Wide Open

Oily indigo smoke billowed from a circular opening in the top of a strange beehive shrine, marking the near completion of a process as foreign as the 1800s Nevada frontier had ever seen. Weeks prior, cords of juniper and pinyon were lain into the rocky tomb, set ablaze, and cooked in the oxygen-starved environment, as observant eyes kept watch of the smoke, and attentive hands operated a series of flues. At first, the smoke burned white, then yellow for a couple days, then dark blue, marking the completion of the process. An uninformed Nevada frontiersman who witnessed these makeshift mausoleums may have attributed the colossal bulbous structures to the occult, maybe even gone as far as to believe they were a portal to the underworld.

As the sun sets and light slowly fades from the sky, stars begin to appear and the dark side of Nevada shows itself. Long known for remote and beautiful landscapes, Nevada is now being recognized for its exceptionally dark skies. In March, the International Dark Sky Association designated the Massacre Rim Wilderness Study Area (WSA) in northern Washoe County as an International Dark Sky Sanctuary, only the fourth location in the country to achieve this status and the seventh in the entire world.

Just around suppertime on July 11, 1912, housewives prepared meals, miners clocked in and out, and children played in the streets of the northwest Nevada mining camp of Mazuma. The town rested at the mouth of Seven Troughs Canyon, just below the mining camp of the same name, and on that day, everything seemed normal in this little slab of sagebrush, save for an unusually colossal gathering of somber thunderclouds that hovered just up the canyon. Then, amid thunderous roars and cloudburst, a biblical tsunami rained down upon the canyon as if Heaven’s bathtub had swiftly cracked in two.

More than 100 years ago, southern Nevada pioneers and prospectors spent every day surviving on the razor-edge of death. Mucking, sweating, and blasting in sweltering summers and stinging winters. They moved earth as they dug their dwellings into the sides of mountains, sleeping in ramshackle huts made of rock and wood. They tossed fire and brimstone over their shoulders with shovels and pickaxes as they sought to manifest their destiny. They took up arms against Mother Nature, who tried her hardest each and every day to convince them that living there wasn’t worth it, but they only thumbed their noses and kept digging.

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP Cowboy Fast Draw Association brings back the romance of the Wild West. BY ANNIE FLANZRAICH In a wooden barn on the outskirts of Fernley, a red-haired woman stands patiently, sizing up her target. She leans back, and settles her weight into her lower body. Her right hand rests lightly on the […]

Tonopah BY ERIC CACHINERO In the days of old, miners seldom just stumbled upon massive silver strikes. That’s because silver ore doesn’t exactly look like the shimmering, polished metal found in wedding bands and werewolf bullets. Silver ore is oftentimes an amalgamation of many different types of minerals, and usually requires an assay to determine […]

There’s a spot in Gold Butte National Monument where if you stretch your arms out wide, reaching your fingertips to their furthest extent, it seems as if you can almost touch Lake Mead and the Grand Canyon at the same time. It’s the southern apex of a landscape that encompasses the wealth of southern Nevada’s beauty and its arid, teeming desert.