Gold Butte National Monument, NV, April 8, 2024

Visited April 8, 2024. This was the day of the total solar eclipse. I had long-standing plans to fly to Austin, TX to see the eclipse, but about a week of consistently poor weather forecasts from about 14 days before the eclipse persuaded me to make alternate plans. I then had a backup plan to fly to Rochester, NY, which had consistently good long-range forecasts, all the way up until about four days before the eclipse. As a result, I ended up cancelling both plans, to save the money and bank the affinity points for a future trip. Incidentally, with the benefit of hindsight, Rochester was clouded out; not sure if I could have gotten far enough east for at least some breaks in the clouds. Austin was mostly cloudy, but had some clearing around totality, so might have been fine.

Since both my wife and I already had put in for the days off from work, we settled on taking a couple of short trips around the Las Vegas area.

Unfortunately, the very interesting areas in Gold Butte National Monument that I'd like to visit are, at the very least, high clearance, and, more preferrably, four-wheel drive territory. The only "accessible" area (mostly paved) road in the monument is Gold Butte Road, down to Whitney Pocket. So we drove the roughly two hours from the Las Vegas area to Whitney Pocket.

The rocks in this area are pretty, but not spectacularly so. They're similar to what you'd see at Redstone (see here, here, and here), which is a much shorter drive over pavement to get to from Las Vegas. By contrast, the rocks at Little Finland, in Gold Butte, look other-wordly. But they are also far past the pavement, and getting there with a Prius was going to be very iffy. Same thing applies to the several popular petrglyph panels. So we didn't go beyond Whitney Pocket.

Because this was a spur of the moment trip, I did not research what I could see from just Whitney Pocket. My recollection was just that this was a jumping off point for other spots, but surely there would be things of interest to see here.

And, as noted, it was okay. There are essentially no interpretive signs here that would point out nearby points of interest. Could not even find the dam (cistern) in the area. I was also under the mistaken impression that there might be petroglyphs to see here (there may be, but I didn't find them). I did find an intereting spot, where the shape of the rock wall the the shape of the rock cliffs are such that a heart-shaped area of the wall was lit up. I initially thought maybe this was a place where graffiti was removed, but, no, looks like it's just natural lighting on that small section of wall, behind the CCC storage cave. The sandstone was also pretty.

We started our drive this way around 9am, so the eclipse started long before we actually got to Whitney Pocket. We stopped several times along the way, to get quick peeks at the on-going eclipse. Maximum coverage, a bit over 50%, occurred while we were still a bit outside of the monument boundary.

In terms of getting to Whtiney Pocket, from Las Vegas, head north on I-15, to Exit 112, NV-170. Head south (east) on NV-170 until you cross over the Virgin River. Make a right at the road right after the bridge. This is Gold Butte Road (also referred to as "New Gold Butte Road"). About 21 miles on this mostly-paved road takes you to Whitney Pocket. This road has a 25 mph speed limit, which most regular cars will not have a problem staying below, due to rough pavement. Some segments are not paved, at all.

It's quite likely I didn't make three miles of walking on this trip. But I did poke around the rocks at several places. And I got well over six miles of hiking the next day, so I don't feel too bad including this bit on my blog.

General disclaimer: This area is pretty far off the beaten path, and most areas are beyond cell coverage. No services, and no visitor center on the land. Just a few portapotties near designated (free) campsites. Bring all that you will need, because getting anything else will be a long drive.