Gold Butte, NV

Somewhere deep in the Nevada desert you can find meteorites that are measured not in grams, but in pounds.  I set off with 3 friends for a weekend to see if we could get lucky and find one, but it wasn't going to be easy.

The camping spot is located 3.5 hours drive from the nearest highway; much of the drive requires 4-wheel drive.  The drive begins in the scenic Virgin River valley.

The road winds south through some of southern Nevada's most scenic landscapes.

Eventually the road evaporates into a dusty trail along the bottom of a wash.  The greenery midway up the hillside below is evidence of a spring, and my topo map confirmed the spring's location.

Home sweet home for three days.

The nearest neighbor is non-existent.

A small weather system came through on day 2, I took this photo just as it started to hail.

The area is very remote, the only place your cell phone works is at the top of the tallest mountains where you have a line of sight to the horizon.  I'd climb one once a day to check in on the rest of the world.

The local granite erodes into natural sculptures.

Spring hasn't quite left this part of the desert.

The area has a rich mining history going back over 100 years.

Don't fall in!

I'd like to imagine this sift is sitting right where the miner left it a century ago.

Eroded granite megaliths one hundred feet tall littered the landscape.

You could live inside the boulders; I would wager that people have in the past.  I enjoyed a cool lunch in the shelter beneath them.

Can you see me?

Someone had a nice cooking fire setup, probably from the mining days.

This balancing boulder is about the size of a VW Beetle.

There's big meteorites out there, all you have to do is look everywhere.

Headed home.  It's 4-wheel drive or a long, long, long walk.