2017 - Trip Report - March 25 - 27 Gold Butte Area

March 25-27 Gold Butte Area

By Mignon Slentz

March 25 2017 .After the mine tour, a group headed toward the Gold Butte area via the shore road around Lake Mead with a short stop at Roger’s Spring. The  group included Sue and Bob Jaussaud, Mal Roode, Ron Lipari, Ken Sears and Mignon Slentz.

We followed the route taken by Dan Messersmith when he led a trip in Nov. 2009 from Overton, Nevada, up Mormon Mesa for a stop at Double Negative, a question.able dozer built art piece. We dropped off the steep mesa and camped in Hallway Wash.

The next morning we crossed the Virgin River at Riverside and headed toward Whitney Pockets. A very tall cement dam built by the CCC was our next stop and then on to a hike to view some spectacular petroglyphs.

We stopped at Devil’s Throat- a large sink hole and at Horse Springs. There we found extensive corrals and an amazing stone built wall that zig zagged up the hill. We took a short detour to explore a “google sighted” area and discovered a large rusted, shot out, large truck trailer that served as someone’s home long ago.

Our lakeside campsite that night was reached by taking the old Scanlon Ferry Rd. down Catclaw Wash. It was actually situated on the Virgin River/ Overton Arm area. Around the campfire we viewed a stunning sunset, an amazing shooting star and the lights from Las Vegas casting a glowing reflection on the lake. The calls of burros and the sounds of jumping fish lulled us to sleep.

After a breakfast of egg burritos we headed back up the wash with a few stops to visit the old townsite of Gold Butte, look for the site of Copper City and then took a short hike to discover an area called Devil’s Fire.  Mal headed home while the rest of us drove up Whitney Pass and took Lime Kiln Canyon into Mesquite to gas up and head for our homes. Wonderful  company, good weather, and beautiful clouds and vistas.    ~ Mignon