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!

Our first workamping experience

Workamping is working or volunteering in exchange for a campsite, and if you're lucky, some cash. Unfortunately this was not one of those. We knew we wanted to spend a few months in Vegas to see friends so we figured the most cost effective way would be to workamp. We applied at two places, a campground and a wildlife refuge. We were offered the job at Desert National Wildlife Refuge and started our four month commitment (24 hours per week each) on September 1.

Our responsibilities included greeting visitors at the visitor center, handling transactions and stocking the gift shop and cleaning the center. Daddy helped with trail maintenance and I led some hikes for beginning birders. We really enjoyed talking with people in the visitor center. We would get maybe 70% locals and 30% travelers from all over the world. We know this area well, so there was never a shortage of things to talk about with visitors. We absolutely loved living on the refuge. We had a quiet spot out in the desert, mountains all around, birds and creatures right outside our door and dark night skies filled with stars (even saw some wonderful shooting stars). Coyotes sang to us most nights and early mornings. We enjoyed building friendships with our co-workers and they often joined us for a campfire at our site.

This was our backyard for four months! 

This was a great opportunity to allow the kids to see us working again. They have quickly forgotten that mommy worked from home for three long years while they were babies, though to be fair, I usually worked while they were sleeping. They also think that women don't drive, since Daddy pretty much does all of the driving now. That seems crazy after personally driving them around almost daily for their first three and a half years. So now they not only see that we're working for our campsite, but they are helping with the work.

 To be clear, they were not forced to do any work! They volunteered and we found age appropriate tasks for them. If they tired of it before completion, we finished (and often went behind them and redid the task anyhow). We were just happy with them being helpful, and less concerned with how well they did the job at this point. They both loved washing windows and dusting, and by the time we left, they could both unlock and restock the toilet paper in nine bathroom stalls all by themselves. 

They helped Daddy mop, picked up trash along the trails, and even 

gave hiking tours (exclusively for long-time friends of ours who came to visit).
The also helped the gift shop team with inventory (a fantastic roadschool lesson)!

Daddy and I usually worked opposite shifts, but on Sundays we both worked the full day, so that's when the kids would come in with us. We were very fortunate that they were willing to allow the kids to be with us. This was the first time they've had a family volunteer. Hopefully we made a good impression and have opened the door for other families in the future.

So what was the worst part of workamping? That would have to be Asher finding a 4ft long coachwhip snake IN OUR BEDROOM! Yes, the stuff of nightmares! Fortunately Sarah, the refuge biologist, came to our rescue! Another time we were sitting around the campfire when a sidewinder (rattlesnake) joined us! Ahh!

We also had what seemed like an endless stream of pocket mice that came to live behind our stove.

We lost count around 13. They were cute, but they can do significant damage to wires in no time. They did break our heater fan, but Daddy was able to fix it. We found this live trap works the best for catching mice and the kids always enjoyed releasing them back outside. (The black stuff is bait.)

We often saw coyotes in the orchard near the RV. 

I caught this guy jumping up to eat from the Russian Olive tree. 

This solved the month-long mystery of "what kind of seed is in this scat?"

This cute little kangaroo rat spent a couple hours with us one night as we were sitting at our picnic table with friends. Asa initially chased him, but I told her to stop. She would just sit there watching until one time he came right between my feet and sat about 6 inches from Asa. Finally it was too much and she jumped and he jumped. Too funny. He was eating the coyote melon which grows in patches around the refuge. It looks like a fibrous loofah inside.

The kids and I had the pleasure of watching this Botta's Pocket Gopher work for half an hour building a tunnel just a few feet from our big window. We later learned that their tunnels can be up to 70ft long and has separate rooms for food, restroom, etc. Once the restroom is full, they seal it off and build a new room for that. 

Quite a few monarchs call the refuge home. 

Many different dragonflies enjoy the pond and streams along the trails.

Daily we watched cottontails, jackrabbits and these ground squirrels run around the RV. 

I was shocked to see this in one of the bushes- a squirrel perched up for a view.

Before the weather turned cold, we took nightly walks around the refuge to 

watch the sunset reflect off the mountains. One of my favorite things!

So was it a good experience? Absolutely! It was a very rewarding experience for the whole family. We enjoyed it so much that we've already accepted our second workamping position at a state park this summer! 

Where Horses Run Free

While living in Vegas, I had heard of a place in the desert where wild horses run free. To get here we have to drive between two prisons, which is the first odd sight. A few miles further into the desert, we came upon five horses sharing the road with us.

A bit further was a turnoff to the desert's little surprise. A spring-fed pond. This is Cold Creek. 

When we first arrived, there were no horses at the pond. Asher found a bit of fishing line with a lure still attached and made his own fishing pole to pass the time while waiting for thirsty horses to arrive.

The area behind the pond drops off down into the desert, so we didn't notice the horses approaching. The kids were on the back side and the rest of us on the other when all of a sudden we hear a loud whinny and look up to see two very large black horses just on the other side of the brush from the kids. It startled all of us, but the kids slowly walked to us and were fine. This is another group of horses that stopped by for a drink. They were not afraid of us or our dogs.

This horse let me get within 15 feet of him while taking these photos. He was shiny and beautiful, though thin. Sadly this area is grossly overpopulated with horses. There isn't enough vegetation in the desert to sustain this many and most are quite emaciated. For this reason, BLM does roundups periodically to reduce the numbers to a sustainable level. The horses are rounded up and evaluated. The sickest ones are euthanized, but most are moved to a Utah facility where they receive proper nutrition. Once they're healthy, some are deemed adoptable and the rest are sent to live out their lives on the greener pastures of the midwest.