Nevada Dan: Cloudy in The Gash

The Gash

The Gash, panorama

I have no idea what The Gash's real name is; I call it The Gash because that is what it is, "a deep narrow depression or cut." It cuts through the Virginia Range behind Damonte Ranch High School like an serrated wound cut into the mountain.

Approaching The Gash

Coco surveys her domain.

I first hiked here on New Year's Day several (OK, quite a few) years ago and was struck my its massive jumble. Although directly behind the subdivisions and teenagers it feels like a real wild place. I have been back a couple of times since, generally it is a winter hike due to what I'm sure is an abundance of rattlesnakes and the heat anytime but on nice dry cold winter days.

However, Memorial Day was overcast, windy and cool. Since I ended up spending most of the day cleaning up and waiting for Renee to get back from her weekend working, it got late and I decided to go hike it with Coco. We hiked up through the rock falls of the lower canyon and climbed into the narrow deepest part of the steep canyon and then the light parted and the canyon shone. It really is a quite magical place, it feels like a neglected and crumbling castle, if I am going to give it a human simile, which I usually don't like to do, but in this case it is quite fitting, there is something that feels long abandoned and yet once and still grand about this place.

Sort of obligatory wrecked car pieces. What I wonder is how people get cars into these places in the first place to wreck?

Climbing toward the heart of The Gash

In the heart of The Gash

In The Gash.

The Gash is something that probably everyone in Reno has noticed, however peripherally, at one time or another—if they have looked toward the Virginia Range while driving on 395 south (well, then again, maybe not). Still despite its omnipresence on the Reno "skyline" (i.e., horizon, in Reno the mountains surely outshine the otherwise dwarfed tall buildings), I think most of Reno is unaware of just what treasures it holds.