Vacation: Day 3 - Pahrump, Crystal, and Rhyolite
So we wake up, hop in the car, and head out to Pahrump, not having the slightest clue what's there. Long before we get there, we are in awe of the beautiful geography/geology:
We decide to visit the Pahrump Valley Winery, Nevada's first winery. It was both a pleasant surprise and a disappointment at the same time. The surprise is that there were several wines that I really, really liked. The disappointment is that the grapes were imported from other regions; I was really looking forward to trying some local grapes. Seems that the local grapes are very difficult to keep, so they had a small quantity and made a very expensive bottle of wine from them. Ah well.
Driving from Pahrump, we enter into a large valley with a few odd-looking hills. I saw a possible road to one of them that was very rocky and fit probably for SUVs which I attempted and turned around after about a quarter-mile. Fortunately, there was another road, paved, which existed as access to Crystal, NV. Shaina and I parked and headed out to the hills. We found tons of quartz on the ground, which typically indicates other minerals may be present, alas we found nothing of interest. We continued up to the hill, and I continued up the hill, which was made entirely of rock that looked like this:
which is virtually identical to the rock I found outside of Zzyzx, excepting in grey rather than in a pale mineral. Definitely volcanic, but I'm at a loss as to what it is.
Crystal, NV, happens to be home to several brothels, which we passed when turning around to continue on our trip. We made our way to Highway 95 to head to Beatty/Rhyolite, and saw some ruins on the right, which we pulled off to see, driving up another rocky road. I found ruins of an old mine and hosue, there:
From there, on to Beatty and south to Rhyolite, where we toured a large ghost town. I climbed up to one of the hillside mines:
however I made that trek alone, due to the rattlesnake warnings:
even though I didn't see a single one. I did see some other critters, though:
Following this, we headed back to Las Vegas for a lovely Thai dinner, and we slept quite well from the long day of driving and walking in the sun...
We decide to visit the Pahrump Valley Winery, Nevada's first winery. It was both a pleasant surprise and a disappointment at the same time. The surprise is that there were several wines that I really, really liked. The disappointment is that the grapes were imported from other regions; I was really looking forward to trying some local grapes. Seems that the local grapes are very difficult to keep, so they had a small quantity and made a very expensive bottle of wine from them. Ah well.
Driving from Pahrump, we enter into a large valley with a few odd-looking hills. I saw a possible road to one of them that was very rocky and fit probably for SUVs which I attempted and turned around after about a quarter-mile. Fortunately, there was another road, paved, which existed as access to Crystal, NV. Shaina and I parked and headed out to the hills. We found tons of quartz on the ground, which typically indicates other minerals may be present, alas we found nothing of interest. We continued up to the hill, and I continued up the hill, which was made entirely of rock that looked like this:
which is virtually identical to the rock I found outside of Zzyzx, excepting in grey rather than in a pale mineral. Definitely volcanic, but I'm at a loss as to what it is.
Crystal, NV, happens to be home to several brothels, which we passed when turning around to continue on our trip. We made our way to Highway 95 to head to Beatty/Rhyolite, and saw some ruins on the right, which we pulled off to see, driving up another rocky road. I found ruins of an old mine and hosue, there:
From there, on to Beatty and south to Rhyolite, where we toured a large ghost town. I climbed up to one of the hillside mines:
however I made that trek alone, due to the rattlesnake warnings:
even though I didn't see a single one. I did see some other critters, though:
Following this, we headed back to Las Vegas for a lovely Thai dinner, and we slept quite well from the long day of driving and walking in the sun...