Originally Posted by
accountinquestion
I don't want to be a negative nancy because I like your posts but camping around Las Vegas looks legitimately horrible. What wildlife is there outside of rattlesnakes and lizards ?!? No water. No trees. Desert and scrub bushes. ???
It's more about gaining experience with setting up, taking down and learning what items I actually need to pack before I travel long distances to places like Utah, Colorado, Oregon, Alaska... etc. etc.
It is also more about getting out and away from society, TV, Computers, the House... etc. etc.
Last Time I was in the Spring Mountains, it is obvious they have Aerial Phenomenon.
At night, its kind of nice to see the stars.
I like campfires.
You don't have to worry about Bears.
They do have Mountain Lions but its rare to actually see them.
Bird Watching is kind of a thing for some people.
They have Wild Horses so that's kind of cool.
I also have no problems carrying my weapons in Nevada.
If I cross the border over to California or other places I will begin to have problems with firearm possession.
Here is a little lesson about the Spring Mountains and Mt. Charleston.
Geology
The Mount Charleston Wilderness is composed of a 30,000-foot pile of limestone that accumulated in a westward-deepening sea between about 520 million and 280 million years ago. The fossilized remains of brachiopods, sponges, corals, crinoids, gastropods and other marine organisms are still visible in limestone outcrops throughout the Spring Mountains, including at the summit of Griffith Peak. Near the end of the Paleozoic Era, as sea level dropped as an epoch of subduction began as the seafloor began to plunge beneath the westward drifting North American continent. During the Triassic, rivers piled sand and mud atop the limestone and gypsum. As the climate dried out during the Jurassic, sand dunes blew across the landscape. Those dunes were later buried by younger sediments, cementing the loose sand to form the Aztec Sandstone. Intensification of subduction during the late Mesozoic eventually squeezed southern Nevada’s rocks and thrusted the older limestones up and over the Aztec Sandstone and other Mesozoic rocks along the Keystone and other thrust faults. This inverted landscape today creates the spectacular steep limestone cliffs and walls we see today in the wilderness, towering more that 10,000 feet above the 200 million-year-newer sandstones found in the red rocks at the base of the mountains.
Mount Charleston: An Island in the Sky
Rising nearly 12,000 feet from the floor of desert valleys to the summit of Mount Charleston, the Spring Mountain represent four ecozones, that is equivalent to driving from Mexico to Alaska. Starting with desert shrublands, where the primary vegetation is creosote bush, blackbrush and, in slightly higher elevation areas, Joshua trees, you will quickly move into the low conifer zone dominated by evergreen pinyon pine and juniper trees as you move up in elevation. Above this level, coinciding with the most popular Mount Charleston hiking areas, is the high conifer zone featuring ponderosa pine trees, white fir trees, and bristlecone and limber pines at the upper reaches of this zone. There are many mountain in the Great Basin which support stands of bristlecone pines. Mount Charleston, however, features a true bristlecone pine forest. Above the treeline, above 11,000 feet, you will find a fragile alpine plant zone that has evolved in isolation, more than 130 miles from nearest mountains with similar elevations.
Like true ocean isolated islands, Mount Charleston, isolated by more than 100 miles of desert on all sides, has evolved its own endemic species of plants and animals- organisms found no where else. Seven of these endemic species are butterflies. These butterflies feed have thrived for centuries in mutualistic relationships with flowering plants, some of which are also endemic. Examples include Clokey’s thistle, rough angelica, Torrey’s milkvetch and the mountain oxytrope, the latter two on which the Mount Charleston blue butterfly feeds. This is how island ecology works. The Palmer’s chipmunk is another species endemic to the Spring Mountains, a cheery little fellow guaranteed to enchant hikers in the Wilderness. There are an estimated 28 species of plants, animals and insects found on Mount Charleston and nowhere else in the world.
Wildlife
The biological diversity of animal life in the Spring Mountains is astounding. Bird watchers will find a paradise with more than 130 species described within the region. Fans of flying mammals will discover more than 18 species of bats spending time in the Spring Mountains over the cycles of seasons. Rabbits and rodents are very well represented in the Wilderness. Mule deer, desert bighorn sheep, pronghorn, and an occasional elk my be spotted in the Spring Mountains. Elk were initially introduced from Yellowstone National Park into the Spring Mountains in the 1930s when they were part of the Desert Game Range (today's Desert National Wildlife Refuge). Predators include coyote, bobcat, grey fox, mountain lion, badger, western spotted skunk, ring-tail cat, long-tailed weasel, and the tiny dwarf shrew, who preys on insects.
Plants
The extreme diversity of ecozones combined with the biological diversity of the Mojave Desert creates conditions within the Spring Mountains that support over 700 species of plants. The list would be exhaustive and we will not subject you to that in this space.