Get out of town EXPLORE NORTHERN NEVADA’S GHOST TOWNS story and photos by JERI CHADWELL-SINGLEY
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hey dot the vast emptiness of the high desert landscape. You’ll find them tucked inside whispering aspen groves high in the mountains, strewn across the leprous white of alkali flats and slumbering low within the sagebrush seas that lie between. Nevada’s inhabited towns and cities are outnumbered by its ghost towns, whose dilapidated structures and rusted skeletons tell the stories of miners and ranchers and railroaders long since passed from this world. When you’re ready to find them, you need only head out of town—any town. And upon reaching a sign that reads “pavement ends,” you’ll know you’re on the right track. Exploring ghost towns has been a popular hobby for generations of Nevadans. I grew up doing it, on my own and with my parents, who did so before me. If you’re interested in trying it for yourself, this guide should serve as a good place to start.
jeric@newsreview.com
HAVE A SAfE TRIP Safety tips can be so annoying, especially when they’re obnoxiously obvious. So I won’t waste your time with the basics, but I do want to take a moment to share a few tips that are best not learned the hard way.
Some hole in the ground According to the Nevada Division of Minerals, “experts estimate that there are nearly 200,000 abandoned mines in Nevada,” about 50,000 of which may pose serious safety hazards. The list of potential mine hazards runs long to things like cave-ins, leftover explosives and dangerous wildlife, including poisonous snakes and disease-carrying rodents. And then there’s bad air—sometimes also referred to as “damp,” a term derived from the German word dampf, meaning vapor. It happens when a mixture of toxic gasses displace the oxygen in a mine. There are different kinds of damps, none of them good. Not all forms of damp are found in all areas. For example, blackdamp—so named because a flame will not burn in its presence—is more common in coal mines. But abandoned mines in Nevada can hold a variety of damps. Some will just suffocate you. Others are flammable. Many of them have no odor to tip you off to their presence. The simple solution is to stay out of the many abandoned mines you will undoubtedly come across while visiting ghost towns. Don’t go into the ones excavated into the side of hills, and don’t go anywhere near the ones that drop straight into the desert floor; the ground may be unstable for several feet around these.
You really can’t take it with you
An ore bin stands on a hill above Tunnel Camp.
Ghost towns aren’t just full of abandoned buildings, ruins and rusted equipment and cars. Often there are all sorts of things left over—from big things like refrigerators to little things like buttons and railroad spikes and trash piles full of bottles and rusted cans. The Bureau of Land Management has a fact sheet about “collecting” on public land with information about what you’re allowed to pick up and what you must leave alone. It covers minerals, fossils, plants and cultural artifacts. It’s illegal to mess with “arrowheads and other stone
GET OUT OF TOWN 10.27.16
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