“ August 17...
We found this to be an
oasis in the desert….
The desert and the
mountain were all the
eye could view
beyond the little patch
of grass, and the naked
salt plain…"
Alonzo Delano, 1849 diary
describing the Black Rock Desert
For more information contact
The Black Rock Institute
University of Nevada Reno
Peter Goin and Paul Starrs
(775) 784-6930
starrs@unr.edu
Photos by
Peter Goin
co-author
of “Black Rock”
Warren Ronsheimer
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Black Rock Desert Region
Washoe, Pershing and Humboldt Counties
Summary
The Black Rock Desert is well known for its beautiful but stark landscape where history, archeology and
wildlife collide with modern life on a fve-million acre expanse of playa, canyons, mountains and dunes.
The region lies in a remote and unpopulated area of northwestern Nevada, about 100 miles from Reno, at
the edge of Gerlach, the main entry point. It is largely controlled by the federal Bureau of Land Management.
Congress designated the Black Rock Desert High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation
Area and Wilderness in December 1999. The conservation area holds almost 145 miles of emigrant
trails. Burning Man calls the playa a “clean palette” for its annual arts festival.
The Landscape
The deserts extremes - lack of water, roads and urban amenities - make it unfriendly, but that is part of its
charm and challenge as well. The distances and vistas are horizontal and vast, broken only by the repetitively jagged ridgelines of the mountain ranges. The sky and the playa dominate the distinctive landscape. The playa is an expanse of white, brown, and sometimes wet, at surfaces.
One can easily see 40-plus miles to observe the curvature of the Earth. The dunes that surround the playa are home to kit foxes. The landscape remains similar to what California bound emigrants saw along the Fremont, Lassen Applegate and Nobles emigrant trails during our nations largest westward migration in the mid-1800s.
Their wagon ruts still are visible. High Rock Canyon has steep cliffs, historical grafti, nesting raptors and populations of big horn sheep, antelope, deer and wild horses.
The Threat
The Black Rock region is fragile visually and ecologically, yet recreation enthusiasts know nothing of the fragility or the stewardship needed to protect the landscape.
It is being “loved to death” by off-highway vehicle riders, campers who leave trash behind, hot spring dippers who defile historic springs and fail to practice safety ethics, and pot hunters who loot Native American sites.
The BLM has only a handful of staffers to monitor two million acres and 145 miles of emigrant trails.
This is coupled with an approximate 350 percent increase in visitors during the past eight years.
The playa never is free of car tracks; the dunes are losing vegetation from motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. The hot springs are battered, the historical grafti is being destroyed and riders - creating visual and ecological blight on the landscapes - scar the hillsides. Campres are generating enough heat to damage the playa surface and weeds carried on vehicles are threatening riparian areas.
The Solution
The BLM needs more funding to provide satisfactory stafing for areas that are so highly visited. Also, volunteers are needed to travel around the heavily used spots to promote “Leave No Trace” use, which means limiting people to the playa and driving on existing, designated roads rather than creating new roads.
In addition to the BLM, there are private groups working hard to apply pressure to protect the Black Rock. These include Friends of Black Rock High Rock, a non-profit group of volunteers, Burning Man organizers, Trails West, Oregon-California Trails Association and the Gerlach Chamber of Commerce. Individuals interested in
helping preserve the Black Rock Desert are urged to contact one of these organizations.
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