daz Weller moved from his native Australia to Las Vegas in 2010. In 2017, he became executive artistic director of the Vegas Theatre Company (formerly known as Cockroach Theatre), where he’d win best director honors in the Vegas Valley Theatre Awards for Sweat. Weller’s newest venture is his biggest challenge — CEO and artistic director of the cooperative transforming the Arts District’s former Art Houz cinemas complex into the Third Street arts incubator, set to open in the spring. But alongside VTC’s partners Vegas City Opera, Laugh After Dark, Las Vegas Sinfonietta, and world-famous magician Teller, he foresees dramatic success.

Why is this the right time for Third Street?

The vision is there, the audience is there … the convergence of many things keeps moving forward. And we have this unicorn of a space. This project is not geared to tourists, but to a homegrown audience. Also, right now, (the performing arts community) doesn’t have mentorship

for new voices. We’ll have an education component.

First-phase plans include a 250-seat proscenium theater, a 150-seat black box, and a renovated third-floor event space. What else is planned?

Plans include a film and music component, partly as a revenue model. Two rooms (will be configured) as screening rooms, sound-recording studios, and for post-mix facilities for films. The revenue stream from these rentals will help subsidize other programs, and (these facilities) will become a valuable resource for the community.

What do you want visitors to get out of Third Street?

Core to our vision is the arc of experience. From engaging through the website, to parking, dining, remaining in the space after seeing a performance … we want people to commune with others afterward. It will be worth leaving your home for. Third Street also means third place: not your home, not your work, but a place to exchange ideas. ✦

FHOOPS, HYPE, AND HOPE

The city’s NBA future and its basketball past come together in Las Vegas’ NBA Summer League — with a cameo by LeBron

By Chris Falite

or Americans who can afford it and the workers who make it possible, summer is a time for pools, beaches, lakes, and water parks — a cooling down of the Great American Machine. Unless you’re looking for the next generation of NBA stars making their professional debut. For this, one must brave the desert heat.

It’s been more than 20 years since the NBA Summer League stepped onto UNLV’s campus with six teams and a laissez-faire fantasy. Two decades later, the 11-day tournament in mid-July is the official offseason hub for all things business and basketball, injecting an estimated $280 million into the local community for 2025 alone, according to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, which we’ll get to later. The organic success of Summer League all but paved the way for today’s Sports Mecca well before F1 ruined our morning commutes or mortgage-backed securities crashed the economy.

Yet, when this magazine assigned me to cover this year’s games, it was the production I was after; the courtside fashion show; images of chapped-lipped tourists walking among giants and dinosaurs; and the very loud rumors surrounding LeBron James and his desire to own an expansion franchise in Las Vegas once he retires.

What I didn’t realize, or couldn’t see until I zoomed out, was how the same razzle-dazzle style of play that crowned UNLV’s Runnin’ Rebels as college basketball’s national champions in 1990 — and during a similar period of economic uncertainty — continues to animate the Vegas legend that the Summer Games plug into.

“I still get asked when I go to conferences if I live in a hotel,” says Nicholas Irwin, research director at the Lied Center for Real Estate at UNLV’s Lee Business School. “I think economists, by and large, view Vegas as this sort of weird conundrum (…) with its scarce resources, limited water, land that’s not very fertile, (yet a place that) gives rise to this giant economy based solely on convincing people to come to the desert and spend their money.”

That reputation may be what fueled speculative headlines leading up to Summer League:

“NBA [owners] to discuss expansion in Las Vegas during Summer League” (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

“NBA’s Las Vegas Expansion Is Inevitable” (Sports Illustrated)

Then the event actually happened, and so much for all that.

“A lot of analysis still needs to be done, and nothing’s been predetermined one way or another,” Silver said at his annual Summer League press conference.

I fell victim to the spectacle, which often happens when I repackage hope and opportunity in a product-based commodity. I’m not alone. Many of us reporters tricked ourselves into thinking this Summer League was the encore edition Vegas deserved.

THURSDAY. OPENING NIGHT. The lady at the media check-in table bundles my ID and a plastic credential card that reads, OFFICIAL MEDIA MEMBER. “Make sure it’s always visible.”

As expected, the media room at the Thomas & Mack Center sits abandoned because the wait is over. Stardom is no longer in the queue. It’s here. It’s now. In minutes, the NBA’s newest savior, No. 1 draft pick Cooper Flagg, makes his Dallas Mavericks’ debut against the Son of LeBron himself, Prince Bronny James, and the Los Angeles Lakers. Only in Vegas could an exhibition game read like the Book of Revelation.

Earlier this week, courtside tickets reached DEFCON 1 — two grand a pop on the secondary resale market. If that weren’t enough, Front Office Sports reported tonight’s “get-in-

the-door” price at more than two hundred big ones. Both are Summer League records, nearly double high marks set in 2023 when France’s Victor Wembanyama landed his spaceship in Southern Nevada for his U.S. debut.

“This is the first year I didn’t go,” laments former Vegas Seven editor and local basketball enthusiast Greg Blake Miller, when I sit down with him for some expert perspective. “I feel like I got priced out.”

“I feel like in the early 2010s,” Miller says, while neglecting his everything bagel, “I’d buy three tickets for me, my son, and my dad — that was like our summer tradition — for like $25 each. I could be off on the exact number, but it was very reasonable.”

Today — outside attending opening night or the born-again “Gucci Row” courtside status-check inside the Thomas & Mack — you can typically find general admission tickets for less than a hundred bucks. And you pay for the day, not the game, with up to eight games split between the Thomas & Mack and Cox Pavilion. Plus, the exclusive opportunity to witness “the stars of tomorrow, today,” according to Summer League cofounder Warren LeGarie.

Miller sees it as a tale of two experiences: “There’s the scene, lowercase s, as in, this wonderful festival to watch and take part in.

BALLING UNLV’s arena set the stage for the Summer League.

And then there’s The Scene, capital S, which is, people wanna go and have it be a status symbol.” He adds, “Over the 2010s and into the 2020s, (America) became very clearly an experience economy.”

On my opening night, the place is packed. Combustible. Everyone’s got a bounce to them. I feel bouncy. Giddy. I thought it was only casinos that got you high on oxygen.

Then again, maybe it’s the purple and yellow napalm already inhaled from thousands of Lakers fans who’ve managed to carpet bomb the arena tonight.

“This is crazier than (Wembanyama),” says a staff photographer from the G League, the NBA’s developmental league. By week’s end, most players here will be assigned to their respective affiliate organizations or cut altogether.

“Were you here two years ago?” I ask.

“Yeah, that was my first Summer League. But this is much bigger.”

IT’S 2004. LeGarie arrives with co-founder Albert Hall for the inaugural Las Vegas Summer League (the NBA didn’t officially attach its name until 2007). “I joke we had inflatable people (in the stands),” Hall told filmmakers for NBA Stories: Twenty Years of Summer League.

Carole Adams Hattar doubled down on the Mickey Mouse opera-

tion turned global event. “I started bringing groups of schools, kids, Boys and Girls clubs, YMCA, just about anyone I could find who would come in, and seating them on one side of Cox Pavilion, so it looked like the stands were full,” recalls the event’s director of community relations. “It was a struggle to get people to come because nobody had any idea what Summer League was.”

Attendees totaled 1,700 the first year.

Today, more than 130,000 fans, players, coaches, managers, agents, and other collared casuals feed into its growing ecosystem, with NBA-sponsored events like leadership and tech conferences, jump-started by enough glitz, glamour, and headline drama, on and off the court, to meet your TikTok quota.

Summer League isn’t just the offseason hub for league officials; it’s an event-driven experience unlike any in sports. At the heart is what Commissioner Silver calls the NBA’s 31st franchise, essentially identifying the league with Las Vegas itself through Summer League and Team USA. The league doubled down on its investment here by adding the Emirates NBA Cup to its Vegas lineup for 2023 and beyond. T-Mobile Arena hosts for the third time in December.

Effectively, Las Vegas gave the NBA a summer home, while the NBA helped to legitimize Sin City on a cultural scale — not all that different than Jerry Tarkanian’s Runnin’ Rebels shining a light on its own misunderstood community as a national symbol for tomorrow.

“A lot of the country thinks that blue-collar and razzle-dazzle are two different things,” Miller says. “It was ballet, but at the same time it was hard-nosed as hell. That team was a blue-collar team in a blue-collar city; that’s what I think sometimes didn’t get recognized. They didn’t get it.”

SATURDAY NIGHT. DAY 3. The crowd inside the Thomas & Mack rises to its feet.

It’s LeBron!

LeBron James is here … Le-Bro-n-n-n!

Moisture glazes my palms. I feel the combustion happening in real

time as I blast out of the media-only tunnel connecting the arena’s bowels to the lower seating section. There, a tsunami of madness swallows me: fans, foes, reporters, photographers, other credentialed dorks, and spoiled rich kids — we’re barreling down the aisle toward the King and his royal family.

Like most normal people, they’re here to watch their son. Except LeBron is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. He’s anything but normal; he’s the King.

Not even expansion gossip can escape the billionaire basketball god. His desire to own an expansion franchise in Sin City is more than gossip. Why here, you might be inclined to ask. Good question. He did call our newly crowned sports city a great “attraction” in a 2023 Summer League press conference. He went on to mention how impressed he’s been over the years by the level of fan commitment he’s seen around Summer League — but didn’t make any attempt to connect or understand the fan base, let alone Clark County, which leads me to believe he views Las Vegas as a profitable opportunity, not a calling or purpose.

LeBron wasn’t in attendance for the opening-night spectacle. Now, the ESPN cameras are covering this hurricane as it makes landfall along the baseline, where LeBron,

COURTSIDE Will LeBron James bring an NBA expansion team to Las Vegas? Who knows.

his wife, Savannah, their 10-year-old daughter, Zhuri, and a few trusted confidantes are surrounded by a rotation of daps, hugs, flashing cameras, microphones — the storm surge feels endless …

When the chaos settles, I shoot back to the media room and shed my notebook for my camera. Minutes later, I’m cleaning my Nikon lens in a roped-off area below the suites. The man to my right also wears credentials and a hefty beard. “What was all that commotion a few minutes ago?” he asks.

“LeBron’s here,” I say, motioning downward.

“Shit. How’d I miss that?” We both laugh.

“There’s no more traffic in L.A.; it’s all here now,” he says with a smirk.

“What are you doing at Summer League?” I ask.

“I’m starting a sports rep company. It’s a great place to find new clients.”

We exchange business cards. His reads: … Esquire. “I’m an immigration lawyer.”

I don’t remember “economic impact” being a colloquial catchphrase for general consumption. So I hit up the expert.

“When you do these economic-impact studies, you have to make so many assumptions (that) a lot of times you get away from the real truth of what’s happening, because

it’s so amorphous,” admits Irwin, our urban economist. “You can get to the results you want in ways that are still defensible in your assumptions. So, it’s really tough to get a true estimate of what the effects are.”

Great. More Looney Tunes math. I do, however, appreciate the shapeless notion of economic impact moving across the valley like an impressionistic ghost. Naturally, this leads me to wonder: What’s the cultural impact of economic impact?

When it comes to Golden Knights fandom, Miller remembers there being an emphasis on identity from the very beginning. “(Owner Bill Foley) made a brilliant decision giving them a name that wasn’t Vegas-y. It gave us a chance to feel something different about ourselves. Okay, it’s a name; our team has a name, like other teams have a name … It gave it a sense it was Las Vegas’ team.”

Identity has always been this city’s biggest bet.

Perhaps that’s why the Raiders have struggled to find their local footing since marching in with their stadium demands. What did taxpayers get for their community investment? The NFL’s most expensive tickets for the last five years, and the Allegiant Stadium insurrection of visiting fans, who represent more than 60 percent of attendance on any given Sunday. Now, more than anywhere else, this experience-based business model centered on economic powerhouses — like F1, the Super Bowl, or Raiders owner Mark Davis’ subsidized smugness — has produced an oversaturated and fickle gig economy.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen long-term,” Irwin says. Our conversation followed the Lied Center publishing a study on housing affordability that found a Clark County resident must earn at least $57 per hour to afford the median mortgage payment. “There’s this tension — I don’t know how it’s going to be solved, because the gig economy is not able to pay the wages to allow people to live here like … they could a generation ago.”

I can’t help but think: What does this mean for an NBA team? What

happens when (another) “multipurpose” arena appears on our horizon? Will Summer League become another gentrified spectacle that prices locals out of their own market? What then of its community roots? And where would that leave UNLV’s economic and cultural impact within our new Las Vegas?

“UNLV is going to have to reassert its identity across the valley as the core of our community,” says Miller, his bagel now a memory. “Thomas & Mack is Us.”

Back at courtside, LeBron is surrounded by a bunch of gobsmacked infidels, me included. I raise my camera and mark the King through my viewfinder. Click. Click click click click click.

He wears a blue denim bucket hat, an already exhausted accoutrement, for today’s digital cage match. The evasive tactic forces me to dig in, fight through screens, dive for every loose ball — get out in transition on offense. I proceed to capture LeBron from every angle. Left. Right. Through the legs. I’m Stacey Augmon slicing up gravity the way he did in that championship run. I can’t be stopped.

Halftime: I’m under the basket. Watching again as LeBron entertains a succession of photos, hugs, chitchat … I want a close-up. Something that demands the front page.

During warm-ups I dart across the court like a coyote in the suburbs. It’s no use. LeBron’s staring straight down to Mexico.

Again, I pinch one eye shut and press the other against my camera’s viewfinder … Oh shit —

It’s just me and him now. Eye to eye. I holster my camera, frozen between thoughts, because at present, LeBron James is staring me down It’s also my first encounter with a billionaire; I’m nervous. Finally, he leans into his friend and gestures back my way. He starts with his hands to further the plot for his bobblehead confidante … the rest comes into focus.

LeBron’s been watching me. My every move. I realize this while his guy nods along. Dazed and confused, I watch LeBron’s friend bring his hand to his mouth and begin

“It was a struggle to get people to come because nobody had any idea what Summer League was.”

- Carole Adams Hattar, NBA Summer League director of community relations

rolling his wrist in a clockwork motion, over and over, as if to say, Keep eating, son

I swipe through the images. From every angle, there he is, staring back. I’m staring back at me, too. I realize I’ve turned LeBron the person into a product — something I could use, when all I wanted to do was write about basketball in Las Vegas. A gust of regret pushes me into the aisle, through the oncoming crowd.

MONDAY NIGHT. DAY 5. Tomorrow, owners will assemble for the Board of Governors meeting in a publicly unknown location. League expansion is expected to be seriously discussed for the first time, though early-bird chirpings indicate some owners have recently soured on the idea. Vegas, it seems, will have to wait.

That said, Summer League is a gift in today’s world. A vestige of living, breathing virtue inside our daily vacuum of compressed caricatures.

“I got T-shirts! I got colors! I got sizes! I got T-shirts! I got colors! I got sizes … ”

Vendors make their final pleas. Fans buzz by left and right. The sluggish fade away after a long day of basketball and arena food. Behind them, the mighty Thomas & Mack Center projects forward.

The arena is a cultural landmark, where the Runnin’ Rebels flashed and dashed their way into the cultural conversation as sports, fashion, and hip hop were about to redefine America’s culture and economy, and this place was near the center of the basketball world. A place where the NBA’s first female coach, Becky Hammon, led the San Antonio Spurs to the 2015 Summer League championship. As she subsequently led the WNBA’s Aces to three league titles in four years with the team’s, and the city’s, signature mix of grit and glamor.

At the end of our conversation, I ask Greg Miller what a potential NBA team would mean to Las Vegas. He smiles. “A full house.”

If Summer League is where you can catch the stars of tomorrow, today, then Las Vegas is America’s past, present, and future, playing now. ✦

While “’tis the season for giving” may have joined the ranks of cliché holiday sayings quite some time ago, the concept still resonates loud and clear with many Las Vegas businesses and organizations that work tirelessly to improve the quality of life for the metropolitan area’s 2 million-plus residents. Through efforts that range from offering various forms of assistance and support, to programs that empower less-fortunate individuals and families with the capabilities necessary to successfully engage in everyday life, to providing opportunities for educational and career advancement and success, philanthropy surely is alive and well in Las Vegas.

SPONSORED BY

Howard Hughes, developer of the Summerlin® master planned community, and its dynamic urban core of Downtown Summerlin®, is proud to sponsor for the 11th consecutive year, “In the Spirit of Giving,” a testament to philanthropy in Southern Nevada.

As we mark Summerlin’s 35th successful year in development, we are reminded that there is still much work to do to ensure the entire Las Vegas Valley continues to grow and thrive.

This year, Howard Hughes was particularly focused on helping nonprofits in the education, environmental, arts and childhood sectors, reflective of our own corporate values.

• We believe that access to a quality education is foundational to individual success and overall community wellbeing. That’s why we are proud supporters of the UNLV Foundation, After-School All-Stars, and the Summerlin Children’s Forum scholarship program

• We believe it is everyone’s responsibility to protect natural and historical landmarks, to build sustainability into everything we do, and to teach students the value of growing their own food. That’s why we are proud supporters of Green Our Planet, Friends of Red Rock Canyon, and Nevadans for Cultural Preservation.

• We believe a robust network of community services improves the lives of those who need our help most. That’s why we are proud supporters of Nevada Partners, Inc., HELP of Southern Nevada, and the Mayor’s Fund for Las Vegas LIFE.

At Howard Hughes, we believe that giving back is a privilege and an obligation for those who have the ability.

We remain grateful to those who join us in giving - corporate partners, philanthropic foundations, individuals, and all who understand the power of collective commitment - to advance programs, initiatives and nonprofits that improve quality of life.

May the giving spirit of the holiday season carry us through the coming year.

CONTACT

Friends of Red Rock Canyon 1000 Scenic Loop Drive Las Vegas, NV 89161 702-515-5366 info@friendsredrock.org friendsredrock.org

MISSION

For more than 40 years, Friends of Red Rock Canyon’s mission has been to promote the preservation and enhancement of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area through volunteerism, philanthropy, and education. We are the very first Friends group in the BLM system nationwide! Each year, our dedicated volunteers contribute more than 10,000 hours of work to Red Rock Canyon. Our work includes trail maintenance, canyon clean up, graffiti removal, caring for the tortoise habitat, protecting native plants, and engaging with visitors at the Visitor Center information desk. Friends of Red Rock Canyon works to preserve these breathtaking public lands for future generations, and we welcome volunteers of all ages to be part of this tradition of care and preservation.

CONTACT

Summerlin ® Children’s Forum

2115 Festival Plaza Drive, Suite 220 Las Vegas, NV 89135 702-791-4000

Randy.Ecklund@HowardHughes.com summerlin.com

MISSION

The Summerlin ® Children’s Forum (SCF) is a nonprofit organization established in 1997 by leaders of the Summerlin master-planned community and its developer, Howard Hughes. The organization is dedicated to recognizing academic excellence. Since inception, the Summerlin Children’s Forum has provided college scholarships and school enrichment grants totaling more than $700,000. Today, Summerlin Children’s Forum is focused on its annual college scholarship program that is open to all graduating high school seniors who reside in Summerlin.

CONTACT

UNLV Foundation

4505 S. Maryland Parkway Box 451006

Las Vegas,NV 89154-1006

702-895-3641

unlvfoundation@unlv.edu unlv.edu/ philanthropy

MISSION

The UNLV Foundation raises and manages private funds for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. These funds help UNLV and its diverse students, faculty, staff and alumni advance community wellbeing and individual achievement through education, research, scholarship, innovative programs, and clinical services. We also stimulate economic development and diversification, foster a climate of innovation, promote health and enrich the cultural vitality of the community we serve. Through the UNLV Foundation every charitable dollar UNLV receives has an exponential impact, as it helps us leverage UNLV’s most valuable skills – research, teaching and community service – for the benefit of all Nevadans.

CONTACT

Sallie Doebler, CEO

The Mayor’s Fund for Las Vegas LIFE

702-229-LIFE (5433) info@mayorsfundlv.org mayorsfundlv.org

MISSION

The Mayor’s Fund for Las Vegas LIFE was established in 2017 as an independent nonprofit entity to provide a vehicle for corporations, foundations and philanthropists to support City of Las Vegas programs and initiatives that improve quality of life via public-private partnership. With a special focus on vulnerable populations in the City of Las Vegas in the areas of public arts, youth sports, youth and workforce development, and homelessness, the Fund addresses pervasive challenges via donations of cash, in-kind services and innovative ideas for solving critical challenges. Governed by a diverse group of community leaders, the Mayor’s Fund is a public charity under Section 501 (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. For information, visit MayorsFundLV.org

CONTACT

Green Our Planet

8020 S. Rainbow Boulevard Suite 100-620 Las Vegas, NV 89139 702-624-8912

ciara@greenourplanet.org greenourplanet .org

MISSION

Green Our Planet teaches students to love and care for our planet in schools across the United States through comprehensive STEM school garden and hydroponics programs. We use gardening as a portal for understanding both life on Earth and our place in the universe. Our programs utilize outdoor gardens and indoor hydroponic setups as living laboratories and experiential learning environments, sparking inspiration for future scientists, conservationists, farmers, chefs, and entrepreneurs. Whether it's cultivating seeds in gardens or seeds of knowledge in young minds, Green Our Planet inspires growth across 44 states, spanning over 1,100 schools and impacting over 300,000 students. Our mission is to awaken students to the wonders of the universe - from the soil to the starsin everything we do.

CONTACT

After-School All-Stars Las Vegas

8485 W. Sunset Rd., Suite 106 Las Vegas, NV 89113 702-259-1850 info@asaslv.org

MISSION:

After-School All-Stars Las Vegas provides free, enriching, highquality, teacher-led after-school programs that keep children safe during the hours where they might otherwise find trouble, all while teaching them skills to help them succeed in school and life. We believe every child deserves a time to shine, and for many, that time is after the school bell rings.

CONTACT

HELP of Southern Nevada 1640 East Flamingo Rd., #100 Las Vegas, NV 89119 702-369-4357, info@helpsonv.org helpsonv.org

MISSION

HELP of Southern Nevada’s mission for more than 50 years is to assist families and individuals throughout the Valley, helping them overcome barriers and attain self-sufficiency through direct services, training and referral to community resources. HELP of Southern Nevada has nine essential programs that are dedicated to their commitment to preventing and ending homelessness one youth, one individual and one family at a time. HELP’s programs include Behavioral Health Services, Homeless Response Teams, Family Housing Services, Holiday Assistance, Adult Housing Programs, Shannon West Homeless Youth Center, Weatherization and Workforce Services.

Supporting HELP and its programs, such as the Homeless Outreach Teams and Shannon West Homeless Youth Center, is to help bring people off the streets and into housing, providing them with necessary resources needed to survive. For additional details and to contribute to the fight to end homelessness, visit helpsonv.org

CONTACT

Nevadans for Cultural Preservation 7925 W. Russell Rd. Box 400483 Las Vegas, NV 89140 702-466-3013 Contact@nvfcp.org NVFCP .org

MISSION

Nevadans for Cultural Preservation (NVFCP) promotes and participates in the preservation of Nevada’s archaeological and historic cultural sites through education, special projects, and partnerships. From petroglyph images carved into stone thousands of years ago to abandoned mining towns, NVFCP works to protect the places that connect us to our history.

Specializing in public education and interpretation, site management, and graffiti removal, NVFCP believes that education and participation in preservation activities are key to fostering responsible citizens that will continue to value and protect these cultural sites for the enjoyment and understanding of current and future generations

CONTACT

Nevada Partners, Inc. (NPI) 690 W. Lake Mead Blvd. North Las Vegas, NV 89030 (702) 844-8000 bhernandez@nevadapartners.org nevadapartners.org

MISSION

Nevada Partners’ mission is to build a healthy, sustainable community where all residents achieve their full potential through effective education, meaningful employment, safe and affordable housing, and vibrant civic and cultural engagement.

For 33 years, NPI has been a cornerstone of opportunity in the Historic Westside, empowering families through youth leadership, workforce readiness, housing and homeownership counseling, small business development, and entrepreneurship. Home to a STEM Center of Excellence and multiple community-based initiatives, Nevada Partners provides resources that transform lives and create generational impact. With the support of key partners, stakeholders, and community champions, we are lifting families up and building pathways to wealth.

CONTACT

4000 E. Charleston, Ste. 230

Las Vegas, NV 89104

702-968-5000

MISSION

UNLV Health, a non-profit organization, is the practice plan of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV. The practice plan acts as a service to the community from multiple disciplines and provides opportunities for students to become doctors. Mojave Counseling is the behavioral health component of the practice plan providing comprehensive services to adults living with serious and persistent mental illness and children with severe emotional disturbances who are Medicaid eligible. Services include psychiatry, case management, therapy, day treatment, pharmacy, and primary care all under one roof. Mojave’s latest service is partnering with Ovation properties and others to provide supported housing to homeless and mentally ill individuals with services located in the apartment setting. This unique program puts us in the midst of the drive to find solutions to the intransigent problem of homeless, mentally ill service provision.

CONTACT

6021 S Fort Apache Rd, Ste 100 Las Vegas, NV 89148-5562 coordinatedliving.org

MISSION

(“CLSN”) is a Nevada non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the development of affordable housing so that lowincome Nevada residents can live in decent, safe, and sanitary housing that promotes their health, security, happiness, individual growth, autonomy, choice and dignity. Since its formation in 2014, CLSN, Inc. has partnered with Ovation Contracting Inc. (“Ovation”) to develop thirteen affordable senior projects totaling 1,871 units. Thirteen of the projects are in operations, one is under construction with an expected opening in early 2023 and one began construction in November of 2022. Coordinated Living of Southern Nevada is a Nevada non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the development of affordable housing, so that lowincome Nevada seniors can age in place in a setting that promotes individual control, autonomy, choice and dignity.

CONTACT

P.O. Box 97801, Las Vegas, NV 89193-7801 702-706-1544

info@nvhousingcoalition.org nvhousingcoalition.org

MISSION:

The Nevada Housing Coalition is a statewide, member-driven nonprofit whose mission is to advance the development and preservation of affordable housing for all Nevadans through collaboration, education, and advocacy. Nevada faces a severe shortage of safe, affordable homes, particularly for low-income renters who often spend more than half their income on housing. That’s why the 6th Annual Statewide Conference (Oct. 15–16 at Circa Resort & Casino) was so important. The event brought together housing developers, public agencies, funders, advocates, and policymakers to share data, best practices, and innovative strategies — building the partnerships and momentum needed to strengthen Nevada’s housing future. To learn more about the Nevada Housing Coalition and how to get involved in advancing affordable housing across the state, visit nvhousingcoalition.org

CONTACT

900 Las Vegas Blvd., North Las Vegas, NV 89101

702-384-3466

dino@lvnhm.org

MISSION:

The Las Vegas Science & Natural History Museum was established in 1989 by a group of citizens who knew the community would benefit from the educational resources it could provide. After very humble beginnings, this private nonprofit museum is now a Smithsonian Affiliate, accredited with the American Alliance of Museums, and is a federal and state repository for fossils and artifacts.

The Las Vegas Science & Natural History Museum is on a mission to inspire a better understanding and appreciation of the natural world, the sciences, and ourselves through educational exhibits, programming, and research and offers a global learning adventure for all ages.

Please visit lvnhm.org, follow on Facebook and LinkedIn at Las Vegas Science & Natural History Museum and @lvsnhmuseum on Instagram.

CONTACT

21 North Pecos Rd. Suite 106 Las Vegas, NV 89101

702-997-3350

info@getoutdoorsnevada.org

MISSION

Get Outdoors Nevada connects people to the outdoors by providing opportunities to experience, learn about, and care for our outdoor spaces. We provide environmental education programs for students and lifelong learners of all ages, especially those who face barriers to experiencing the outdoors. From planting a native Mojave desert garden habitat or exploring public lands on a field trip, we deliver hands-on experiences in nature that will inspire Nevada’s next generation of outdoor enthusiasts. Get Outdoors Nevada is more than a nonprofit. We’re a trusted connector between people and place. Join the community of over 35,000 volunteers we’ve brought together to support parks and trails across Southern Nevada and help with everything from removing trash to planting trees and building playgrounds. We work with all of Clark County's municipalities and serve as the official nonprofit partner of Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Visit getoutdoorsnevada.com for upcoming volunteer events across the valley.

CONTACT

Darcy Shepard, Associate Director P.O. Box 9754

Reno, NV 89507

775-324-7667

darcy@nevadawilderness.org

MISSION

Friends of Nevada Wilderness is dedicated to preserving all qualified Nevada public lands as wilderness, protecting all present and potential wilderness, informing the public about the values of and need for wilderness, and restoring and improving the management of wild lands.

The nonprofit cares for wild lands, wildlife, and wild people of Nevada through volunteer stewardship, public education, and advocacy. From maintaining backcountry hiking trails and monitoring hot springs to advocating for sound management and protection of Nevada’s irreplaceable public lands, the organization strives to keep Nevada wild. For information, visit friendsofnevadawilderness.com.

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CONTACT

280 S. Green Valley Pkwy Henderson, NV 89012

702-707-2665

hendersonlibraries.com

MISSION

The mission of Henderson Libraries is to imagine possibilities, discover opportunities, and connect with our community.

821 N. Mojave Rd. Las Vegas , NV 89101

702-642-7070

boystown.org/nevada paula.lawrence@boystown.org

MISSION

For more than 80 years, Henderson Libraries has been a place where our community comes together. We’re about more than books — we’re about ideas, connection, and discovery. There’s something here for everyone – storytimes, programs for teens and adults, technology help, and partnerships that bring important services to our neighbors.

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Our libraries are spaces where curiosity sparks, friendships form, and everyone has a chance to learn and grow. With your support, we can continue to expand programs, improve access, and create experiences that make a difference in people’s lives every day.

Join us in shaping the next chapter of Henderson Libraries. Learn more at hendersonlibraries.com/donations

SPONSORED BY

Boys Town Nevada is a trusted resource for children, caregivers, and families facing crisis and instability. Nevada ranks last in youth mental health resources, making our work urgent and essential. Last year, we impacted more than 36,000 lives through evidencebased services including in-home family support, school-based programs, and our Behavioral Health Clinic. The clinic provides professional assessments and treatment for children with emotional and behavioral challenges, such as ADHD and Autism. These proven interventions help children succeed and often prevent involvement with the juvenile justice system. We work closely with caregivers, including parents, grandparents, and guardians, to ensure children receive the support they need. Through collaboration with nonprofits, county agencies, and state organizations, we help build a more resilient and compassionate Nevada. Your support helps protect children, strengthen families, and create lasting change. Together, we can help every child thrive.

SPONSORED BY CONTACT

CONTACT

Ana Estrada, Executive Director Ana@trf.org trf.org

MISSION:

The Tyler Robinson Foundation (TRF) is dedicated to strengthening families facing the unimaginable challenges of pediatric cancer. Our mission is to provide emotional and financial support by offering grants that cover essential non-medical expenses such as housing, utilities, transportation, and basic needs. We believe no family should have to choose between treatment and survival.

Beyond financial assistance, TRF walks alongside families with compassion, community, and resources that ease the burden of a diagnosis. We collaborate with hospitals, social workers, and supporters to ensure families feel seen, supported, and empowered during their journey.

To learn more or get involved, visit trf.org and discover the many ways you can help bring hope and relief to families in need.

CONTACT

Wendi Schweigart, Founder & President

702-595-7027

wendi@projectmarilyn.com projectmarilyn.com

MISSION

Project Marilyn is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Nevada committed to ending period poverty, an often-overlooked issue.

Two in five women can’t afford period supplies every year due to lack of income, and one in four girls across the U.S. miss school each year because they lack access to these essential products.

Period supplies are not a luxury; they are a necessity.

Our mission is to meet this need with dignity and compassion, ensuring no one is held back by their period.

Project Marilyn is working to remove barriers to education, work, and daily life by ensuring everyone has the period supplies they need.

Everyone deserves access to period supplies, and together, we can make that a reality. PERIOD.To learn more please visit: projectmarilyn.com

CONTACT

Chris Salas, Founder & President

Instagram: @ability_center_nv

Facebook: The Ability Center of Southern Nevada

702-525-8453

abilitycenternv.org

chris@abilitycenternv.org

MISSION

The Ability Center of Southern Nevada is the first and only gym in Nevada 100% dedicated to individuals with special needs. With a mission to Empower Ability to Enhance Well-Being, The Ability Center makes fitness accessible through over 1,200 adaptive classes each year—all free of charge. Programs include 1:1 adaptive fitness, small group training, cheerleading, family yoga, and Friday Night Fitness. Beyond exercise, The Ability Center fosters community through social programs like sports camps, themed dances, and holiday celebrations. Serving over 75 members—65% under 18 and primarily individuals with Autism, Down syndrome, and other disabilities—The Ability Center is expanding with a second location opening at Betty’s Village North in 2026, continuing its vision of inclusion, empowerment, and lifelong health.

SPONSORED BY:

CONTACT

Roseman University of Health

Sciences Office of Philanthropy & Alumni Relations

702-968-5686

giving@roseman.edu

roseman.edu/give

MISSION

Roseman University College of Medicine has opened doors for the next generation of physicians. Our inaugural class of 64 MD students began in July of 2025, representing the future of healthcare in Nevada and beyond. Many of these talented students rely on scholarship support to pursue their dream of becoming physicians and serving our communities. By giving to Roseman’s College of Medicine Scholarship Fund, you help ensure that financial barriers do not stand in the way of training compassionate, highly skilled doctors who will elevate healthcare for all. Together, we can transform education and reimagine healthcare for our region.

CONTACT

Nevada Child Seekers

6375 W. Charleston Blvd Bld L-180

Las Vegas, NV 89146

702-458-7009

NevadaChildSeekers.org

MISSION

“ABDUCTION” "MISSING" "RUNAWAY"

When a child goes missing, fear and helplessness overwhelm families. In Nevada, Nevada Child Seekers is the beacon of hope they turn to. For nearly 40 years, this nonprofit has worked tirelessly to reunite missing children with their families, driven by a dedicated team and a passionate community. Nevada Child Seekers isn’t just an organization; it’s a family committed to protecting Nevada’s children. Powered by volunteers, donors, and partners, they create a network of hope, proving that when a community unites, even the toughest challenges can be overcome. Their work saves lives.

CONTACT

10170 Tropicana Ave #156-147

Las Vegas, NV, 89147 (702) 337-2466

championsforcasa.org

MISSION

Every child in foster care deserves stability, hope, and the chance to thrive. Champions for CASA makes this possible by recruiting CASA volunteers for advocacy and empowering them to stand up for children in foster care. As the only organization formally aligned with the court through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Champions for CASA ensures every volunteer is equipped to make a powerful, lasting difference. Now, the mission is growing with the Champions for CASA Connections Center—a firstof-its-kind space where foster youth and their CASA volunteers can come together to learn, create, and heal. From a Music Studio to a Teen Room, a Full Kitchen to a Toddler Room, the Center will be filled with spaces that nurture growth and belonging. Make a direct impact on a child’s life by joining us in building hope: championsforcasa.org/donate.html

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Home Means Nevada

At Ovation, we believe quality housing is foundational to the health and well-being of individuals, families, and communities.

That’s why we dedicate a signi cant portion of our development pipeline to creating quality a ordable housing for seniors and working families.

We are proud to support and work with the following agencies and nonpro ts to ensure that more Nevadans – regardless of income – can live in comfort and dignity.

Coordinated Living of Southern Nevada

Helping Hands of Vegas Valley

Nevada Homeless Alliance

Nevada Housing Coalition

Nevada Senior Services

South Nellis Permanent Supportive Housing

Three Square

UNLV Health Mojave Counseling

Brand-New Housing Units Available Now!

and Americans'

ROCK ON Miner Cory Rockwell acknowledges the tension between conservation

mineral needs.

Conduit to Wealth

Copper is essential to modern technology. But Smith Valley residents worry about a mine’s effect on their water

BY MEG BERNHARD

Leslie Sonne lives on a ranch in Northern Nevada’s Smith Valley, with four dogs, 30 chickens, two alpacas, three horses, and a stray cat named Ella. When I visit the ranch on a balmy June day, she’s trying to coax that cat inside a shed.

“Come on, Ella. Come on, kitty. Come on, momma,” she says, but Ella stays put. “All right, if you’re going to be that way, you don’t get to go back in where it’s nice and cool.”

Sonne’s husband, who collects antiques as a hobby, converted the shed into an old-timey general store when they moved here from Monterey, California, in late 2019. Sonne had retired from the Monterey Police Department, and the couple wanted to spend their days off-roading, stargazing, and enjoying the much-needed quiet and space in this rural corner of Nevada.

“We bought our lovely dream property abutting public lands here in Smith Valley in order to just enjoy the outdoors and the property and rescue dogs and rescue horses and rescue alpacas, and lots of chickens,” Sonne says.

And she was enjoying the outdoors, until she learned about a potential copper mining project in the valley she now calls home.

Sonne’s neighbor, Judy Harker, found out about the project from a friend. She learned that Hudbay Minerals, the company behind the project, wants to mine more than two billion tons of copper from an open pit on the east side of the valley. The pit would be more than a mile across and wide, and 2,100 feet deep.

Harker, who has lived in Smith Valley for more than 20 years, was worried about its potential impact to groundwater and the local ecosystem. So she, Sonne, and others in the valley banded together to create the group Citizens to Protect Smith Valley. They’re not against the mine, but they want to make their concerns known as the permitting process gets underway.

“It was really more about looking at water, looking at the environment, and trying to maintain the quality of life that we have in the valley, and really protecting the agriculture and the rural way of life, and protecting our open space as well,” Harker says.

Copper is a hot commodity in the western United States. It’s used in many different materials that power our daily lives, like electrical wiring and pipes. And it’s used in solar panels and electric car batteries, which are important to transitioning society off fossil fuels to combat climate change.

President Donald Trump’s administration is not

exactly jumping at green energy development, but it does want the United States to produce more copper. In July, Trump announced a 50 percent tariff on copper imports. The aim is to reduce the country’s reliance on foreign nations for this material — especially China.

Amanda Hilton, president of the Nevada Mining Association, agrees, saying, “I am growing exceedingly concerned when looking at how much mineral production is happening overseas that the United States is dependent on, and now that we are seeing impacts from China shutting down the export of certain minerals, our country is starting to feel the pain.”

In Nevada, two active copper mines produce seven percent of America’s copper. Those numbers will likely go up. The Trump administration has already fast-tracked one Nevada copper mine, the Golden Mile project, in Mineral County. And there are proposed projects across the state — especially in the Smith Valley area, where there are plenty of copper deposits.

“That whole area there is definitely up for possible development,” says John Hadder, executive director for the nonprofit Great Basin Resource Watch. “(It) has the possibility of becoming a copper mining district, which would really change the whole nature of the area significantly.”

But while Nevada might have a lot of minerals, it lacks one key ingredient essential to mining: water. And that’s what worries environmentalists, academics — and residents.

AFTER CHATTING FOR a few minutes, Sonne, Harker, and I pile into Sonne’s RAV4 to drive across Smith Valley and see where mining would take place.

“You can see lots of nice little hills and knolls and green, lots of green,” Sonne says, pointing to the landscape outside the window. “Wildflowers are pretty much gone, but variations of green with the sagebrush, the rabbit brush. But my assumption is, most of this will just be wiped clear. It’ll all be graded out for parts of their project.”

We see a bird dart past, but it’s too quick for any of us to identify.

“We’ve got red-tailed hawks. Lots of them,” Harker says. “Rough-legged hawks. Ferruginous hawks. All kinds of owls. We’ve got little kestrels. Long-eared owls. Greathorned owls.”

“Lots of wildflowers,” Sonne says.

It is, in other words, a desert valley full of life. And crucial to all that life is water.

“We are definitely overallocated, overpumped,” Harker says. “Anything having to do with water should be of concern to anyone in our basin. You can mitigate a lot of things with projects, but you can’t make water.”

As the nation’s driest state, Nevada doesn’t have a lot of water. But there’s more than you’d think. And most of it is underground.

“When you look into the heart of a desert spring, and you see that water coming out of the ground, it’s like looking into another universe,” says Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, a nonprofit that advocates for sustainable water use throughout the region.

COPPER RUSH

The western edge of Smith Valley at sunrise, looking north off of Upper Colony Road

“What makes the Great Basin special is why the mining interests are here, and that is the relationship between our geology and our hydrogeology,” he says. “It’s what pushes the water out of the ground to give us springs that our wildlife depend on.”

Over millions of years, minerals washed down from mountains and built up in the closed basins typical of Nevada. Today, they have no outlet to the sea, so the minerals just stay there — making the region attractive to mining companies.

Water also built up over time — but under the surface.

“Groundwater becomes really important in a state like Nevada, where we don’t have very many perennial streams and rivers,” says Kate Berry, a UNR geographer who studies water, mining, and environmental justice. “The thing about groundwater is that it’s inconspicuous. You don’t see it.”

Many people rely on groundwater in Nevada. Ranchers, farmers, tribes. In Las Vegas, we get most of our water from the Colorado River, and about 10 percent of it from

away. Copper is a highly conductive metal; that’s why we use it in wiring. Because of its many uses, the U.S. Department of Energy has designated copper a critical mineral, meaning it’s important for energy technologies. Important for our national security, and our economy.

Still, Berry asks, “Who is it critical for? And then who’s impacted by it?”

AT HIS HOME in Sparks, Cory Rockwell, an underground miner, shows me his old hard hats.

“Every mine I go to, I start off with a new hard hat. These are from a few mines that I’ve worked at,” he says. He lists each: one from Nevada Copper, in Yerington; another from Greens Creek, with a company called Hecla in Juneau, Alaska; another from the Turquoise Ridge mine, with Nevada Gold Mines.

underground. By contrast, the 2,000 or so residents of Tonopah are entirely dependent on groundwater.

Groundwater becomes a problem for mining companies, Berry says, because in order to extract minerals, many dig deep pits that intersect with this water. The mining companies don’t want the water — they want the rock. So, they do what’s called “dewatering,” pumping the water out and moving it somewhere else. Then they can continue their excavation, extracting ore and moving it as well.

A typical copper project can use billions of gallons of water a year. Hudbay estimates its Mason project in the Smith Valley will use between 7,000 and 16,000 acre-feet (325,851 gallons) of water a year. For context, a typical household in Las Vegas uses a little less than half an acre-foot of water a year.

Another issue is not just water quantity, but quality. Rock material reacts with oxygen, starting a process that generates acid, which can drain out.

Copper mining — and the issues it poses — isn’t going

Rockwell got his start in Nevada working at what’s now the Thacker Pass lithium mine in Northern Nevada. And he worked a stint at Pumpkin Hollow, a copper project near Yerington that went bankrupt last year but may see a second life soon. These days, he’s working at a gold mine in Alaska. He works underground, in explosives, essentially blasting rock into smaller bits so it can be moved for further processing.

Rockwell loves his job — so much that he has 170,000 followers on TikTok. In one popular clip, he shows a bolter, used to stabilize mine shafts. The job bought him a house in Sparks. It lets him raise his 10-year-old son as a single dad.

“A lot of people, when they think about mining, they just think about the worst stuff,” he says. “You know, mining companies poisoning the water.” But for him, the U.S. does it better than other countries. We have environmental reviews and worker safety measures. For now.

“These minerals — we’re going to get them one way or the other. Our species needs it. Our survival depends on it,” he says. “It is kind of a tradeoff.”

HEAR MORE on our Desert Air podcast.

ANACONDA COPPER MINE

Person Ally

The Colorado River is this coalition’s ‘lifeblood.’ Now, they want to give it the same legal rights as a person

BY ALEX HAGER

In far western Arizona, the dusty beige expanse of desert stretches as far as the eye can see. Under the baking summer sun, which regularly pushes temperatures above 110 degrees in the summer, even scrubby desert bushes can struggle to survive.

But in the middle of that desert, the Colorado River creates a striking strip of green.

The river winds through the valleys and deserts of the Southwest, carrying Rocky Mountain snowmelt hundreds of miles away, giving life to places like Parker, Arizona. It’s home to the Colorado River Indian Tribes — one of 30 federally recognized tribes in the Colorado River Basin, but one of the few whose land includes a stretch of the river itself.

“It’s our lifeblood,” says Dillon Esquerra, a member of the tribe who serves as its water resources director. “It’s who we are. It’s part of our identity.”

People in this community have deep cultural ties to the river that go back millennia. Many of those people, Esquerra says, have a close personal relationship with its life-giving water.

“We look at it as something that nurtures us,” he says, “so we have to protect it.”

Now, the Colorado River Indian Tribes, often referred to as CRIT, is trying to take those long-held cultural ideas and put them into law. They are planning to establish legal personhood status for the Colorado River, giving it some of the same rights and protections a human could hold in court. No government, tribal or otherwise, has given these kinds of rights to the Colorado River before.

The effort comes at a critical juncture in the river’s

future. Climate change means there’s less water in the river each year, and steady demand from cities and farms is stretching that supply thin. The region’s Indigenous people have largely been shut out from decisions about its management, despite a long history of using — and living alongside — the river long before it was divided and allocated according to the laws of white settlers.

CRIT, in essence, is trying to work within those laws to get some representation for a river that it sees as a living, beleaguered individual.

THE PEOPLE OF CRIT are river people. It’s in their name. The traditional name of the Mohave, Hamakhav, means “people along the river.”

CRIT itself is a relatively modern construct, a reservation established by the U.S. government that puts four different ethnic groups under the umbrella of one tribal government. The tribe’s current reservation lands were originally occupied by the Mohave people, then the Chemehuevi. In the 1940s and 1950s, Hopi and Navajo people were relocated to the reservation from farther north. What many of those people share, especially those who

grew up on CRIT’s riverside reservation, is a deep reverence for the Colorado River.

“In our culture, the river is precious,” says Anisa Patch, a member of the CRIT tribal council who is among those pushing for legal personhood status. “We’re supposed to be the stewards of these gifts from our creator. That’s what was taught to us by my grandmother, our aunts, our other relatives. It’s in the stories.”

Patch explains that personhood is a way to take those deeply held cultural and spiritual values and put them into a lasting, enforceable code — one that will stay in writing across generations and changes in political leadership.

“We want to have a stake in the ground to stand firm on,” she says. “To say that you have to recognize this is something not just personal to us, but something of cultural significance, something of significance to life itself for a lot of people.”

CRIT’S DECISION TO DECLARE personhood status for the Colorado River is a timely one.

The river is used by nearly 40 million people and a massive agriculture industry across seven states. That includes major cities such as Denver and Los Angeles, as

SINK OR SWIM Dillon Esquerra considers the river the tribes' lifeblood.

well as farms that send produce to grocery shelves across the nation. It has been cut and divided and redirected in ways that exemplify humanity’s attempts to defy the design of nature. The Colorado River is stored in reservoirs that represent historic feats of engineering. Its water is pumped hundreds of miles through tunnels and canals that carve through deserts and mountains.

With the river portioned out by a complicated web of physical and legal infrastructure, CRIT’s leadership worries that there isn’t much water left for the river itself, nor the plants and animals that rely on it.

“We’ve taken, we’ve taken, we’ve taken, we’ve taken from this river,” says Amelia Flores, CRIT’s chairwoman. “We’re not giving back. We’re not being reciprocal and giving back.”

Right now, the Colorado River is at a crossroads. Policymakers are negotiating a new plan to share its water after the current rules expire in 2026, and they are facing calls to implement painful, permanent cuts to some areas’ water supplies.

A Supreme Court decree, Arizona v. California, recognized CRIT as having the most senior water rights on the lower Colorado River, and among the most senior

HEAR THIS story at kunc.org.

in the entire basin. That means CRIT has some of the most legally untouchable water rights along the lower half of the Colorado River, making the tribe the last to face cutbacks in times of shortage.

Longstanding legal precedent means the fast-growing Phoenix area would likely be the first to face cutbacks. As that possibility settles in, cities and municipalities in the nation’s 10th-largest metro area are knocking on CRIT’s door, looking to lease some of the tribe’s water. The tribe’s land is about 130 miles west of Phoenix, straddling the Arizona-California border.

Tribal leaders say the new legal protections will serve two purposes: a symbolic one and a practical one. The first is about sending a message.

As those Phoenix-area cities come to do business with CRIT, those legal protections would force outside governments and water agencies to sign deals acknowledging the nuanced importance of the river.

“It’s not just going to be an economic transaction,” says John Bezdek, a water attorney employed by the tribe. “It’s going to be one that talks about the river, the needs of the community, and how those are intertwined.”

The second purpose, Bezdek says, is more practical.

Tribal council members are considering setting up a fund for the river, and anybody leasing water from the tribe would have to pay into it in order to do business. That money could be used for habitat restoration along the river, like improving wetlands; setting up ponds for migrating birds; or expanding a nature preserve on the reservation. It could also boost tribal members’ access to the river by funding new parks or designated swimming areas.

The money could also be used to teach tribal youth about the importance of the Colorado River.

“We want to keep that essence alive as much as we can,” Flores says. “And if the essence is in this Western way of thinking, then so be it, because the next generation coming up may not have that cultural tie, that religious tie to the river.”

WHILE LEGAL PERSONHOOD for the Colorado River would be new, the idea of giving rights to an element of nature has been around for a while.

CRIT’s effort is part of the “rights of nature” movement, which has seen tribal and non-tribal governments around the world try to establish protections for the waters, lands, and plants that are important to them.

Flores says the idea for Colorado River personhood came from a series of trips to New Zealand, where she canoed the Whanganui River with the Indigenous Māori people. They achieved legal personhood for the river in 2017 after one of New Zealand’s longest-running court cases.

Cases such as the Whanganui, and a handful of similar legal efforts in the United States, can provide some insights on what might happen with this historic rights of nature declaration on the Colorado River.

Erin O’Donnell, a senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne in Australia, researches water law with a focus

CONTINUES ON PAGE 92

Well Into the Future

A Nevada program addressed overallocation of groundwater by paying farmers to use less. Is it working?

BY DANIEL ROTHBERG CO-PUBLISHED IN COLLABORATION

WITH THE DAILY YONDER

Steven Fulstone knows what it means to move water on and off farmland. It’s September, nearing the end of the irrigation season for the Walker River, and the sixth-generation rancher is driving his blue truck around Smith Valley. Fulstone describes the bright green alfalfa field in front of us as the valley’s “heartland,” with good soils that he wants to keep in production. “I had enough surface water rights to transfer it onto this property,” he says.

But over the past year, he’s participated in transactions that have gone in the other direction. On the other side of the valley, Fulstone stops in front of a parcel covered in golden-hued vegetation. Take water away from an irrigated field, and you see a dramatic change. “You’re looking at 116 acres of land where the primary underground water rights were relinquished,” he tells me.

The patchwork of irrigated and fallow land foreshadows a difficult future for agricultural valleys across Nevada and the West, where policymakers and irrigators are looking for new ways to address water overuse.

For decades, irrigators in Smith Valley and elsewhere have pumped groundwater far faster than it could be replenished, causing declines in water storage and depletion of river flows.

Across the state, the declines have prompted officials to threaten shutting off wells — and farmers and communities to engage in costly legal battles. They’ve also given rise to locally based efforts to conserve and test once-unthinkable ideas as solutions to use less water.

It’s one of the main reasons Fulstone, with generational ties to farming in the valley, participated in a pilot program to reduce the amount of groundwater that could be pumped in Smith Valley.

“You don’t want to mine water,” he says. “Number one, we’re in the business for sustainability, and regenerative, sustainable practices mean you want to be able to sustain that aquifer.”

SMITH VALLEY SITS at the western edge of Nevada and the Great Basin, where rivers such as the narrow Walker drain into closed “terminal” lakes. Farming here already faces water stress from a legacy of overuse that has pushed Walker Lake to the ecological brink. Water demand is not only coming from agriculture. Housing and industrial development have created new pressures, too.

Beneath it all are the cumulative effects of groundwater pumping.

Groundwater is what some scientists call a blind resource, making it difficult to manage. With advancements in drilling technology and the proliferation of rural electricity after World War II, groundwater pumping increased dramatically across Nevada and the rural West in the 1950s and ’60s. Facing political and economic pressure, Nevada water officials issued more rights to pump groundwater than was sustainable in many parts of the state. The effects of groundwater overuse were evident even a few years later, but Nevada regulators often avoided taking action to curtail use.

In 2023, the state tried a new approach. It used federal funds to launch a $25 million pilot program to facilitate the purchase and retirement of water rights. It was seen as a win-win, and the demand exceeded expectations. Irrigators, including Fulstone, received compensation for voluntarily giving up groundwater rights — an asset more valuable than land for many farmers — while state water officials achieved a pressing goal of reducing groundwater overuse.

The Walker Basin Conservancy received $4 million to retire groundwater in Smith Valley. The remaining funds went to pilot programs in the Humboldt River Basin, Central Nevada, and Southern Nevada, all areas where conflict over groundwater aquifers has simmered for years.

Where once Fulstone held a permit to apply groundwater to the dry land he showed me, it is now marked on the state’s water rights ledger with the simple abbreviation “RET,” for RETIRED.

Overall, the state has used the federal funds to retire about 22,500 acre-feet of water, roughly the same amount of water Nevada was required to cut from its Colorado River allocation last year.

“Across these different pilot programs, we received significantly more interest than we were anticipating,” says

RUSHING IN Steven Fulstone uses Walker River water.

Brandon Bishop, a program manager at the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which houses the Division of Water Resources and oversaw the program.

There was so much demand that two bills, passed unanimously by the Democratic-controlled Legislature and signed by Republican Governor Joe Lombardo in 2025, allow for the expansion of the program.

Carlie Henneman, water program director at the Walker Basin Conservancy, was shocked by the interest in the pilot program. In the Walker River Basin alone, the conservancy received 16 applications to retire water valued at about $35 million, far exceeding the funding available.

In early September, Henneman gives me a tour of Sutter Ranch, the conservancy’s Smith Valley headquarters, which doubles as demonstration land for nursery facilities, native seed plantings, and restoration projects. The sales surprised her, she says, because “groundwater is a valuable asset, especially in these places where surface water can vary so much from year to year.”

SUTTER RANCH

HOPE SPRINGS

The Walker Basin Conservancy grows native plant seedlings at Sutter Ranch in Smith Valley, where the group is working to develop ntive seeds and nursery stock.

DEMAND FOR RELINQUISHING groundwater was especially high in areas of the state where diminishing supplies have led to conflict over water use. One of those hot spots includes Diamond Valley, where Denise Moyle farms alfalfa. After skepticism and hesitation — and asking many, many questions — Moyle, who farms with her sisters Deanne and Dusty, sold back several groundwater permits to the state.

“It’s been a very positive experience,” Denise says. “We have had neighbors come to us and say, ‘I really wish we would have done it.’”

Denise grew up in Diamond Valley and was appointed the family’s “water person” several years ago as state officials focused on reducing use in the valley, where irrigators pumped more than two times the volume of water set as a sustainable cutoff by the state. In 2015, the state designated Diamond Valley as a Critical Management Area, which required farmers to develop a plan to cut back or face state action — a curtailment of wells through a system that many worried would put many farmers out of business.

The valley’s irrigators ultimately voted on and adopted a groundwater management plan. The plan aims to reduce use through a shares-based system that spreads cuts out over time and includes all the valley’s irrigators. Since the plan was implemented and irrigators have had to operate with tighter budgets, they have looked for ways to reduce

use while keeping land in production, some applying new tools, such as more efficient sprinklers. But when the opportunity came to sell groundwater back to the state for $800 an acre-foot, many applied to participate.

“There are a lot of people looking at that in terms of like, how can I use this to pay down debt,” Denise says. “If I sell a little bit of water and I pay off debt, do I have to farm as hard? Do I have to pump as hard? Do I have to go for three (alfalfa) cuttings? Can I just do two cuttings?

“So those conversations, I think, are starting to pop up around the valley,” she adds.

Farmers, like Fulstone and the Moyles, have found ways to sell a portion of their groundwater rights and still irrigate. Because they have larger operations, they can move around other water rights they own. The Moyles, for instance, used provisions in the Groundwater Management Plan that allowed them to apply water as a credit for having conserved in previous years. When I talk to Denise and Deanne, they’re just starting their last cutting of the season. Although they are looking forward to a break after the growing season (“We’re going into easy street pretty soon, here,” Denise says), they are continuing to invest in — and diversify — the business. They used money from the groundwater buyback to invest in a feed store in Washoe County. Now they have a place to retail their hay.

The program, Deanne says, is a way to not only halt overuse but also ensure “that if there are family farms that want to stay, they’re going to get to stay because the

FLOOD LINES

A wheel line irrigates a field at Sutter Ranch in Smith Valley, where the Walker Basin Conservancy is conducting field trials to cultivate native plants.

people around them will have the opportunity to retire their water versus sell it out to something else that comes in and ruins the area.”

While some farmers have continued to operate through targeted fallowing and becoming more efficient, some used the program to transition away from farming full-time, keeping the land for other uses like dryland grazing, agrivoltaics (the dual use of land for agriculture and solar energy), or as a place to retire in an industry where retirement plans can be a question mark.

In 2024, when I interviewed Leo Damele, who participated in the Diamond Valley buyback program, he told me that if he were 20 years younger, he would not have done it. But because he did not have a family member interested in taking over the operation — and he wanted to keep the land to live on — selling the groundwater rights back to Nevada was a good option.

“It’s a way for the state to get out of a jam that they put themselves in,” he said.

A FEW HOURS AFTER driving around Smith Valley with Fulstone, I meet with Rex Hartwick, an agent for Far West Real Estate. His home office is attached to his house, at the end of a dirt road that runs by the valley’s “heartland.” He tells me to beep loudly when I back up because there are a lot of cats.

DINE IN STYLE

A curated collection of dining destinations await at The Shops at Crystals, including Bazaar Mar by José Andrés, Mastro’s Ocean Club, Toca Madera and more—all in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip. ®

According to Guinness World Records, Madrid’s Sobrino de Botín has been serving meals since 1725, making it the world’s oldest continuously operating restaurant. Las Vegas, by contrast, is known more for reinvention than preservation. Here, the neon never sleeps, buildings come and go, and trends flip with every season.

Las Vegas has always been a city built on bold bets—and not just at the tables. While today’s Strip dazzles with celebrity chefs and global cuisine, the city’s culinary scene had humbler beginnings, shaped by saloons, sandwiches and sheer grit.

Officially founded on May 15, 1905, Las Vegas began as a dusty railroad town, just a mile from an earlier Mormon settlement dating back to 1855. With the arrival of the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, a new boomtown emerged—bringing with it an appetite for entertainment, lodging and something stronger than water.

The city’s first bar is widely believed to be the Arizona Club, which opened that same year. It quickly became a fixture in the fledgling downtown, serving whiskey to thirsty railroad passengers and workers carving out a new life in the Mojave Desert.

Just steps away, the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, also built in 1905, welcomed guests with comfort and excitement. During Prohibition, it even featured a hidden bar, keeping the party alive when the law tried to shut it down. While booze

flowed freely in Vegas’s early days, food was another story.

Before the Strip, before buffets and long before fine dining, meals in Las Vegas were little more than an afterthought. In the early 20th century, culinary offerings were limited to home kitchens, bar-top sandwiches and the occasional boarding house stew. Dining out was a big-city luxury—not for a raw, sunbaked town in the desert.

That began to change in 1931, when two transformative events reshaped Southern Nevada: the legalization of gambling and the start of construction on the Hoover Dam. With new workers flooding into the area, demand for food and drink skyrocketed. While most eateries remained informal, the seeds of a dining culture were slowly being planted.

Even in this ever-changing landscape, a few local legends endure—like one still serving steak and whiskey just off the beaten path.

Located in North Las Vegas, the Hitchin’ Post Saloon & Steakhouse holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the Las Vegas area. Opened in 1948, the Hitchin’ Post is a genuine piece of Old Vegas history—one that predates the Rat Pack era, the megaresorts and even the iconic “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign.

The restaurant, located within the Hitchin’ Post RV Park & Motel, originally catered to road-weary travelers and ranch hands. Today, it remains a family-friendly roadhouse known for hearty portions, rustic charm and an unpretentious atmosphere—a throwback to a time before celebrity chefs and curated tasting menus.

Atomic Liquors first opened as Virginia’s Café in 1945 but transitioned into Atomic Liquors in 1952, obtaining the first tavern license issued in Las Vegas (license No. 00001). The permit allowed the establishment to sell beer, wine and mixed drinks. It’s considered the longest-operating freestanding bar in the city.

The first buffet in Las Vegas debuted at the El Rancho Vegas hotel and casino in

• Bob Taylor’s Ranch House (1955)

• Golden Steer (1958)

FROM THE 1950S TO THE 1970S, these beloved establishments opened and continue to serve Southern Nevada today:

• Italian American Club (1961)

• Jerry’s Nugget (1964)

• Gold Mine Tavern (1965)

• Blueberry Hill (1966)

• Bootlegger Bistro (1972)

• Peppermill (1972)

• Hugo’s Cellar (1973)

• El Torito Café (1975)

ALPINE VILLAGE

the 1940s, helping popularize the now-famous concept.

Few families embody the spirit of Las Vegas hospitality like the Ruvos and the Perrys. For Angie Ruvo, hospitality was second nature—part of her family’s DNA. Her sister, Maria Perry, shared that gift, opening restaurants alongside her husband, Al Perry, and later passing the tradition to their daughter, restaurateur and former Nevada Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt-Bono.

In 1955, Angie and her husband, Lou Ruvo, joined forces with Maria and Al Perry to open the Venetian Pizzeria on Fremont Street, be lieved to be the city’s first pizzeria. A decade later, the families expanded their culinary footprint with the Venetian Ristorante on West Sa hara Avenue. This elegant Italian restaurant became a local favorite from 1966 until its sale in 1997. The restaurant closed in 2003, but its influence lingered.

That legacy resurfaced when Larry Ruvo, Angie and Lou’s son, published  The Venetian Memo ries.  In it, he recalls a pivotal meeting with developer Sheldon Adelson, who was preparing to open The Venetian Resort Las Vegas in 1999. According to Ruvo, the family owned the rights to the “Venetian” name and negotiated a gesture of recognition: a commitment from Adelson to support the creation of the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, in honor of Lou Ruvo.

Today, the original Venetian Ristorante building houses Herbs and Rye, one of the city’s most cel ebrated cocktail lounges, where remnants of the original space—and echoes of its history—remain.

Las Vegas saw its first true desti nation restaurants in the 1950s—not just places to eat, but places to be Not every chapter in Las Vegas’s restaurant history is defined by growth and glamour. In the 1970s, tensions between the Culinary Union Local 226 and several offStrip establishments escalated,

BRIGHT. BREEZY.

WELCOME TO SUMMER HOUSE

An airy escape inspired by the California coast, now open inside Durango Casino & Resort. Savor seasonal dishes, sip West Coast wines, and soak up the sunlight in one of Vegas’s most stunning dining rooms.

OTHER NOTABLE OPENINGS

ROSEWOOD GRILLE & LOBSTER HOUSE (1990–2003), famed for ads featuring a man in a tuxedo holding a giant lobster.

FLEUR BURGER 5000 at Fleur (2005–2023), once Las Vegas’s most expensive burger at $5,000.

JOËL ROBUCHON (opened in 2006), the city’s first Michelin threestar restaurant, with tasting menus up to $800.

GOLDEN OPULENCE SUNDAE at Serendipity 3 (2009–2017), once the world’s most expensive sundae at $1,000.

WALLY’S AT RESORTS WORLD currently offers a $20,000 porterhouse steak, the most expensive in city history.

OTHER CELEBRITY CHEFS THAT HAVE MADE THEIR MARK

NOBU MATSUHISA (Nobu):

• Nobu Restaurant Las Vegas

• Nobu at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas

• Nobu at Paris Las Vegas

MICHAEL MINA:

• Bardot Brasserie

• Bourbon Steak

• Michael Mina

• Orla

• StripSteak

GUY SAVOY:

• Restaurant Guy Savoy

• Brioche by Guy Savoy

KERRY SIMON (the late “Rock ’n’ Roll Chef”):

• Simon Kitchen & Bar

• Prime

• Simon at Palms Place

• Carson Kitchen (Downtown)

culminating in violent incidents that rattled the city’s dining scene.

One of the most infamous targets was the Alpine Village Inn, a Bavarian-themed restaurant on Paradise Road. Known for its schnitzel, fondue and distinctive Alpine décor, the restaurant was packed most nights. That made the events of 1975 even more shocking.

In September of that year, a small bomb exploded in an employee locker room. Three months later, another device detonated on the roof, tearing through the building while more than 400 diners were inside. Miraculously, no one was injured.

The violence continued into 1976. On Jan. 12, a bomb went off at David’s Place, a gourmet restaurant on East Charleston. Another device was discovered—though did not explode—at Starboard Tack on Jan. 24, 1977.

Though unrelated to the labor unrest, another bombing would leave its mark on Las Vegas restaurant lore. On Oct. 4, 1982, mob figure Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal survived a car bombing outside Tony Roma’s on East Sahara Avenue. That location eventually closed, but the Tony Roma’s name lives on at the Fremont Hotel and Casino.

As the 1980s gave way to the 1990s, Las Vegas welcomed its first celebrity chef restaurant: Spago by Wolfgang Puck, which debuted in 1992 and remained open until 2018.

Smith & Wollensky, the first high-end freestanding steakhouse on the Strip, opened in 1998 and relocated to The Grand Canal Shoppes in 2019.

As Las Vegas evolved from a tourist destination into a full-fledged metropolis, its population diversified. Among the fastest-growing groups were Asian and Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander communities, whose influence is now woven into the city’s culinary identity. Las Vegas is home to one of the largest Hawaiian populations outside Hawaii, often referred to as the “Ninth Island.” This culture is felt through food, festivals and a shared sense of aloha across the valley.

In 1995, Taiwanese American developer James Chen opened Chinatown Plaza, which quickly flourished. Unlike organically developed Chinatowns, this was a deliberate commercial venture. Officially designated in 1999, the corridor now features more than

150 restaurants and six Asian supermarkets, offering everything from dim sum to Sichuan hot pot.

In the Arts District, the warm scent of baking bread once wafted from Holsum Bakery. Its weathered sign still towers over the neighborhood. The area’s rebirth began in the late 1990s, when Wes Myles opened The Arts Factory, sparking the transformation of this 18-block downtown enclave into a hub for creativity—and cuisine.

Fueled by the vision and investment of the late Tony Hsieh, Fremont East transformed into a celebrated culinary collective. From all-American fare to Thai street food and wood-fired pizza, the neighborhood keeps locals and visitors coming back.

Meanwhile, Henderson is no longer just Las Vegas’ quiet neighbor. Green Valley offers polished dining near The District at Green Valley Ranch, while the revitalized Water Street is a rising star in Southern Nevada’s food scene.

Summerlin, too, has emerged as a culinary destination. Downtown Summerlin boasts a walkable mix of fast-casual and chef-driven restaurants—a rarity in suburbia—with the Red Rock mountains as its scenic backdrop.

In 2025, Las Vegas’s culinary future is being written not under the chandeliers of casino dining rooms, but in neighborhood kitchens—by chefs who once trained under Joël Robuchon, Gordon Ramsay and Thomas Keller, now launching bold, personal ventures.

Head west on Spring Mountain, south past Blue Diamond, or into the heart of downtown to discover a new kind of Las Vegas—one where every bite tells a story. ✦

BEYOND THE STRIP Downtown Summerlin Delivers Delicious Dining

A vibrant walkable urban destination in the heart of the master planned community of Summerlin®, Downtown Summerlin® is serving up the city’s most tantalizing fare. With over a dozen fine dining and fast causal options to please, it’s a one-stop for all things delicious. Read on for a few favorites worth checking out.

Hungry? Visit  summerlin.com for all the delicious details.

LA NETA COCINA Y LOUNGE

The upscale dining destination offers a modern twist on authentic Mexican cuisine, complimented by a vibrant atmosphere and exceptional service. Whether in the mood for a lively happy hour, a romantic date night or a festive brunch, La Neta Cocina Y Lounge delivers an unforgettable experience.

FRANKIE’S UPTOWN

A local favorite that recreates an iconic old school tavern vibe, Frankie’s boasts the friendliest staff in the neighborhood. From a full bar with signature cocktails and happy hour specials to live music on select nights to their signature Stroll and other must-try eats, you can’t go wrong with a night out at Frankie’s Uptown.

DOWNTOWN

GRAPE STREET CAFÉ & WINE BAR

Boasting a California bistro-style cuisine with Italian and Mediterranean flares, the neighborhood favorite offers a dynamic center bar with a variety of wine, beer and spirits for all to sip, savor and enjoy.

JING

Since opening in 2019, JING Las Vegas has been one of the most recognized and highest rated restaurants in the Valley. Dine on premium steak, seafood, and an extensive wine list prepared by Chef Thomas Griese. The world-class dining destination blends a globally inspired cuisine with a high-energy ambience that starts with dinner and ends with a late-night vibe that’s contagious.

TRATTORIA REGGIANO

Centered around family, friends and tradition, Trattoria Reggiano sources local, responsibly grown ingredients into every entrée. Guests are treated to a true Italian experience in a traditional street-side Trattoria setting.

HARLO STEAKHOUSE & BAR

At Harlo, you’ll enjoy a classically elegant steakhouse with an elevated ambiance for a discerning clientele unlike anything else in Las Vegas. Chef and Partner Gina Marinelli brings her culinary excellence ensuring every dish is expertly curated and beautifully crafted.

JING

HARLO STEAKHOUSE & BAR

GRAPE STREET CAFÉ & WINE BAR

LA NETA COCINA Y LOUNGE

TRATTORIA REGGIANO

Savor the Scene

Situated at the heart of the Strip, Fashion Show Las Vegas offers over 30 dining venues, where flavor and atmosphere take center stage. From global cuisines to comfort food, here are a few favorites worth exploring.

Ruscello

Tucked inside Nordstrom, Ruscello is a hidden gem featuring a true scratch kitchen. Discover standout soups like the Roma Tomato Basil Bisque, flavorful salads like the Wild Salmon Nicoise, and friendly service that keeps locals returning time and again.

Neiman Marcus Café

Enjoy lunch, dessert, or cocktails with amazing views of the Strip, whether inside at the bar or outside on the shaded terrace. This unique and inviting space is also perfect for private events, where you can create a tailored menu for your special occasion.

Galpão Gaúcho

Indulge in an authentic Brazilian rodizio with 18 premium grill selections carved tableside by gaucho chefs, including picanha, ribeye, filet mignon, lamb chops, and the 24-karat Golden Steak. Complement your entrées with a gourmet salad bar, signature sides, and desserts.

El Segundo Sol

Tulum’s laid-back vibe meets hacienda charm on the Strip. Celebrate the vibrant flavors of Mexico with fresh guacamole, signature tacos, sizzling fajitas, famous margaritas, and craft cocktails. Dine al fresco with patio seating or inside for a captivating coastal-inspired oasis.

Happy Camper

From weekend brunch to late-night bites, Happy Camper serves up unbeatable pizza, “happy-tizer” shareables, and endless drinks. Disco balls, neon lights, fire pits, and a vintage camper set the scene for the Strip’s ultimate patio party.

GALPÃO

Thought for Food

Sophisticated bread, community-minded cocktail purveyors, a restaurant rooted in Caribbean history, and other evidence of Las Vegas’ maturing food scene

Bready or Not, Here They Are!

BY Andrew Kiraly

How did bread in Las Vegas get so good? The reigning kings of carbs share their secrets

One October day in 2017, James Trees was tromping through the desert near Kyle Canyon with a plug of sourdough starter and a five-gallon bucket of water. He stopped to tug gray-green leaves off sage bushes here, surgically cull paddles of beavertail cactus there. The chef and owner of Esther’s Kitchen was making bread — or, more fundamentally, formulating the genetic blueprint for what would become the restaurant’s signature sourdough.

“I put the plants into the sourdough, added water to it, stirred it up, and then left it out in the desert overnight,” he says.

This bucket of slurry, impregnated with yeast-dusted valley flora, would eventually find its way to the plates of countless diners in the form of Esther’s renowned sourdough, served by the hearty, chewy half loaf with an array of spreads.

“Hopefully no donkeys peed in it while we left the bucket out overnight,” Trees says, laughing. “The next day we came back, strained it, started it, fed it back to our mother dough, and boom — it was alive. It was kicking, it was bubbling.”

Even with any, ahem, bonus additives, Esther’s sourdough embodies a new era in Las Vegas bread. And the Arts District restaurant has plenty of company when it comes to purveying killer carbs. There’s Café Breizh, with its fresh baguettes that completely fly out the door by early afternoon; there’s Monzú Italian Oven + Bar, serving rustic country loaves made with a centuries-old starter. Excellent restaurant bread has never been so widespread in the valley.

It wasn’t always like this. Any longtime Las Vegan who’s done their share of dining out has a few cringey core memories of what used to be the standard bread service in Las Vegas: a basket of chalky white lumps served with frigid pats of foil-wrapped butter.

How did bread get so good in Las Vegas? Baked into this story is the marriage of traditional techniques, new technology, and more than a bit of madness.

Food for thought

To be fair, it’s not like we’re suddenly reveling in some glittering, wholly new breadaissance after decades of tearing into Dark Age peasant loaves. There’s been good bread in the valley, but it was historically a niche proposition. Longtimers might recall André Rochat’s Savoy Bakery back in the ’70s at Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway, or Albina’s Italian American Bakery on Tropicana and Pecos, or Normandie Country Bakery off Valley View and Desert Inn. (Even Great Buns, still reliably pumping out loaves at an industrial pace on

east Trop, enjoyed a certain esteem.) The bread wasn’t necessarily as obsessively artisanal and methodically sourced as what’s on your plate today, but it was produced with pride and attention.

“There’ve been many people who’ve had the skill set to do great bread, but there just hasn’t been the audience,” says Giovanni Mauro, owner and executive chef of Monzú Italian Oven + Bar. “I believe that the audience is finally here. Their palates have become more expansive, and it made room for people who want to do more artisanal stuff.”

Those artisans would take primary inspiration from the Strip — particularly Alain Ducasse’s Mix at Mandalay Bay (2004) and Joël Robuchon at the MGM Grand (2006). The advent of French fine dining in the tourist corridor brought with it in-house baking programs that would inspire a new generation of bread makers.

“Back in the day when Robuchon opened, I was working at Nob Hill at MGM,” Trees recalls. “Every night they would take all the leftover bread from Robuchon and put it in the employee dining room. So, on my way out, I would walk by and take some. That was great bread, but outside of the hotels, you could not find that product.”

What if you could? Trees was chewing on literal food for thought.

Baked on the Strip

It planted a seed of inspiration in Kamel Guechida, too. For eight years, he served as executive pastry chef for Robuchon’s MGM restaurants — where he focused on pastries and desserts, not bread — but when he joined Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining in 2013 as executive corporate pastry chef, he wanted to raise the bread bar.

“After six or seven months at Spago, I looked at the bread and I said, ‘We have to do something better for our customers.’ We started with a classic ciabatta. Wolfgang came and looked and said, ‘Wow, your bread is excellent. Where did you buy it?’ I said, ‘No, we make it all ourselves.’” Puck loved it so much he charged Guechida with creating a scratch-made bread program for all the Puck properties. Now he travels more than 200 days a year, overseeing everything bread in Puck’s culinary empire.

Guechida’s home base is 1228 Main, where we meet on a weekday morning for coffee and an array of carbs — freshly sliced bread smeared with butter; a crème brûlée pastry whose crispy, flared shell cradles the creamy custard; pain au chocolat that delivers a flutter of decadent pleasure; and buttery, gently flaky croissants.

“Look at the layers; that’s perfect lamination,” Guechida says as I tear into the croissant. Lamination is the precision art of properly buttering the folded layers of dough before baking. “You can see how light it is. That’s mastery.”

1228 Main has a kind of secret origin story: It was initially conceived not as a full-blown restaurant, but as a commissary. That is, it was intended as a production center serving 20 valley restaurants with Puck’s breads and pastries. The original idea was for a small café and pastry case up front, a modest walk-in access node for the industriously clamorous, bustling bread operation they’ve got going in the back. The point is that a Strip-born bread mandate is what built the ostensibly local 1228 Main.

Guechida brings to it artistic discipline, focus, and, yes, even a sense of honor to the operation. 1228 Main’s house menu of bread is generally limited to six varieties, to ensure that the team remains focused on quality instead of quantity (while the commissary bakes everything from burger buns for Flanker to a custom blue-cheese brioche for Capital Grille). This might make Guechida sound like something of a tradition-bound stiff, which he most decidedly isn’t. He leavens 1228’s pastry program with a spirit of culinary curiosity and a game understanding that food trends are not only a fact of business, but also an opportunity to give people what they want — on Wolfgang Puck’s terms of quality. For instance, jaded diners have probably long written off the TikTok-fueled craze over Dubai chocolate — those sweet wafers layered with strata of pistachio and knafeh — as gauche and overbearing, but Guechida took on the project of making a dark-chocolate 1228 version that is sweet but stately.

French connections

Chef Pierre Gatel bursts through the kitchen doors bearing a plate of heaven: sliced rounds of baguette topped with pinky-thick slabs of brie. Now, “fresh from the oven” doesn’t have much oomph these days, flogged into inertia by epochs of assaultive marketing. If there’s a primal experience that can give that phrase a factory reset, it’s eating a baguette from Café Breizh. We chomp into these cheese-loaded discs — crazily cratered like sponges, a telltale sign of peak baguette goodness — that simultaneously crunch, smoosh, and ooze, with a festive spray of crumbs as a pleasing coda.

“It’s very pleasant, isn’t it?” Gatel says. “You have that crunchy crust that is giving you a very different texture from the soft interior. … A baguette from the oven is the

best thing ever. But every hour that passes, it depreciates in quality. Sometimes people come in and want to buy a baguette, but they say, ‘I’m not going to eat it today.’ Well then, come back in two days. You have to make an appointment with the baguette!”

The 120 baguettes Gatel produces every day are the headliners on a menu that includes everything from rustic loaves to kouign-amann, a rich but refined puff pastry crackling with caramelized sugar.

Formerly the executive pastry chef for Wynn Las Vegas, Gatel got an entrepreneurial itch and opened Café Breizh in

2017. His Strip fine-dining pedigree is also backed with family tradition: His father and his grandfather were both bakers in France; their portraits peer from the walls of Gatel’s Summerlin café, whose default setting is “convivially buzzing.”

The high standards of the hospitality world and familial pride compelled him to pursue a vision of quality with few compromises. When he decided to open Café Breizh, he sourced some of the best ingredients available — such as King Arthur flour from Vermont, praised by pros for its consistency — not to mention a $350,000-

Café Breizh

plus investment in state-of-the-art kitchen equipment.

Over at Florentine Café & Bakery on Blue Diamond and Rainbow, chef Roman Ritz — who worked under Gatel — performs a balancing act between two traditions. “I would say our motto is ‘the discipline of France and the flavor of Italy.’ I’ve worked in French kitchens, and I’ve seen how strict they are. But then I studied for a month in Napoli. In Italy, they’re very lackadaisical, smoking while mixing with their hands, but the stuff tastes really good. So, imagine if you can make things taste that good, but also with the strong discipline of France. That’s what I go for. It’s like French people making Italian pastries.”

Tech meets tradition

The phrase “artisanal bread” typically conjures sepia-toned scenes of muscular hands massaging dough with tender aggression, but our good bread fortune in Vegas is also the happy product of specialized technology, from temperature-controlled proofing cases to steam-injected deck ovens to finely calibrated industrial mixers. Technology has opened up new levels of efficiency, volume, and scale — allowing Esther’s to pump out 1,500 sourdough loaves a week, for example. But it’s also unlocked higher tiers of quality, too — think Old World values meet Brave New Bread Tech.

At Bar Boheme, Trees’ nouveau French restaurant that opened this summer, the already-buzzed-about baguettes are the product of a dogmatic devotion to quality, a respect for tradition, and pure industrial kitchen might. They’re made with organic T65 flour (a measure of its refinement) from France — conferring on the baguettes an official designation as “Parisian” — and undergo a 16-hour cold ferment. Jake Yergensen, Esther’s corporate executive pastry chef, says he even flew in French pastry experts to train him in the art of what might be called baguette whispering.

“There’s knowledge I had never heard of, like they talk about sounds the dough makes at certain stages when it’s in the mixer. You really have to pay attention.”

But the venerable craft also entails the deployment of a $9,800 baguette roller. “The average independent restaurant with a normal kitchen is not capable of producing this artisanal bread,” Yergensen says. “They don’t have the right ovens or setup,

or the space needed. We’re pretty unique in having this in-house bread program.”

Yeast mode

I’m having a staring contest with a 300-year-old entity that looks like a bucket of mashed potatoes. Meet the sourdough starter that produces Giovanni Mauro’s entire array of breads, from the chunky country loaves at Monzú to the chewy garlic knots at Old School Pizzeria. “That’s the mother dough,” Mauro says with admiration. “There are elements of a 300-year-old culture in there. We’ve been babying this for 23 years now.”

Mauro developed this starter himself, blending a yeast from the Neapolitan island of Ischia with yeast sourced from apricots at Quail Hollow Farm in Moapa, making a base bread flavor boasting a complex, buttery nuttiness.

“Twenty years ago, I got in my head wondering about how my grandparents and great-grandparents in Sicily made bread,” Mauro explains. “I started with

flour, getting ones that aren’t bleached or bromated (an additive ‘improver’). Then I became obsessed with natural starters, and it literally took me five years to get my recipe down. Then I studied what grain looks like, what whole wheat means, the different layers of the bran, and the actual berry.”

It’s another crucial ingredient that explains Vegas’ great carb comeback: a healthy dose of obsession about quality. It paid off for Mauro, whose Monzú is perpetually acclaimed and whose Old School Pizzeria now boasts three locations.

You might say that obsession is happily fermenting into the public at large: At 1228 Main, customers can become bread makers themselves at the restaurant’s popular baking classes that take place twice a month. At Esther’s, Yergensen says hiring bakers used to be a tough sell. Not anymore.

“Now people are really diving in and taking it on as a passion,” he says. “There are just a lot more bread nerds out there now.” ✦

Esther’s Kitchen sourdough

Serving Delicious Resilience

New Caribbean steakhouse Maroon will offer an important history lesson, a cultural experience, and food by an award-winning chef

BY Lorraine Blanco Moss

We’re told to enjoy the journey, but what if that journey is thrust upon you? What if it means leaving your home — all you know and cherish — behind? Would you try to save something meaningful or practical?

The Maroons did both, says Christopher Willoughby, assistant professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at UNLV. Africans in the Americas who escaped slavery and formed new communities, Maroons used creative methods to maintain their culture, such as hiding ancient rice in their braids during the harrowing transatlantic passage.

“This was an effort to preserve this life-sustaining grain that was so central to West African cuisine,” Willoughby says. “It would become central not only to plantation economies of the Americas, but also in the sustenance of Maroon societies.”

For chef Kwame Onwuachi, this legacy of adaptation and resilience provides the inspiration for his upcoming Caribbean steakhouse, Maroon, at Sahara Las Vegas. Expected to open this winter, it will be his first restaurant beyond the East Coast, where his restaurants Tatiana (New York City)and Dōgon (Washington, D.C.) have attracted serious attention.

Onwuachi hopes Maroon will tell the story of his unique experience. “There are people who come to Las Vegas that are Caribbean, people of color, or people even just seeking that food,” he says. “You’ll be able to celebrate a special experience while celebrating your culture. (Vegas) is

a special-experience place. It’s a revolving door of people coming in and out.”

Maroon will be the Strip’s first major restaurant owned and helmed by a Black chef, introducing the boulevard to the breadth of African diasporic cuisine. “I try not to get lost in that sauce,” Onwuachi says. “The most important part about being first is to make sure you’re not the last. Being given this opportunity should be a beacon of light for other operators. That’s what it’s about.”

The restaurant’s mere presence on the Strip sends a wider message, Willoughby says. “It’s a global and national stage for food prominence. The Strip attracts the world’s most famous, most well-regarded restaurateurs. And so, having one Black chef-owner there, although we need more, puts African diaspora food on a prominent global stage and says it deserves to be there.”

And Onwuachi isn’t just breaking new ground in a culinary sense. He’s doing it in a community sense, as well. ***

On a September afternoon, Onwuachi tours Three Square Food Bank, a stop on his restaurant research and development tour of Southern Nevada. Walking through warehouses packed with necessities, the James Beard Award-winning chef talks about why this visit is important to him. The tour is research to inform how he and his restaurant may be able to help in the future.

“I think people who care get things done,” he says. “People who care think about the details. If you’re thinking ethi-

cally, you’re thinking about the community. You’re thinking about food insecurity. You’re thinking about your staff. These are just the right things to do.”

The latest Map and Meal Gap Study conducted by Feeding America reveals about 16 percent of Clark County residents are food insecure. That’s more than 377,000 people, including more than 113,000 children — or one in five kids in our community.

But community outreach is not something restaurateurs often do. Three Square’s event marketing manager, Will Edwards, says he can’t recall this kind of early interest — ever. “This gesture from chef Kwame, coming up even before his restaurant is opening. … I’ve been with Three Square for seven years. This is the first time. It speaks volumes of chef Kwame and how he wants to plant some roots in Las Vegas. It gives us another individual with another audience, a big audience who can hear this message.”

Because of deep federal cuts, Southern Nevada’s biggest food bank is expecting a gap of up to 5 million pounds of food. Edwards says they’re doing all they can to address the shortfall.

“One thing we’ve learned from the pandemic is to be ready all the time. There are several plans in place. I think we’re ready no matter what happens, but we always need food to give out. We do need assistance.”

Onwuachi’s desire to learn and take action is a major reason executives of Sahara Las Vegas say they’re proud to partner with him, one of Time’s 100 Most Influential

People of 2025. Derek Morishita, vice president of food and beverage for Sahara Las Vegas, says, “It’s a true testament to who chef Kwame is as a person and the importance of genuinely engaging with the local community here in Southern Nevada was something he emphasized to us from the beginning.”

Although Onwuachi’s New York and Washington, D.C., restaurants continue to receive prestigious accolades (Dōgon was just named number 37 on North America’s 50 Best Restaurants list), both the chef and the hotel hope this local tour will spark new ideas.

“Even though both Tatiana and Dōgon are incredibly successful, he doesn’t want to copy and paste,” Morishita says. “The Maroon menu will be a true reflection of his extensive research and commitment to this community.”

Maroon will occupy the former space of Bazaar Meat, another unconventional steakhouse by another trailblazing chef, José Andrés. After more than a decade at Sahara, the Spanish meat emporium has moved to Palazzo. “I feel good to be able to follow in those footsteps,” Onwuachi says.

At Maroon, expect diverse flavors, food inspired by Onwuachi’s family background

— Jamaican, Nigerian, Trinidadian, and Creole cuisine from Louisiana. He says he’s been cooking since he was 5 years old; he helped his mother with her catering company growing up, then cooked professionally at spots across the country, and began opening restaurants in his twenties. Maroon will reflect those experiences and highlight his ancestors, the descendants of enslaved Africans who found freedom in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Because jerk seasoning originated in Jamaica and was developed by the Maroons, diners can look forward to spicy jerk rubs and warm Caribbean scotch bonnet pepper

Chef Kwame Onwuachi

sauces. Food historians believe “jerk” comes from the Spanish word “charqui” meaning “dried meat.” Maroon will feature dry-aged meats and grilled seafood cooked over a live fire, not unlike early Africans in the Caribbean — who smoked proteins to preserve and flavor their meats.

“Caribbean food is incredibly nuanced,” Onwuachi says. “It’s a story of what happened in that region. That’s the beauty of iconic dishes. It’s a snapshot in time, a snapshot in history. If you pull back the layers in each flavor and ingredient, you can see who was there.”

Coincidentally, UNLV is offering a course about the history of food in the African diaspora. Professor Willoughby says Maroon culture is one of his favorite subjects to talk about in class. “When I teach my students

Untasted Heritage

Why doesn’t Las Vegas have more Basque dining options?

BY Elijah Dulay

Last spring, the Nevada Legislature named Picon Punch, a Basque American cocktail, the official drink of the Silver State. Visitors to Nevada’s largest city — and many locals, for that matter — who are aware of this news, as well as the state’s history, might expect to find an authentic Basque restaurant here, but none exist.

While some Spanish restaurants have dishes inspired by Basque cuisine, not one dining establishment is dedicated to it. This is confusing since our food scene offers many worldwide cuisines. But there are reasons.

“Even though Reno and Las Vegas are within the boundaries of the same state, we are super culturally different and super climatically different,” says Vegas-based

about the history of slavery, they often know very little about Africans who went to other parts of the Americas, the foods they made, the cultures they formed,” he says. “I think in situating an Afro-Caribbean restaurant rooted in the kind of tradition of resistance of Marooning, we will really see the diversity of the African diaspora captured.”

Willoughby believes Onwuachi’s restaurant is a critical first step in centering a Black voice, a chance to tell a different kind of story of the African diaspora that will be unfamiliar to most American and international diners. “There are many different Black experiences in the Americas, many different Black food cultures,” he says.

He adds that it’s paramount in our community because of the city’s history. “Las Vegas was for the western United States

culinary historian and author Sarah Lohman (her latest is Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Food).

Basques originally came to the state to herd sheep in northern Nevada, Lohman explains. That area has been known as the center of Basque culture. Lohman cites Southern Nevada’s unsuitable sheep-raising weather as a major reason Basques didn’t establish their culture here. “There are really just a handful of these restaurants left,” she says. “We’re talking about an immigration that’s a little over 100 years old. So, we don’t have any con-

notoriously slow to embrace integration, to respond to the challenges of the Civil Rights Movement. From that perspective, it being 2025, it being so late, it’s important Las Vegas makes this hurdle.”

Onwuachi says he’s excited to honor his heritage and give the Strip not just what it wants, but what he thinks it needs “by making it a safe space for everybody, a place of exploration, a place of celebration, a place of familiarity, a place of newfound favorites. I want it to be something like Las Vegas has never seen.”

Like the Maroons, he’s challenging the system and providing a platform for a vital part of Caribbean culture. “There’s a lot to unpack there,” Onwuachi says, “but at the end of the day, we’re just going to serve delicious food.” ✦

nection back to those original immigrants. The spaces that still exist in northern Nevada and in Idaho are connected to those older generations.”

Among the few influences of Basque culture here is the Lagun Onak Basque Club. “Before I got here, there were no Basque people at all,” says Javier Yarza, a founding member.

Yarza is originally from the town of Beasain in Spain’s Basque Country. He came here in January 1974 to play jai alai, a traditional Basque sport, at the old MGM (now Bally’s). After that, he worked as a card dealer for many years.

“Now there are only about 10 of us that are here out of 40 or 50 players,” Yarza says.

When the jai alai fronton closed in the early 1980s, most of the players returned to Basque Country. Meanwhile, Yarza became friends with a fellow Nevada Basque, Jose Mari Beristain.

Yarza says Beristain had the idea of uniting the Basques who remained. The pair founded the Lagun Onak Basque Club in 1980 (the name means “good friends” in the Basque language). Beristain served as its

president until he died in 2021.

“It’s nothing like Reno or Elko,” Yarza says. “Our community here is very small. That’s why you don’t see a Basque restaurant …”

The only time he remembers Vegas having a Basque restaurant was in the 1990s, when, he says, a former jai alai player opened one near the Strip. “He was an excellent cook,” Yarza recalls. “But the restaurant only lasted a year or two.”

Yarza says the club’s meetings usually start with Basque chorizo sandwiches and baby back ribs cooked on a grill or barbecue. A paella is served next, packed with seafood — calamari rings, scallops, onions, mussels, clams, plenty of shrimp. The meal concludes with cake and coffee.

Yarza says he and others all hope a Basque restaurant will open in the valley one day.

“I think people learned who we were after all those Basque festivals,” Yarza says. “When we first came here, no one knew who we were or where we were from. I think people these days have more knowledge about the Basque people because of what we did.” ✦

The Basque American cocktail, Picon Punch

Meat

Ultimate Tasting Menu

The Vegas Dish

New chefs, dishes, and spots to try around the valley

BY Lorraine Blanco Moss

Ay Ay Ay! Mexican Cuisine

It took a minute to get seated at Ay Ay Ay! Mexican Cuisine — the place was packed — but this Henderson hot spot was worth the wait: We were floored by the ceviche de camaron, and the creamy lobster enchiladas

were delicious, too. ayayaymexicancuisinelv.com

Bazaar Meat

After more than a decade at the Sahara, Bazaar Meat by José Andrés has reopened at Palazzo, and it’s better than ever. (Trust me, I helped open the first edition.) Expect the same stunning selection of steaks and the city’s best tartars, plus something the original didn’t have: full plated desserts. Try the baba queimada, a tableside masterpiece of fluffy rum-soaked cake and brown butter ice cream. thebazaar.com

Bar Boheme

A modern French bistro celebrating the Belle Epoque

in the Arts District? The idea is inspired, and so is the execution. Savor the mussels with white wine and tarragon mustard. Taste the perfect trout amandine — delicate, brown buttery, and balanced with lemon. I can’t wait to try the rest of the menu. barbohemelv.com

Nonna’s Pasta Club

Why just taste it when you can also make it — with help from a pasta professional?

Chef Gina Marinelli is offering Nonna’s Pasta Club once a month at La Strega. For $100 a person, you can put your hands in the dough, learn how to shape and cut corzetti and cavatelli, and enjoy all the carbs from

class. You even get to take home a goodie bag filled with pasta and recipe cards. lastregalv.com

Chamon Las Vegas

If tempura tempts your tastebuds, get to Chamon on Spring Mountain. It’s the area’s first authentic tendon spot, serving a beloved Japanese dish that combines crispy tempura and steamed rice topped with a sweet and savory broth-based sauce. In addition to delicious shrimp and various veggies, meat lovers must try the A5 Wagyu steak bowl. Its meltin-your-mouth marbling packs an umami punch you’ll keep thinking about long after you’re done. monrestaurantgroup.com ✦

Bazaar

It’s Cocktail Hour in the Arts District

Downtown is seeing a cocktail bar renaissance built on mutual support and an old Vegas vibe

BY Lissa Townsend Rodgers

“People are looking for more of a locals’ scene,” says Jen Taler, a partner in Dustland, one of the new bars in the Arts District.

“I’ve seen a huge shift and change, especially over this past year. As more things open, more people will come down here.”

Initially known for mechanics’ garages and metal shops, the neighborhood became home to a cluster of art galleries and studio spaces in the early 2000s. More recently, those have given way to craft breweries

and vintage stores. Now, a batch of cocktail bars have sprung up, creating their own community within the neighborhood as locals and industry veterans come together to build their own businesses — and support one another’s.

“I believe that Vegas is very collaborative,” Taler says. “There’s been competition, but for the most part, I feel like we’ve come together and lifted each other up.”

Dustland feels casually thrown together, yet meticulously designed: speckled

tiles in geometric patterns, niches with taxidermized armadillos, a player piano in the corner, and a vintage photo booth by the backyard door. The team built or sourced almost everything, buying objects such as glassware and check covers from local small businesses. Bar manager Kat Calma created the drink menu with the same thoughtfulness.

“We wanted flavorings that kind of embrace our own cultures,” partner Roxy Hendrickson says. “Kat is Filipino, I’m

Mexican, what Jen grew up with in Texas. And we wanted to celebrate small-batch and local makers.” Along with the products of other local distilleries and breweries, Dustland collaborates with Juxta Nomad to create a new beer every season.

If Dustland has a Joshua Tree/Pioneertown feel, then Audio Bar takes its desert inspiration from Burning Man and EDC. A photomural of a rave crowd and an elevated central DJ booth create a bar-club hybrid, with a side of restaurant that’s open dayto-night. There’s weekend brunch, where kids run around the outdoor cornhole game

while their parents sip on Bloody Marys garnished with mini breakfast burritos.

Even the godfather of the 18b food scene, James Trees, has added bars to his restaurants. Petite Bohème is the petite soeur to his Bar Bohème restaurant, ideal for a pre-meal aperitif or post-dinner nightcap. The back-alley entrance unfolds

to multiple patios surrounding a lounge, where graffitied walls and a ’90s hip-hop soundtrack invite you to linger over a mescal-amaro cocktail with a snack of roasted chickpeas.

The Stadium is the neighborhood’s only full-on, sound-on, wings ’n’ beer sports bar. “We could not be happier to see the new developments and the additions coming this way. It has been a long overdue process,” co-owner Marissa Pretkus says. “We are adding a completely different element to elevate the already wonderful aspects of our neighborhood.” A nearly life-size mural of a Golden Knights crowd extends from the front window to the backdoor, while TV screens line the wall behind the bar.

Also on the busy strip of Main Street, ECHO Taste & Sound is veteran downtown chef Natalie Young’s newest project, combining food, cocktails, and music in a “listening room.” The golden wood finishes, amber stone bartop, and displays of gleaming midcentury barware give the space a glow, which is heightened by the top-shelf sound system playing vintage vinyl or supporting live jazz combos. The luxe-casual vibe extends to the menu, with caviar potato chips or Wagyu skewers

Doberman Drawing Room

Dustland mixologist

Kat Calma

served alongside cocktails named after classic tunes.

Created by the team behind Stray Pirate, Prowl’s decor gives off jungle vibes, not just in the lush foliage sense, but also in the ’60s and ’70s singles-bar sense. (The Elvis jungle room combines the two.) Black panthers lurk along the walls, and a midnight-blue ceiling twinkles with LED “fireflies.” The names of the cocktails combine the gimmicky and the sexy — Naked and Afraid, anyone? — but are crafted with ingredients such as house-made ginger beer and pepita orgeat.

“People come here, and we can tell them, ‘Go check out Prowl. Go check out Liquid Diet.’ And they do the same for us,” says Arron Cappello, co-owner of Nocturno. “We all have something unique that we offer.” Nocturno adds a rare combination of upscale lounge and regulars hang to the Arts District mix, with a comfortable, low-lit room dominated both visually and audibly by a wall of vinyl ranging from Chet Baker to MF Doom to Chappel Roan.

But the space is just a backdrop for the service and the menu. Nocturno offers a selection of small plates created by co-owner (and James Beard nominee) DJ Flores, such as pork trotter croquettes and seabass crudo. And then there are the menus — illustrated books of cocktails — which bar manager Lu Lopez says were inspired by the detailed menus of Cuba’s Prohibition-era bars.

“All the signatures, the classics, and the flavor profiles are on the front two pages,” he explains, “then you see the history of the negroni, daiquiri, Alexander. You see where it came from, who made it, what book it was first featured in — all our recipes and then variations on those classics. It’s approachable to the person who wants to order a quick drink or somebody who’s really a connoisseur and loves to experience and learn the history of cocktails.”

This approachability is a big part of the growth of the Arts District. It offers the warm welcome and wide variety that people once associated with Las Vegas and now miss on the Strip.

“I feel like the ties of everybody have grown very close since we’ve been here,” Cappello says, adding that both the bar and the community “would only work in a place like the Arts District, (where) you’re surrounded by like-minded people who want an area to flourish and grow, but also keep the neighborhood what it is.” ✦

DTLV bar guide

1 Audio Bar

The DJ booth and the techno beats it bangs out power this day/night, indoor/outdoor spot. 1020 S. First St.

2 Nocturno Unique small plates and customized cocktails at this mix of chic lounge and neighborhood hang. 1017 S. First St. nocturnovegas.com

1301 S. Main St. echotastesound.com

5 Prowl Moody lighting and plush seating create a sultry setting in this jungle-themed lounge. 1323 S. Commerce St. prowllv.com

6 Petite Boheme

The alley location and graffiti walls are giving garage, but the polished cocktail menu vibes upscale kitchen. 1407 S. Main St. petiteboheme-lv.com

7 Dark Sister

Apothecary-style libations poured in a lounge bedecked with bowers of flowers and suits of armor. 1410 S. Main St. darksisterlv.com

8 Liquid Diet

The bar that kicked off the new cocktail wave offers a mix of sweet, spicy, and savory on its unique menu. instagram.com/ liquid.diet.dtlv

9 Dustland

3 Doberman Drawing Room

A massive chandelier and walls of taxidermy are a backdrop for elegant cocktails. 1025 S. First St. dobermandtlv.com

4 ECHO - Taste & Sound

A fine vinyl collection shares top billing with curated food and drink menus.

Ochre tints, mid-century angles, and a unique collection of drinks and brews bring high desert vibes to downtown. 1433 S. Commerce St. thedustlandbar.com

10 Stadium Golden Knights? Aces? Raiders? Get your team on at the Arts District’s cozy, chill sports bar. 1508 S. Main St.

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CONDUIT TO WEALTH

CONTINUED FROM PG. 61

Environmentalists acknowledge this tension. “I fully understand that I use phones, and I drive cars, and I use computers, and I create the demand, too,” says the Great Basin Water Network’s Roerink. “This is our challenge as it relates to copper, as it relates to lithium and even gold.”

I requested an interview with Hudbay Minerals but didn’t get a response. I wanted to visit an active copper mine and had planned to visit the state’s largest, the Robinson Mine near Ely. But after we agreed on a tour, John Haynes, a spokesperson for the mine’s Polish parent company, KGHM, wrote to me in an email, “We will not host you at site nor provide an interview as requested.”

The Nevada Mining Association’s Hilton affirms Rockwell’s assessment that demand for copper isn’t likely to slow. “Copper has been produced for thousands and thousands of years,” she says. “It’s been mined in the state of Nevada for over 150 years. The green energy transition is just another layer of where the copper demand is coming from.”

She called Nevada’s mine reclamation regulations “world class” and says the state’s mining industry aims to be sustainable. “All of our mine sites across the state of Nevada are working on minimizing their water usage, recycling their water usage, and making sure that they are optimizing every gallon of water,” she says.

SO, WHAT ARE we supposed to do? The year 2024 was the hottest on record. The year before that was the hottest on record. We need copper for solar panels, for electric vehicles, to stop our planet from getting even hotter — or at least, to slow the heat.

But copper extraction has its own cost, and a mine’s legacy long outlives its actual life. “That’s a problem with a lot of copper mines,” says Glenn Miller, emeritus professor of environmental science at UNR. “When people walk away from them, when they aren’t profitable. That’s when the real problems start.”

He emphasizes that acid can drain from large heaps of extracted copper when it rains. Another issue, he says, is general disturbance of the land.

“A lot of the copper mines that are deep have open pit mines that fill with water, and that water can be horrendously bad,” Miller says.

“My assumption is, most of this will just be wiped clear. It’ll all be graded out for parts of their project. ”

— Leslie Sonne, co-founder of Citizens to Protect Smith Valley

I want to see what “horrendously bad” water looks like, so I end my drive with Sonne and Harker, from the Citizens to Protect Smith Valley, at the Anaconda copper mine near Yerington. Anaconda stopped mining copper in 1978. In 2000, the company abandoned the site without properly closing it. The Environmental Protection Agency designated it a Superfund site, meaning it’s a priority for cleanup.

We see signs posted along a barbed wire fence that read, “Danger, unsafe mine.”

“It’s like a different planet,” Sonne says.

“It just looks like a barren landscape,” Harker adds. “Nothing will grow on it. You might as well be on the moon.”

We arrive at the pit, where, decades ago, miners dug for copper. There, water from the aquifer, that deep groundwater that mining companies remove so they can get the rock, has naturally risen back. The water is dark, with light edges — pollen, Sonne speculates. Birds swoop — swallows, Harker says.

If you didn’t know what you were looking at, I tell them, you might just think it’s a peaceful lake.

Sonne considers this. “I’ve been over here at times when it’s almost more teal in color depending on the sky and the clouds,” she says. “But what are you going to do with it?”

That beautiful blue water is contaminated — with arsenic, zinc, mercury, lead, manganese, and who knows how many other byproducts from all those decades ago.

In 2018, the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection started working with Atlantic Richfield Company, the mine’s former owner, who’s responsible for cleaning up the site. The EPA is still involved, because of the potential impact on the Yerington Paiutes’ tribal lands. NDEP, as it’s called, presented a cleanup plan in 2020, but it’s been a slow process. The mine is expected to close in 2029, but the Bureau of Land Management is considering selling the public land in and around the former mine site back to the company.

The move worries environmentalists, who believe such a sale would end oversight of the mine cleanup.

And so, Sonne’s question remains: What, in the end, can we do with it? ✦

PERSON ALLY

CONTINUED FROM PG. 64

on the global rights of nature movement. O’Donnell says those rights can be a “powerful transformative process to shift human relationships with rivers,” but also a “sword that can cut both ways” by inciting legal backlash, especially in the U.S.

O’Donnell cites a 2019 case in which the city of Toledo, Ohio, established a “bill of rights” for Lake Erie, and was promptly sued by a farming corporation. Not long after, the bill of rights was struck down in court for being “unconstitutionally vague.”

“We have seen significant backlash in the United States,” O’Donnell says. “A real rejection of the idea that nature should have rights, and a kind of fearbased reaction that says, ‘I’m going to sue to dismantle these rights and make them invalid before they can be weaponized against me.’”

O’Donnell says that tribal rights of nature declarations are often perceived differently, though, because they are focused on humans’ relationship with nature, not just legal rights. In cases like CRIT’s, she says, granting legal personhood to a river can start to change the way that people outside the river think about its water and health.

“The most successful examples of rights

of nature around the world have been the ones that are Indigenous-led,” O’Donnell says. “They tend to be the ones that get less backlash. Not necessarily no backlash, but certainly a lot less.”

New Zealand’s Whanganui River, which directly inspired CRIT’s legal push, O’Donnell says, is “an outstanding example of almost no backlash.”

The biggest questions about how CRIT’s declaration will play out have to do with how the river’s new rights will be deployed in court.

The Colorado River will only have legal personhood under CRIT tribal law, which only applies to the water that it has the legal right to use and lease.

So, if a faraway water user, outside of tribal land, does something to the river that impacts the stretch running through CRIT’s land, can they be sued? O’Donnell says that it depends a lot on how the new law is written.

Bezdek says CRIT does not plan to use legal personhood status to go after a person or entity that is harming the river outside of tribal lands, which would fall outside of tribal law.

But, O’Donnell says, creating legal personhood for the Colorado River could leave the door open to lawsuits. Another case in the U.S. gives us clues about how that might play out.

In 2018, the White Earth Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota recognized the rights of manoomin, or wild rice. Courts have mostly interpreted those protections narrowly and haven’t held faraway entities liable for harm to the water rice needs to grow. That example, O’Donnell says, shows it would be difficult for similar cases on the Colorado River to succeed.

HOW CRIT’S PLANS will shape the broader debate over the future of the Colorado River remains to be seen. Tribes have largely been excluded from negotiations about sharing its water. Many of them have directly called for greater inclusion in today’s talks. For the most part, tribes still do not have a formal role in the state and federal discussions that will shape the river’s next chapter.

A personhood declaration may not directly change that, but one tribal law expert says it’s worth trying anyway.

“We have to recognize that what has happened to date hasn’t really worked, but the river is still in decline,” says Heather Tanana, a member of the Navajo Nation

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and a law professor at the University of Denver. “We’re still over allocating and over using, so turning to new ideas, new tools, definitely should be explored, and rights of nature is one of those.”

Tanana says rights of nature can change the way people think about the natural world at a time when the Colorado River faces complicated, unprecedented challenges.

Only one tribe in the U.S. has succeeded in giving rights of nature to a river. The Yurok tribe secured legal personhood for the Klamath River, which runs through Oregon and California. Amy Bowers Cordalis, a Yurok member and lawyer for the tribe, says it was a “100 percent good idea” for CRIT to pursue legal personhood.

“Tribal rights of nature is a really important step in bringing social, economic, and environmental justice to tribes,” Cordalis says. “Because it is a declaration of the tribe’s relationships with the natural environment. It’s a critical step into bringing those values and rights into modern U.S. law.”

Cordalis says the Yurok Tribe’s personhood declaration has had impacts outside of the courtroom. Putting tribal wisdom and ecosystem health at the forefront of decision-making gave people “tremendous hope.”

“However CRIT decides to approach this,” Cordalis says, “if it’s consistent with their values, their sovereignty, the future they want to create, then it is a positive step in the right direction.”

While rights o f nature may be a modern legal tool, the values they represent go back generations.

Dillon Esquerra, CRIT’s water resources director, stands amid the tall reeds and grasses of the ‘Ahakhav Tribal Preserve, a backwater of the Colorado River, where native plants and animals thrive across more than 1,200 acres of protected habitat. In the background, birds chirp and coo. Under the water’s surface, fish flit in and out of clustered aquatic plants.

“As far as I’m concerned we’ve always looked at the river as a person. It’s an entity,” Esquerra says. “It’s what we rely on to survive, you know. It is a person to us. It’s a living, breathing person.” ✦

This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.

WELL INTO THE FUTURE CONTINUED FROM PG. 67

Hartwick is a full-time hay buyer for an export company, in addition to his job selling water and land as a real estate agent. As part of the pilot program, he facilitated a groundwater retirement deal for clients who needed to sell their water rights so they could dissolve an estate in Smith Valley.

According to Hartwick, there is an active market for groundwater in Smith Valley. To subdivide land for new homes, developers must bring water to the table. “Two, three years ago, the water was selling for $2,500 per acre-foot,” he says. “Now, the state came in and paid $3,500 an acre-foot and kind of set the price. Now, people who have it are asking for $4,000, so it’s pushing the price up.”

Given the high cost of water in some overtapped basins across Nevada, questions remain about who will fund the water rights retirement program, now that this year’s legislation has extended it. And the state has other options to reduce use beyond using public funds to buy back water. Existing law allows regulators to curtail water rights using a first-come, first-served priority system. While water rights are a form of property, they can only be used on the condition that water is available.

It’s an approach the state tried once in the Walker River before. In 2015, the state tried to cut off wells and curtail groundwater use. As Hartwick puts it, farmers “were fiercely opposed.” The courts struck down the effort, but for irrigators, the threat of curtailment looms.

The 2025 legislation provided no state funding for future transactions, although it did contemplate accepting donations and federal funding. Such funding could target a specific area or ecosystem in need of protection from groundwater overuse, says Laurel Saito, Nevada water strategy director for the Nature Conservancy, which supports the buyback program. But state funding, she adds, would help to raise matching federal dollars and maximize the program’s value.

“We are the driest state in the nation,” Saito says. “If we use up all our groundwater, we’re not going to be in very good shape. If we really want to think about the population, the economy of the state moving forward, we need to figure out a way to make sure there’s enough water.

And this is one of those tools for that. I would think the state, ideally, would have an interest in that.”

As big and important a question as funding is, the question of what the land may look like after retiring groundwater rights is potentially even bigger. The pilot program gave funding priority to projects that included proposed mitigation strategies for noxious weeds, dust, and other impacts of transitioning irrigated land to dryland.

It’s a transition that the Walker Basin Conservancy has thought a lot about. The conservancy’s main goal is to restore Walker Lake at the river’s terminus. To do so, it has bought agricultural land and water rights. In the long term, it means taking some fields out of production. And the conservancy wants to do so in a responsible way, investing in restoration work and field trials. “That’s a big part of our program already,” Henneman, the water director, says.

During my visit to the organization’s offices, Henneman shows me a nursery stocked with native plants outside. Milkweed, bitterbrush, aspen, penstemon, globemallow. “It’s hard to take fields that have been in alfalfa for 20 to 50 years and bring them back to desert scrub habitat,” she says.

But the Walker Basin Conservancy is trying, and Fulstone says it always needs to be a priority for anyone who sells their water. “It’s actually criminal, as far as I’m concerned, to walk away from a piece of property and you don’t convert it into an ecosystem for the environment, for wildlife,” he says, pointing out areas where he has restored land through a combination of grassland seedings, brush introduction, and grazing. “The wildlife, they love this stuff.”

“You want that ecosystem to transition to a new dryland ecosystem,” he adds.

We stop and get out of the car at what was once a cornfield. Fulstone is proud of the restoration work he’s done here, under contract with the Walker Basin Conservancy. Where there was once a monocrop with no bacteria in the soil, he is now seeing more biodiversity in the vegetation.

“It’s all about the soil,” he says. “It’s all about the bacteria in the soil.” ✦

This reporting was supported by the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources.

UNLV PERFORMING ARTS CENTER’S 49TH SEASON

RICARDO COBO

VIENNA BOYS CHOIR

Wednesday, November 26, 2025 · 3:00 p.m.

$31.25 • $54.75 • $71.75

Begin your holiday festivities with the Vienna Boys Choir in Christmas in Vienna! celebrates the magic of the holiday season with a delightful program of Austrian folk songs, classical masterpieces, Christmas hymns, and holidays carols.

Thursday, December 11, 2025 · 7:30 p.m.

$38.50

The first Latin American to win the Guitar Foundation of America’s Concert Artist Competition, Ricardo Cobo will premiere Diary of Musical Images as we continue our 20-year celebration of presenting the best in guitar artistry.

20th

MONTREAL GUITAR TRIO

Friday, February 6, 2026 · 7:30 p.m.

$31.25 • $43.25

20th

SÉRGIO AND ODAIR ASSAD: THE FAREWELL TOUR

The Montreal Guitar Trio (MG3) surprises, amazes, exalts, and ignites audiences with their dynamic and breathtaking stage presence. The guitar aces present a concert paying tribute to the legendary film score composer Ennio Morricone.

Wednesday, March 4, 2026 · 7:30 p.m.

$31.25 • $43.25

On their final tour together, brothers Sérgio and Odair Assad return to Vegas to take a final bow at the UNLV Performing Arts Center. Winners of Latin GRAMMY and GRAMMY awards, their work blends folk, jazz and various styles of Latin music and classical repertoire.

20th

TOUR LITTLE FINLAND’S HOODOOS!

Gold Butte National Monument

By Ryan Vellinga

On this episode of “Outdoor Nevada,” Connor Fields visits one of Nevada’s recently designated national monuments, an off-the-grid getaway that’s close to home for Southern Nevadans. Gold Butte National Monument’s backcountry trails and byways span more than 450 miles of the Mojave Desert, providing access to numerous petroglyphs, delicate rock formations, and, as Fields finds out, lizard fishing. Although most visitors won’t get to fish for lizards like Matt from the Nevada Department of Wildlife, they can enjoy plenty of other adventures in Gold Butte.

Fields runs into a number of visitors during the Bioblitz featured in the episode, but Gold Butte is extremely remote, and access is challenging. High-clearance, four-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive vehicles are necessary to access the monument’s more notable landmarks, such as Little Finland and Whitney Pocket.

Along with the monument’s natural landmarks, historical remnants from Indigenous peoples and the westward expansion scatter the monument. Between the petroglyphs are abandoned mines, and old mining equipment stand as reminders of Nevada’s gold rush

era, offering photographers and history buffs ample opportunity for exploration and documentation. For hikers, the monument offers several remarkable trails. The Whitney Pocket area has accessible hiking with incredible rock formations and historical sites, while the Devil’s Throat trail leads to a 100-foot-deep sinkhole that showcases the area’s unique geological processes.

Visitors should be well-prepared when exploring Gold Butte National Monument. The area has only one vault toilet (at the Cabin Canyon trailhead) and primitive campsites. Cell phone coverage is extremely limited, and temperatures can be extreme. Travelers must bring sufficient food, water, and emergency provisions, as well as detailed maps, extra fuel, and satellite communication devices. Along with other hiking basics, it is crucial to practice Leave No Trace principles and respect the delicate desert ecosystem around the monument.

Route: This is a choose-yourown-adventure, off-trail route around Little Finland, an area filled with red sandstone formations called “hoodoos.” The distance can vary from 2.5 miles to 5.5 miles, as you loop around and between the sandstone fins. The “trail” can be found at the Oasis trailhead. Make sure you have GPS to track your route.

Getting there: Take I-15 north toward Mesquite for about 73 miles, then exit onto Riverside Road or NV-170. Continue on NV-170 for 3 miles until a right turn onto Gold Butte Road. The road beyond this point is not maintained, and a high clearance vehicle is recommended. Continue toward Little Finland by following the marked signs for Mud Wash Road and Little Finland.

Pro Tip: The ideal times to visit are during spring (March to May) and fall (September to November), when temperatures are moderate and comfortable. Summer can be intensely hot, while winter nights can be quite cold, so careful planning is essential.✦

SEE THIS episode of “Outdoor Nevada,” by Vegas PBS.

Committed to Community

Roseman University is training the next generation of compassionate and highly competent healthcare providers in pharmacy, nursing, medicine, dental medicine and graduate studies to thrive in the ever-changing world of healthcare.

With more than two decades of building from a firm foundation to a broad universe of healthcare education, Roseman continues to develop innovative programs that train a diverse student body to be exceptional leaders in their chosen fields. We look ahead to the limitless promise of the future, in providing our communities unparalleled patient care, scientific discovery, and commitment to improving healthcare outcomes in our region and beyond.

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Through community-engaged service from faculty, staff and students to offer free health screenings, dental care, and education on a variety of healthcare topics

Through our student-led Medicare Call Lab assisting seniors with their Medicare enrollment, saving them more than $3M since 2015

Learn more at roseman.edu

Transforming Education. Reimagining Healthcare. Embracing Discovery. Committed to Community.

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