A fresh path

My last trip to Kingston Creek peaked my interest in further exploration of the Toiyabe Range. Austin Nevada is in the central portion of the Toiyabe Range on the western slope and access from there is pretty easy. Just find a road on either the eastern or western side of the hills and go south! Here are a couple of maps. Oh yeah, to see a larger version of any photo, just click on it!

According to the Forest Service sign, the fire danger in that area was “moderate”. You can still have your campfire but keep it reasonable and be ready to extinguish sparks quickly.

I had wanted to stay 4 or 5 days this trip but had to cut it short. My beagle, Lassie, is very hard of hearing and unable to make much sense of things in the wilderness. That means that she often loses track of me even when I am only 20 or 30 feet away! Due to her “getting lost” several times, I made the decision to come home only after one night of camping. I may have to find someone to board her during my trips.

However, the trip was still rewarding and productive! The last trip, I had wanted to travel from the western side of the range over to the northern side by traveling Big Creek road over the top to Kingston Creek road. My way then was blocked by a large snow drift . I can happily say now that the drift has melted enough that you can travel the road all the way. I did it in my 1994 Buick Skylark!

Kingston Creek is a long, spring fed, creek with lots of water and good flow. This is a view of the Kingston Creek canyon taken from the top of the ridge near the head of the creek. In fact, most of the larger canyons branching off of this one do have water sources. Just follow the bottom of the canyon UP HILL until you find running water!

Speaking of side canyons, I camped in Spring Canyon and there are some great views as well as a critter or two!

This view is looking “down canyon” towards Kingston Creek.

Here is the view when looking up canyon at spring canyon.

As I was looking around, I saw a critter ahead of me and couldn’t tell just what it was. I made a quick sprint to catch up and to my surprise, it turned out to be this Badger!

This Badger was not at all happy that I had intruded on his day! he was hissing and growling, ready to make a fight of things so I backed away after I got a photo.

The Badger seemed to be pretty fat and that makes perfect sense because there are these little critters all over for him to eat.

Here are the rest of the pics!

Thank you for visiting! If you are traveling around Austin Nevada, do yourself a favor and explore the Toiyabe Range!

Anyone in the Reno area or even quite a ways east of Reno is well aware of the smoke being generated by over 800 lightning caused fires in California. Yep, in just one weekend of small thunder storms, lightning started over 800 fires just in California.

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Well, it has come down to a question of $$$! Right now, I can still afford the occasional trip and will do so no matter what unless the financial situation gets completely out of hand. I just love doing this way too much to completely stop. However, I find that the rising price of taking my trips is placing serious limitations on things. Read the rest of this entry »

On a rare weekend trip, I decided to do two things. One, I wanted to try out my used 1994 Skylark and see if it would be adequate for my explorations…it did ok but I’ll be doing much more hiking! Two, I wanted to find out more about the central part of Nevada…did that too! As usual, I simply looked over a map of Nevada and picked a spot I had yet to explore. This time, it turned out to be the Toiyabe Range just south and east of Austin. Here are the maps! I wantged to take the road from the western side of the Toiyabe range. That road runs past the Big Creek campground, over the crest of the range to Kingston on the eastern side of the range. I didn’t make it all the way because there was a huge snow bank blocking the road! By way of advance warning, the road on the western side of the range does cross Big Creek several times. I turned around and went through Austin to state highway 376 that runs along the eastern side of the Toiyabe range. Kingston road is the SECOND road marked as “Kingston” and has a forest service sign marking it as the way to the Kingston campground and Groves Lake. Most passenger cars will do OK on the road if you drive carefully and keep your speed down. If you want an established campground, the forest service has provided the Kinston campground with outhouse type toilets, picnic tables, and good fire rings. If you prefer single site camping that is still pretty easy to get to, there are lots of them along the road. I found this camp site right on the creek just above Groves Lake: You will have spectacular views right from your site! The Toiyabe range has huge of variety in vegetation, wildlife, and landscape. Here is the view I had looking northeast from my camp:

The Toiyabe Crest Trail runs right past where I camped. It is not heavily traveled and runs 68 miles along the Toiyabe range. The forest service calls it an arduous hike. That may be an real understatement! One major consideration if you decide to hike even a portion of the trail is going to be water. Right now, there is a lot of water and you can refill the containers on a regular basis. Later in the year, things are going to get very hot and very dry. Get a good map! Never pass up an opportunity to fill your containers at the various springs that may be off the trail.

I decided to hike into Straight Canyon a mile or so. It is a large canyon running to the south of Kingston Creek. Things look dry at the mouth of the canyon but as you get about 3/4 of a mile into the canyon you will find that there is plenty of water fed by several springs. This is snow melt water and may dry up later on in the year. I think that if you follow the dry creek bed farther up stream, you will usually find water in this canyon. Here is a view of straight canyon:

Wildlife photography in the area can be fantastic IF you are willing to hike into the wilder areas. There is a wide variety of vegetation that provides browse for Mule deer and various rodents. This all combines to provide good habitat for lots of wildlife including predators. I did see signs of Coyote and there were a few hawks as well. The mule deer in the area now are mostly doe:

This doe was just traveling along her trail when she saw me sitting behind my camera. She didn’t know for sure if I was a threat or not and spent a few minutes trying to figure it out. In the end, she decided that caution was the best thing and took flight up the hill.

Kingston Creek is certainly an area I plan to explore again and again. The views and wildlife are well worth the effort. Here are the rest of the photos from the trip!

Thanks for visiting and reading about Kingston Creek. Keep checking back and please leave your comments!

If you live in Nevada, you know well that we have had a really good spring rain over the Memorial day weekend. In fact, it is still comming down in isolated showers and thunderstorms as I write this. We certainly do need the rain but, that also brings up the topic of wildfire later in the season. Read the rest of this entry »

After taking several weeks off from exploring, I managed to save enough to pay fo a long distance trip to the Humboldt National Forest north of Elko Nevada. Refer to the mapse below for greater detail. This area is on state route 225 north of wildhorse Res. Read the rest of this entry »

As a lover of wilderness areas, this article has proven to be very difficult to write. A well meaning but misguided group, Friends of Nevada Wilderness, has recently made the news in Nevada over an attempt to designate huge tracts of public lands as “wilderness” areas. They are currently attempting to introduce a bill in congress that would accomplish that goal.On the surface, this may seem to be a noble goal but you have to understand what that designation will actually mean. A wilderness designation removes virtually all motorized access to a give tract of land. Read the rest of this entry »

As I promised in the last post, I did hike to the top of Petersen mountain. At least I got to the 7600 ft level taking a road that runs from the base. The total hike was about 2.5 miles and went past Horse Spring. See the map for details.

Located north of Reno and about 35 miles by “road”, Petersen mountain offers good hiking and great vistas for the outdoorsman. A large portion of Petersen mountain is designated as a “natural area” by the BLM and is fenced to prevent motorized vehicle traffic.The hike I chose began at Mud Spring and followed the ravine up to the top. Click on the map for the approximate route. Read the rest of this entry »