More Southern Nevada National Wildlife Refuges- Ash Meadows and Pahranagat

The Desert National Wildlife Refuge Complex is made up of four refuges in southern Nevada: Desert, Moapa, Ash Meadows and Pahranagat. Unfortunately we never made it out to Moapa, but we enjoyed spending time at the other three refuges.

We spent a day exploring Ash Meadows which is just outside of Death Valley National Park.

The kids loved walking (and running) along the boardwalk, which provides easy access to the different springs.

Three of the refuge's four endangered fish live in this spring's clear blue water.

Screwbean mesquite pods are found along the trails. They rattle when you shake them.

Bighorn sheep are sometimes visible from Point of Rocks, but not this day.

We visited Devil's Hole (part of Death Valley National Park but within the refuge) where the endangered Devil's Hole Pupfish lives. From the surface, it's a deceptively calm small spring, but it's actually a water filled cave with many chambers. It has never been fully measured, but is at least 500ft deep. This makes it extremely dangerous to enter. While working at Desert National Wildlife Refuge, I met a rescue diver that was called in after a small group of experienced divers met tragedy. Three went down, two came up. When they realized there was a problem, they both immediately went back down. One of them suddenly remembered that you can't deep dive twice in a row like that and resurfaced. The other never did. They couldn't even recover the bodies. The many chambers and the fact that it's more than 500ft deep makes it a maze inside. A black maze where you can't see anything or even know which way is up. So sad. 

We spent about an hour at their new high-tech visitor center. They have lots of interactive informative displays that aid in teaching you about the refuge including the plants and animals that live there.

Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge

We helped out at Pahranagat's annual Carp Rodeo. The carp are an invasive species, so this event encourages the public to come and pull some out of the lakes while competing for prizes. Information booths and craft and game stations were setup for the kids while another station offered fried carp cakes to eat.

The kids enjoyed fishing despite not catching anything. They especially liked when Officer Rob helped them out. They love him!