02-02-09 Gold Butte

Sunday morning we headed out to Gold Butte, Nv. a back country byway. It is south of Mesquite,Nv. in the town of Riverside. The first 24 miles are paved (barely) and the next 19 or so miles are dirt. It is graded, but hold on to your seat and hope everything is secure. It is very bumpy, due to the washboard type road. A high clearance two or four wheel drive vehicle is recommended. A portion of the narrow, almost single lane, paved road runs next to the Virgin river. It winds up through hills and down across the flat desert floor. A view of Lake Mead is off to your right. As you approach the dirt section of road, you will notice the beautiful Whitney Pockets. This area is rich in spectacular red and yellow rock formations that are definitely a must see to visitors.

Be alert on this road. It is a popular OHV area and has a lot of quads and dirt bikes traveling along it. Always stay on the designated road, this place is abundant in historical sites. Most blend in with desert surroundings. Driving over them is destructive to it's features and to any future research. After about 7 miles, you will find Devils Throat off to the right. A 100ft wide by 100ft deep sink hole. It was once said to be bottomless or lead to a underground river.

Our goal in Gold Butte was to Locate some rock art Jen had once heard was here। Gold Butte road is a total of 62 miles through out the desert। Finding these were like locating the needle in a hay stack. As usual Jen was able to sniff them out. It was obvious that this was once inhabited by Native Indians. A perfect location from the river, with natural rock shelters. This would make for prime real estate in their day. We also discovered an amazing desert grotto, which we took video of.





We divided up, Jen took the high road and the dogs and I took the low. Sam, our male dog managed to find a couple of Doritos chips, literally in the middle of nowhere, I swear he thinks with his stomach. I found a couple more rock art panels. Jen came across similar art and wild horses. When we met back up, Jen took the dogs so I could climb into a shelter I had noticed earlier. So now I was stuck, unable to climb back down. Jen was trying to spot for me and I was not comfortable coming down facing out. After our argument of how rock climbers climb down cliffs (which I was pretty sure they never did, just up I thought), I managed to get down and look back up at what I had just conquered. Wow, moments ago, I was stuck way up there at a dizzying height of about 9ft. Don't laugh, it was "Extreme."








On a previous visit we stopped at the ghost town of Gold Butte. It was established in 1908 as a small copper, gold, lead, and zinc mining town. It even had it's own post office. Arthur Coleman and William Garrett were the last two residents. They died in 1958 and 1961and are buried here. Cement foundations, mining equipment, and the remains of old mills still exist.






After Gold Butte we followed the road to Cat Claw wash. It ends at Lake Mead, on the opposite side of Overton, Nv.. A beautiful view and not a soul around, being a good 30miles from the nearest paved road. We enjoyed our own beach and the dogs loved the water.