As promised, I am writing a trip report on my recent trip to the Kaibab National Forest.
I started from home early Saturday morning (9/22) heading south on US 97 to K-Falls.
I had never driven 39/139 to Susanville before. I rejoined a highway that I was familiar with (US 395) just east of Susanville. US 395 takes you to I-80 between Reno and Sparks.
From there east on 80 to Fernley and then SE on ALT US 50 to Fallon. From Fallon south on US 95 where I took a good stretch break beside Walker Lake. My next stretch was in the little town of Goldfield where I got the answers to a virtual geocache. Back on the road I eventually reached my destination of Beatty NV before sunset. The Atomic Inn was not very high class, but I doubt that any other place in Beatty is better.
Sunday morning I drove through Las Vegas over the new bridge over Hoover Dam.
The cheapest gas I saw anywhere on my trip was in Kingman AZ where I got on I-40 E.
A few miles east of Williams is the small town of Parks AZ. I headed north on the County road to the NF road to the Spring Valley site. I chose to sleep in the bunkhouse rather than set up my tent. It sprinkled a bit on Sunday evening but we did not have any more rain all week.
The Kaibab National Forest has had Passport in Time projects each year for the past 20 years.
I learned a lot about archeology both historic and prehistoric. Monday was a tour of some rock art sites. Tuesday and Wednesday I helped map out a CCC camp that was near the Spring Valley site. We also dated several garbage dumps including 1 that predated the CCC camp (1880's cans). The Cohonina Native Americans occupied the sites we visited between 1000 and 1100 AD. The evidence of their presence is the rock art, obsidian projectile points pit houses and some pottery sherds that can still be found at ground level. I learned the difference between sherds and shards. The age of the sites where sherds are found can be determined by measuring a series of at least 40 sherds with a caliper. More than 90% of the sherds that we found were classified as "Deadman Gray". On Thursday near Butcherknife Mountain, I found the largest fragment of a bowl we had seen all week. It was about 3 inches across and was classified as "Black Mesa-black on white".
We had a good mix of PIT volunteers which included 2 that were on their first PIT project.
This was my 4th PIT project. In the next installment I will cover the trip back home including an event I got to witness in Reno.