ADVENTURES WITH ROCKS (TM): Ancient Fish and Old Piles of Mud

The Beatty "Mall"

We had been in Beatty for a couple of weeks already. We opened up at a little swap meet along Hwy95 called The Beatty Mall. The “Mall” was actually a row of vendors with a parking area in front, lining the main road through town. If location is everything, then we definitely had the best spot in the entire desert. If you were heading north from Vegas to Reno, we were the first piece of civilization you saw after driving through 100 miles of nothing but desert. If you were heading south from Reno to Vegas, we were the last bit of civilization you would see for over 100 miles. Either way, the Beatty “Mall” was THE place to stop on the south side of Beatty. On the North side was the casino and the Death Valley Candy Company.

Business was good. There were lots of travelers and snowbirds heading north for the summer, lots of local traffic between Reno and Vegas, and quite a few tourists using Beatty as a jumping-off point to explore Death Valley. It was cooler than Quartzsite, by about 10 or 15 degrees, so being outside all day was more bearable than it had been toward the end of the season in Quartzsite. At night, coyotes howled in the distance, and the wild burros would come out of the mountains to wander around town. Occasionally one would show up during the day, usually to visit the campgrounds and beg for handouts. People food, I’m sure, was much tastier than dusty desert plants. The burros, especially the babies, are very cute, so I’m sure plenty of people were willing to feed them.

And evidently our 35 x 50’ slice of the desert had particularly delicious plants growing on it, because we were visited frequently in the evenings by a herd of burros who took a liking to the ones growing around our trailer at the back end of our booth. Their snorts and grunts as they chomped on grasses and flowers drowned out the frogs that chirped along the banks of the Amargosa River flowing 50 yards behind us.

In Beatty, there was lots more downtime than we ever had in Quartzsite. And for us, downtime meant Playtime. Just 4 miles outside of town to the west was Rhyolite, one of the best preserved ghost towns in the entire desert southwest. Further west still, lie the immense playground called Death Valley. 5 miles outside of town to the east was a desert full of rocks, fossils, old mines, and more. Adventure was calling. We had worked hard all winter. Now it was time to play.

We loaded gear and such into the Samurai and headed out into the desert. The map was full of places with names like “Swiss Cheese” and “The Mud Mound”. We were itching with excitement as the town disappeared behind us and the desert opened up into a wonderland of adventure. A right fork in the gravel road led to fossil sites, springs, and a place frequented by herds of bighorn sheep. A left fork led to abandoned mines, cool rock formations, and a maze of jeep trails. Oh, that life would always be so simple that the most difficult choice we have to make is not which fork to take, but which one to take first. It doesn’t matter, really, Al said. Whatever one we don’t take today, we’ll take tomorrow.

The small hand-made wooden sign at the right fork said Mud Mound. With a name like that, how could we resist? We chose to take the right fork first. We had read that we could find fossils at Mud Mound. In fact, Nevada is full of fossils, but surprisingly, they are fossils of sea creatures. During the Paleozoic era, the vast desert called the Mohave was a warm, shallow, inland sea, and, in fact, Nevada’s state fossil is an ichthyosaurus- loosely translated: “fish-type dinosaur”- which evidently hunted fish and ammonites. So, what fossils would be found in Mud Mounds? All the research we had done mentioned fossilized algae, plants, plankton, and reefs. We had never seen fossilized algae before. We were curious, and getting a little giddy. I could feel the stress and fatigue of the long, monotonous winter season beginning to melt away. Life was beginning to feel exciting again.

On the way to Mud Mound we passed some old mines and some abandoned mining cabins. We stopped to investigate the first couple of them, but decided to wait until the way back to stop at any other ones we happened upon. Storms were coming in from the west and we were out in a remote part of the desert. We wanted to have plenty of time to explore Mud Mound before they arrived. We weren’t quite sure what we were looking for, but we wanted to have time to enjoy it once we found it.

The views of the Desert in front and behind us were expansive. And it was still springtime here. In Quartzsite spring had given way to summer many moons ago, but here, in the mountains around Beatty, the plants had not yet been scorched to a crisp. Cacti were blooming as were Indian Paintbrush, Rabbitbrush and others. Even the mountains were colorful, their varied mineral makeup creating vibrant palettes rising up from the desert floor. We stopped several more times to take advantage of photo opportunities, and then we saw it- The Mud Mound, a large outcrop of wrinkled gray rock jutting up in front of us. We bounded out of the car like little kids. Al was out first and was already heading up the hill. Wait for me, I called. But he was already gone, off exploring. Yes, life was becoming exciting again. I ran up the hill after him, and already I could see it…