The last week in October remains special for Nevadans as they observe 145 years of statehood in various ways. Official celebration of the state’s birthday centers annually in Carson City, but other cities in Nevada plan special events as well.
Trip of the Week
Margo Bartlett Pesek writes about day trips from Las Vegas and information about the surrounding areas. Her column appears Sunday in Travel/Living.
Zion National Park’s colorful autumn foliage delights visitors through a long, beautiful season. Early color among the stands of aspens in the park’s high back country peaks in mid-October and rapidly disappears. Just now beginning to show, the color in the park’s canyons lingers well into November along the Virgin River and other watercourses and in the Kolob portion of the park. Cottonwoods, box elder, maple and others do their best for visitors during coming weeks.
Joining a national trend of proliferating vineyards and wineries, Nevada’s fledgling wine industry now numbers three wineries, one each in Pahrump Valley in Southern Nevada, in the Lahontan Valley near Fallon and in the Carson Valley near Genoa. Each offers a different experience for visitors and a new attraction for increased tourism.
In its gold mining heyday, Oatman, Ariz., claimed 10,000 residents and thousands of travelers passing through on Route 66, America’s “Mother Road.” Today, the ghost town thrives on tourism, with half a million people annually finding their way to this unusual town where wild desert burros begging for snacks have the right-of-way and gunslingers battle on the main drag several times a day.
The beautiful and sometimes boisterous Santa Clara River in southwestern Utah provides scenery and recreation from its source in the Pine Valley Mountains to its end, where it joins the Virgin River near St. George. Fishermen, boaters, hikers, mountain bikers, campers and scenery-seeking travelers follow the little river to find outdoor enjoyment from the region’s major attractions.
Pahrump Valley styles itself the “Valley of Festivals,” scheduling various kinds of community activities throughout the year. With summer’s heat abating, oncoming autumn provides perfect weather for outdoor community events such as the upcoming Pahrump Wild West Extravaganza, Friday-Sept. 20, the Fall Festival Old-Fashion County Fair, Sept. 24-27, Pahrump Valley Winery’s annual Grape Stomp on Sept. 26 and the County Days Arts and Crafts Fair in October.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its cultural significance, Parowan Gap in Southern Utah displays a treasury of petroglyphs left behind by several native cultures. A form of rock art created by incising designs into stone, the petroglyphs of Parowan Gap cover many flat faces of boulders at the base of the 600-foot cliffs.
Virginia City continues to celebrate its birth 150 years ago in the hills overlooking Washoe Valley between Reno and Carson City. As a year filled with many observances winds down, Virginia City still offers special events in upcoming weeks such as the 50th Annual Virginia City Camel Races, Sept. 11-13, and the first round-trip excursions in 70 years of the Virginia & Truckee Railway between Virginia City and Carson City. The V&T Railfest trains began running Aug. 15, continuing on Saturdays trough Nevada Day, Oct. 31.
Blessed with Great Basin scenery, steeped in history and replete with recreational opportunities, neighboring Lincoln County invites urban escapees from Las Vegas to better know their own state. Follow the recent national travel trend to vacation close to home or take multiple recreational breaks over shorter periods of time. In Lincoln County, visitors explore ghost towns, visit state parks and recreation areas, follow off-highway trails or seek out interesting side roads.
One of Churchill County’s biggest events, the 24th annual Fallon Hearts of Gold Cantaloupe Festival and Farmer’s Market promises to draw 20,000 visitors over Labor Day weekend, Sept. 4-7. At the Churchill County Fairgrounds, the festival provides fun for all ages with its carnival, junior rodeo, tournaments, contests, music, entertainment, dances and at least 10 commercial exhibits.
Designated a scenic route along much of its length, U.S. 395 skirts the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Range west of the Nevada border, providing year-round access to outdoor adventures and unparalleled scenery. It runs through historic towns, paces tumbling streams, overlooks lakes, traverses ranch lands and climbs foothill summits. Alpine resorts, winter sports areas, fishing areas, campgrounds and trailheads lie along a network of connecting side roads.
Unique among the scores of ghost towns scattered across Nevada, old Berlin in Central Nevada remains the only former boomtown to receive protection as a state park. Created by the Nevada Legislature in 1957, Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park couples the 1890s ghost town with a nearby fossil bed of huge marine reptiles discovered in the 1920s.
One of the best preserved of vintage Nevada mining boom towns, Eureka remains a good place to explore the state’s colorful past and a nice town to visit. Born of a silver-lead boom in 1865, Eureka still benefits from mining in a county with some of the biggest gold mines in the world. Although its population, presently about 1,900 people, grows when mining thrives, the sedate county seat will never again become Nevada’s second largest city as it was in the 1870s with a population of nearly 11,000.
Cut by a little creek, peaceful meadows surrounded by wooded hills in southwestern Utah belie the horrific events that occurred there in 1857 when 120 California-bound emigrants died during the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Both battlefield and graveyard, the 2,500-acre site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also seeks to have the site memorialized as a national landmark, a lengthy process.
Tiny Genoa lies in the verdant Carson Valley at the base of the Sierra Nevada, about 10 miles from Nevada’s capital, Carson City, on Nevada Highway 206. Nevada’s oldest community, Genoa began in 1850 with the establishment nearby of a seasonal trading post along the emigrant trail to the California gold fields.