Fish Lake Valley and the Sump

One of the best things about the western side  Nevada, aside from the great rocks found there, is the superb mineralization of the mountains.  This mineralization creates some amazing coloration and banding in the otherwise bare mountains, from white to black and almost every shade of red and yellow as well.  As we have been traveling to this area in search of turquoise and variscite, we couldn't help but take note of some of the areas we have been passing by.  With an extra day for site-seeing, we decided to explore the area around Coaldale Junction where Highway 6 and Highway 95 meet and run together for 40 miles before splitting apart again at Tonopah. 

Using the old Mary Frances Strong book "Desert Gem Trails" (1971)  and the Cyril Johnson "California-Nevada Gem Hunters Atlas" (1960) as our guides, we first explored the badlands area 2.5 miles north of Highway 6, where the paved road to Silverpeak (Highway 265) heads south.  Just look for the rather faint dirt road directly across from the junction of Highway 6 and Highway 265----head for the unusual badland-like hills and spires.  Here we found a wide variety of collectibles, such as petrified wood which still looks just like wood, red and orange jasper, some thin plates of blue chalcedony, and some very nice agate. 

The area itself is fun to hike and great for photographers, too. To properly explore this area, you should camp here and hike the whole area. Some of the greenish mud hills contain the petrified wood partly buried in the slopes, so be sure and bring a good shovel to help uncover the bigger pieces.  If you hike the area between the badlands and the paved highway,  you will find some nice big chunks of greenish rhyolite, wonderstone, jasper and agate which have eroded out of the washes which cut through this interesting area. 

After leaving the Coaldale badlands, we drove west a few miles on Highway 6 to the junction where Highway 773 goes south to Dyer.  As you make the turn onto the paved highway, you will see a dirt road going off to the left at the .25 mile mark.  This road will take you through some more wonderful badlands through a huge obsidian field and a marsh, to join with Highway 773 again past Dyer.  If you wish, you can make this a loop trip---allow one day to make this loop. 

Stop and explore along the loop wherever there is access to the mountains.  We stayed on Highway 773 for eight miles, then made the left-hand turn onto the dirt road (unmarked) that leads into the Sump.  This deep canyon cuts through the mountain in such a way that it is not visible from the highway. It reminds me of a small version of the Grand Canyon, but without a river. It was created eons ago by erosion, exposing a section of the Esmeralda formation. Huge tree stumps look like sentinels in the green ash, while the snow-covered Sierra Nevada Mountains make a great backdrop for your explorations.  There is very little to collect here, because a generation of rockhounds scoured the area thoroughly 40 years ago!  If you are lucky, you may find  a few gemmy apache tears on the slopes above the Sump.

We got back on Highway 6 again, going about 10 more miles to Prairie Chicken Road where a sign pointed us toward Fish Lake Valley and a cemetery.  We followed this road back through the alfalfa fields and ranch houses to the left-hand turn onto the well-graded dirt road. This is the beginning of  the second half of that loop trip ending at the junction of Highway 6 and Highway 773, right back where you started.

There are a number of dirt roads which lead off to the right toward the mineralogically rich hills--just drive toward the hills and stop where the parking is good, then walk toward the hills where you will find an amazing variety of rocks.  We started with some great black pockmarked basalt chunks, then quickly started finding granite with pink feldspar crystals, banded agate, some unakite, green epidote crystals, mudballs, and even a thin crust of chalcedony with iridescent limonite similar to fire agate. 

We were just getting started when one of our group discovered a flat tire, cutting our exploration prematurely short. We do hope to get back to this spot in Fish Lake Valley soon, so we can finish our loop!  I think that there is much more here than meets the eye, and is well worth searching out. This area appears to be pretty undercollected, which makes for lots of good rocks and even more fun finding them!