Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge: Juxtaposition of life adjacent Death Valley

/ Anita "AJ" Barrett, adventure traveler of lesser abilities

Tens of thousands of years ago. Way way back in the BCE. High atop a mountain like, say, Mount Charleston near current day Las Vegas, snow falls.

Flash forward today. Those same fossils-old snow molecules glisten in the meadow before you…

Our drive through the dry Mojave desert led into Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, home of fossil water. We stopped for the entrance signage:



From the Funeral Mountains of Death Valley we came. Then we went #where-the-desert-springs-to-life.

Beyond the Boardwalk, down by the springs…

This refuge offers a modern Visitor’s Center with shaded parking. A lot of displays inform, then it’s out the back door onto the main feature trail.

At first it seemed it would be a BORED walk. But not for long, as the true colors of this largest remaining desert oasis shone through.

And the signage mentions tarantulas. Who wouldn’t become wary?

  • Looks like a duck floating on a greenish spring.
    American coot.
  • duck like bird swimming in a pond
    Do two coots make cooties?
  • Fly on stalk in spring
    Hoverfly
  • jackrabbit sitting on the sand
    Black tailed jackrabbit.
  • sign describing Life in Crystal Spring
    40+ years ago, developers sought to turn these animals’ homes into motels, malls and houses
  • black bird white belly sitting on a branch
    Hot spot for bird watchers. Phainopepla?
  • sign describing the uniqueness of the meadow
    Don’t call this a preserve. It’s an area in recovery.
  • red swamp crayfish in a spring
    Red swamp crayfish.
  • reeds along the spring
    Reeds and grasses rebounded in the 35 years since refuge designation
  • sign titled Timing is Everything
  • clear blue spring
    This spring produces 2,800 gallons of water a minute, is approximately 15 feet deep and the water stays a consistent 87°
  • creek feed by spring
    Natural flows restored after years of diversion that threatened to drain the aquifer
  • underwater plants visible through the clear spring water
    No signs of the rare pupfish that feed on this algae.
  • white wildflower
    Yerba Mansa will turn red in the fall.

We spied some old coots, a jackrabbit and crawdaddies. Still on bucket list: tarantula in the wild.

Short hike on to the Longstreet

The namesake of the casino and RVoyager’s campsite, Jack Longstreet led a legendary wild west life. This colorful character cut a few too many notches in his gun and had to become scarce.

Longstreet built a cabin over a cave near a spring that would eventually take on his name and describe his legacy.

  • Info about Longstreet, the cabin, the trail, and a carving of Longstreet. Jack Longstreet epitomized the Wild West. He settled in the desert to avoid the law.
    We love the carvings next to all the signs in this refuge.
  • Bees in a hive in a rock formation along the trail
    The ranger assured us safe distance would suffice.
  • Bill in the cabin doorway.
    Adventure traveler Bill Sims decided not to move.
  • View inside the Longstreet cabin, a blank wall with a cut out wooden cupboard area.
    Prime real estate…if one room is an ‘open concept’
  • Side view of cabin, Bill reading a sign about the rebuilding of the cabin
    Hard to believe that a flash flood wiped out the cabin
  • Sign about the rebuilding done based on old photos.
    Stone by stone, preservationists rebuilt the cabin.
  • Close up of algae and marsh greenery with spring water in background
    For life, water.
  • 16 gallons per second and other details such as 78 degrees F temperature details on sign about Longstreet Spring
    Exactly how much water, science says here
  • Overview of the greenery and pond.
    Longstreet Spring overlook
  • Rear of cabin with rocky ledges
    Beneath the back yard, a cave

Devils Hole: Not the river Styx but possible highway to hell

About 500 feet of water fill the cavern entrance that leads to unexplored and unknown depths. Seems like a great place to stick the Devil moniker.

Another short hike leads to this nondescript slit in the canyon wall. Gadgets grab data from its sides. Big brother’s watching and the area remains fenced off to protect us from the Devil himself?

Of course not. Here fencing protects the protagonist of the conservation story — the devils hole pupfish. As humans tapped the aquifer lower, the breeding zone rose above water level.

The Supreme Court intervened to save these rare and endangered fish. And some technicalities helped annex this strange feature and its creatures into the Death Valley National Park system.

  • Devils hole foot traffic only sign against desert backdrop
    Devil done gone out west and swallowed him some apostrophes
  • Cactus clingers hover above the passage.
    The murky depths lead God only knows where.
  • Red bud, green leaved vegetation growing out of rocks
    Oh tenacious life
  • Aerial view of this not very large waterfilled slit in the canyon wall
    Like a hell-icopter we hover over
  • Yellow bud bush on canyon wall of Devils Hole, Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge
    Ash meadows gumplant or some kin to the creosote bush. Or what?
  • Gauges at water level close up, also some algae
    Sensors detect seismo readings and monitor the pupfish environs.
  • Needles backlit against canyon backdrop.
    Last light in this canyon catches cactus.
  • View midway up the rock
    Voting to rename this TARDIS since it’s small on the outside and larger inside.
  • Sign about Tsunami that happens to the water when there's an earthquake
    What if this suddenly splashed up at you?

Imagine this dark hole turning Tsunami for no reason at all. You might find it hard to believe the cause is an earthquake on thousands of miles away. Who knew?

What’s the Point of these rocks?

For the most part signage teaches us and identifies what we encounter, like this trailhead sign. But the next sign — a cultural sign — left us asking, What rock features?

  • sign telling about Point of Rocks
    Everywhere, great signs.
  • Sign about the past cultures
    Except this sign. We never found the limestone holes to grind our grain.
  • Mountain
    A longer trail visits the mountain park borders.
  • The namesake tree and a sign describing it
    Ash tree, AKA namesake
  • Ridge of rocks
    For this trail, a point of namesake rocks
  • spring water
    King spring of the point of rocks springs
  • sign telling about then and now
    Pupfish have been here since before the mastodons.

The Point of Rocks Springs hike offers exceptional views as the sun droops lower to give the landscapes that magic glow.

Last stop: Reservoir

Hard to believe that humans would mess with mother nature. And yet, here we found damming evidence. But no memory of when this happened.

We do know that at some point prior to 1984, developers planned to convert these springs from mere oasis home of up to 30 endemic and endangered species… into a city. Or something like that. Whatever.

  • mountains across a reservoir of water
    The Crystal Reservoir
  • purple flowers on a plant
    Spring loving centaury
  • Mountains in the distance across the reservoir
    No swimming allowed
  • purple flowers
    The centaury, an endangered species
  • Shoreline of Reservoir
    Non-motorized or electric power boats OK.
  • purple flower
    This species rebounded since the founding of the refuge.
  • Bill on shoreline for scale
    Following tracks.
  • salt formation in sand
    Soil salination makes growth difficult. Every footprint raises salts.
  • adventure travelers AJ and Bill beside a body of water
    Incredible day!

Seeing the salt bubble up from footprints it became clear to us that only special kinds of life will thrive here. So again we want to thank the special kinds of people — conservationists — who fight the good fight to keep places like this one out of the clutches of condo construction.

Ash Meadows NWR
Amargosa Valley, NV

775-372-5435
Ash Meadows NWR

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