|
The Black Rock Desert area is the largest playa in North America. Playa is a flat-floored desert basin that occasionally fills with shallow water and mud during the rainy season.
In addition to its unique flat desert surface, the area is surrounded by wind-sculpted, clay-silt mounds and sand dunes, alluvial slopes, lakeshore terraces, foothills and mountains.
The unique landscape and the area’s hot springs and the Applegate-Lassen Emigrant National Historic Trail (California Trail) form a near-pristine wilderness area in northwest Nevada.
This newly-designated federal national conservation area contains about 815,100 acres. Ten new wilderness areas surrounding the north end of the playa total about 752,000 acres.
The Black Rock playa covers approximately 300 square miles. Nothing grows on playa. The flat desert has attracted numerous racers hoping to break speed records. A world land speed record was set here by a British jet engine car in 1997 at 763 mph (Mach 1.02).
The playa is also the site for the Burning Man Festival in late August and early September.
Vehicular travel is possible on the main body of the 27-mile by 15-mile playa from late May to November, but rains can turn it into a muddy, car-stopping quagmire.
For playa conditions, call Bruno's Restaurant in Gerlach at 775-557-2220.
This is Great Basin high desert country. Mountain slopes are steep and angular and support just scrub vegetation. There are few trees. Along lower slopes, sagebrush and greasewood color the landscape. Salt-tolerant shrubs grow in playa marginal areas.
The area offers excellent backpacking, camping and recreational vehicle opportunities. The elevations range from 3,500 feet to 8,923 feet on top of King Lear Peak
in the South Jackson Mountains Wilderness Area.
During summer, temperatures exceed 100 degrees F. All drinking water must be carried in.
Outdoor Activities |
