2005 04 29 Beatty
Today was a good day, and I was surprised by the weather. It was predicted to be mixed and windy, and instead it was beautiful and clear right at sunrise.
This morning I had to go back to my favorite gas station. I was planning on doing this late in the afternoon when then light would be less intense and more red, but since there were some clouds and I was starting to be concerned about a thunderstorm I stopped there at about 10 and stayed for over 3 hours. I got a lot of what (I hope) should be good material.
I also met and talked to someone that pulled in here to change into shorts and take a rest. I think he was a little surprised to find someone there. He is the western sales person for a mining equipment (drill bits) company, and had left Round Mountain (site of an enormous gold mine) early in the morning. Very interesting person to talk to. He has been everywhere in Nevada and almost everywhere in the west and Alaska where there is mining. He gave me a lot of ideas of places to visit and in a couple of cases he gave me the names of contacts he has and encouraged me to call them for tours or permission to photograph. It also turned out that he had traveled this road many times a year for the last 20 plus years and remembered when the gas station was functioning. He said it was one of his regular stops.. I asked if he would mind if I emailed him if I had questions about places to go or people to contact, and he encouraged me to do that too. Round Mountain is definitely a place I would like to photograph. Getting access to shoot in the open pit there would be terrific.
Here are a few snaps:
 |
 |
 |
 |
After my marathon at the derelict gas station I drove into Silver Peak, one of the places in central Nevada I have meant to see many times but never made it. On the road in, west from US95, I ran into these guys. Cute but jumpy. There actually were about two dozen of these guys, but they were spread out.
 |
 |
Silver Peak was not what I expected. I thought it would be a semi-functioning town orginally built around a long defunct mine. Instead it is a functioning, but very small and remote, town that supports a new mineral operation (I am not sure I would call it a mine) that is definitely running. Silver Peak is actually at the end of a long flat valley that contains a couple of dry lakes. One of them is the actual "mine". It's operated by the Chemetall Foote company. They extract lithium carbonate from salt flats here. So there are huge expanses of shallow artificial lakes, lots of pumping of water around, and a lot of berms and dikes to keep the small lakes separated from each other.
 |
 |
 |
 |
I shot a lot of panoramics of the "lakes" and reflections and the patterns of lithium salts made as the water evaporates. I'd like to return with permission to wander further off the main road here and shoot more.
There is a fascinating sort of beauty to these sites - mines, tailing ponds, evaporation ponds like the ones above, wrecked equipment left to sink into the sage, abandoned buildings.. The "true" nature of the environment is still very present, but the impact of man is a large part of the scene. It is in a sense up to the viewer to interpret the scene and decide if the beauty is fascinating and horrible, or just fascinating.
One the way out back to US95 there are huge views across the Montezuma Valley north towards Tonopah.
 |
 |
In the first shot you can see Tonopah in the saddle of the mountains, and you can see the military at the top of the mountain. I don't know if this is the Air Force, and is part of the greater Nellis complex, or if this is Navy and it is part of the Fallon complex. Maybe it's the NSA monitoring all of your cell phones..
That first shot is all blue because of the great distance. Tonopah is probably 20 or maybe even 25 miles away. Looking through that much air filters out most everything but the blue light. The second shot is Silver Peak Road.
One of the interesting things that occurred to me again today was the casual relationship many central Nevada residents (everyone I have talked to about it anyway) seem to have towards the "test site". That being the huge Nellis Air Force Range which is just east of US95 as it runs from Tonopah wouth for about 60 miles. Inside the site is the Nevada Test Site, location of all of the above ground and almost all the underground nuclear testing the US has done, an Air Force bombing range, the Tonopah Test Range, the National Wild Horse Management Area (the BLM page down, but this is interesting) , the notorious "Area 51" at Groom Lake (simply one of many numbered "areas" in the test site set aside for various activities), as well as many other locations that have been used for one thing or another. Access to all parts of Nellis is highly restricted, but so many of the locals either work there, have worked there, know someone that works there, or have some connection, that the super-secret aura that the place has in the rest of the country just doesn't seem to exist here. The drill bit sales person I talked to has spent a lot of time in "the test site" at the location of well drilling being done for water quality testing. In Tonopah I have talked to several people over the years that have worked in "the site". While I am sure that security is incredible, especially now, it's also true that the site is enormous and has to employ thousands of civilians in southern Nevada.
An even better link for Area 51 material is here.
.