Central NV Airway Beacon & Aircraft Crash Search, Take II

[PHXtaco]

So after one weekend of following the San Francisco to Salt Lake 1930s airway beacons in Central NV (Part One), I headed out to do the same on the following weekend. This time my wife Rasa came along. The plan was to spend Saturday following the old airway route and check out possible beacon location sites, and then spend Sunday looking for an old Navy SNB (Twin Beech) crash. Unfortunately, I lost the photos of the first beacon we visited. It was a complete beacon, unlike the four-post-in-the-ground that we have been finding. It was also a gas lamp, as opposed to electric, beacon. Smaller and lighter (no pun intended) than the electric counterpart. It was good to see how the gas lamp beacon was constructed because that later allowed me to identify another beacon site I might otherwise have passed up.

Somewhere in Central Nevada…

Off the freeway and on a good paved road headed for the old Humboldt Intermediate Airfield, Department of Commerce's Intermediate Field Site 28B.

An old power line followed the road. It might have been put in as the power source for the airfield, beacon, and radio range station.

It might be paved, but how often do you see a road with no center line in the US anymore?

Power poles on the far right.

Dropping down into the valley.

This is the valley the old airfield is in.

Now the road turns to gravel, better yet!

The light colored spot at the end and to the left of the road is the old airfield.

 

[PHXtaco]

According to Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields http://www.airfields-freeman.com/NV/Airfields_NV_NW.htm
"The landing area was said to consist of a triangular sod field, measuring 3,500' on each side, which was equipped with a beacon, boundary, approach, and obstruction lights. Describing the field as "sod" must have been quite optimistic - there probably wasn't much sod in the Nevada desert!"

Base of a tower and a building foundation at the NW corner of the field.

About 2 miles from the airfield was the location of the old Humboldt Radio Range Station. Radio range stations were the first of the radio navigation aids that replaced the lighted airway beacons.

USGS marker at the radio range station.

Foundation for a building at the radio range.

In the 1930s, could you imagine growing up someplace like New York, getting a job with the Department of Commerce (remember jobs were even more scarce back then), being told that your were going to be a caretaker of an airport and/or radio range station, and end up being assigned to this lonely desolate valley. It must have been quite a culture shock.

On the road headed to the next beacon.

Looking at the world through (non) rose colored lenses.

To locate the beacons I am using old WWII-era aeronautical charts. Due to the scale of the map and the accuracy of the plots, the beacon locations are accurate only to within a square mile, and a square mile is a lot of desert to search! The mountains are easier to search, in that one can guess which peak the beacon would have been on, but in flat desert, the beacon could be anywhere. On the topo maps and on Google Earth I noticed an old road that just dead ended in the area the beacon was supposed to be...

Had I not seen the gas lamp beacon earlier in the day (the one I've lost the pictures of), I might have just turned around at the road end and written it off, but instead, I immediately recognized it as a gas lamp beacon site. See the two eyebolts sticking out of the ground in the lower right?

 

[PHXtaco]

Another view of the two eye bolts.

These eye bolts were what held the wood platform in place at the other gas lamp beacon.

Back on the road.

Off to the side we notice some large trees. As I mentioned in the last photo set, large trees in NV can often be an indicator of an old homestead, or at least a water source, so we decided to go and investigate.

We drive up and are greeted by this little guy.

Not sure what type of bird this is.

Headed up to check out the spring source.

The spring source.

Looking down from the spring source at the pond it was feeding.

 

[PHXtaco]

The big tree was fed by a second spring. Even had a small ditch that was dug to channel the water to it.

Looking at the big tree from the spring.

And, looking at the big tree.

It had really big crazy branches going every which way.

Off to the next beacon site which was in the mountain pass ahead.

Here is the beacon site.

All that was at this one was some beacon lens glass and...

...some corrugated metal consistent with the metal in the first gas lamp beacon that I lost the photos of. (Can you tell I am pissed about losing those photos? Guess it's a good excuse to go back.)

We stopped at another small spring along the road. At this one, the rancher was using an old jet engine shipping container as a water trough.

View from the spring. Sun is getting low-- better head to our planned camp site!

 

[PHXtaco]

Made it to camp; it was next to a hot spring that was listed in our hot springs guide book, but...

…it seems the soaking tub had been bulldozed in the last year or two.

The source hot spring (way too hot to swim in!).

The water is now piped off to this collector and a pipeline that follows the road underground to??? A near by ranch??? There is a Geo-thermal plant up the valley, but this line appears to go down the valley to where there are several ranches.

We elected to continue on to another hot spring about 20 miles away. We got there and started to set up camp, but noticed that the air temperature was significantly hotter than our original planned camping spot. I checked on the topo map and saw that we were 1000 feet lower in elevation. It was an hour after sunset, and since it was August, sunset was already pretty late in the day to begin with. Rasa & I debated as to whether to stay there or head back to the original campsite, knowing full well that if we did return to the original camp site, we would not be eating dinner until after 10:00 pm. We decided that even through this campsite had a hot spring with a soaking tub, it was just too hot to enjoy it anyway. Plus, we would rather sleep in cooler weather. So we grabbed some snacks and headed back to the original camp spot for the night (and a late dinner).

The "cooler" camp site.

Breaking camp.

Back on the road. There is supposed to be another beacon in the pass up ahead.

Found it!

Not much remains, but some of the orange paint is visible on one of the leg braces.
http://aair.smugmug.com/Aviation-Ar...e-II-17-18-July/IMG4580/978484354_gpzoG-L.jpg

 

[PHXtaco]

Lens glass.

The 4 eyebolts and part of the frame.

No USGS marker, but there was this geology marked with University of Nevada, Reno geology department's phone number on the back of it.

Looking into Buffalo Valley where the next Intermediate field is located.

Buffalo Valley Intermediate Field, Department of Commerce's Intermediate Field Site 32, had a cement arrow at the base of the airway beacon to point the way to the next beacon.

Looking back at the area where the last beacon we visited was located.

Building foundation at Buffalo Valley Intermediate Field.

Another view of the cement course arrow.

Gas tank and possible generator shed foundation next to the corral.

The driveway at Buffalo Valley Intermediate Field was cement curbed.

 

[PHXtaco]

Cement walkway to a possible flag pole?

Entrance to the Buffalo Valley Intermediate Field.

Close-up of the generator shed and gas tank foundation.

Since we were in Buffalo Valley, we decided to check out the Buffalo Valley hotsprings.

No pools, really just seeps, but still interesting.

Interesting rock hill we passed by.

Another view of the interesting rock hill.

 

[PHXtaco]

Off into the canyon we go.

And over the hill…

And through another canyon...

...with running water in the desert in August.

An old ranch we passed by.

An abandoned stone building.

We stopped and checked out another hot spring.

Since it was the middle of summer, and since this spring was at lower elevations, the water had been diverted to let the tub dry out during this low/zero use period.

 

[PHXtaco]

The spring source.

View from above the spring source.

On the pavement again.

The plane crash we are going to be looking for is in the mountains ahead.

Looks like there are some patches of snow still in the higher elevations.

So after the previous weekend’s close call on gas, when planning this weekend’s trip I made sure the planned route was within a tank of gas, but between backtracking to find the previous night’s campsite, and a couple extra side trips we took to investigate various sightings, we were cutting it close again.

Note the low fuel warning light is on, 11 miles to Austin NV indicated on the Droid phone, and 13.9 miles to empty on the Scan Pro.

Ahh, made to gas with some to spare!!! We were sweating it for a while-- and no, I was not carrying a spare can, again!

Main street Austin, NV.

Now off to find that airplane with a full tank of gas!

Even more water in these hills!

 

[PHXtaco]

This old cabin was painted Forest Service green. I wonder if it was an old ranger station?

Remnants of a stone building.

The road starts petering out...

...and finally turned into an ATV trail. Since this is a couple miles short of where I was hoping to drive to, there was not enough time left to hike to the crash site (and then drive home that evening). We decide to hike part way to still get some hiking in and scout the route in order to know what to expect for our next attempt. (Secretly I was wondering if I cut the 2 low overhanging branches how much further I could drive, but just up a short ways further the road had been washed out to the point that only narrow ATVs could get by.)

An old mine we passed by.

This was almost to where I had hoped to drive to.

The crash is on the far ridge and to the left off the picture. This is going to require a good solid day to hike.

The wild flowers were still in bloom.

We spotted this bird (grouse???) on the hike back to the truck.

 

[PHXtaco]

Driving through aspens on the way out.

Found a good camp site for the next attempt to hike to this crash site.

Back into the valley and the desert, a stark contrast from the lush green mountains.

We ran into a slight traffic jam on the way home.

This one showed no fear!

THE END!

 

[mtnbike28]

Lost pictures?

Did you format the card and shoot over them or lose the memory card? Recovery software can recover images on a formatted card. If that is what happened, stop using the card and run a recovery software. I have two versions, if you want, you can mail me the memory card and I will try to recover them for you. At least it might give you a few of the pictures back...

 

[SilverBullet]

Thanks for sharing, nice to see the history of aviation before the VOR days and such, the arrow is great.

 

[PHXtaco]

Did you format the card and shoot over them or lose the memory card? Recovery software can recover images on a formatted card. If that is what happened, stop using the card and run a recovery software. I have two versions, if you want, you can mail me the memory card and I will try to recover them for you. At least it might give you a few of the pictures back...

I deleted everything on the card for another trip thinking I had downloaded everything to the computer. Then did that two more times before realizing I had not downloaded them. I then did exactly what you suggested and tried recovery software. It found 500 pictures, but unfortunately not the ones I wanted
Thanks for the offer though!

 

[Albin]

Another hit outta the park! Great pics and trip report. Reminds me of my NV exploring trips in the '80's out looking for old ghost towns, hot springs and secret air force bases - good times.

God I miss the desert!

Thanks,

Al