Article from
VOL. 48  NO. 10     OCTOBER 2007

Virgin Valley and the Ark!
by Jim Hutchings

With the possibility of major changes to our favorite digging site up at Virgin Valley, I took the opportunity to run up for one last dig. It was too cold to dredge for gold anyway, and perfect weather for "diggin" in the desert. Or was it? I hoped to get there early afternoon from Foresthill in the mother lode.  

As I approached a stop at the Donner Summit Rest Stop on Interstate 80, I blew out a freeze plug at the bottom of the engine block on my big desert rat van. Every drop of coolant came out onto the pavement and the engine went into immediate overheat. Fortunately, the temperatures were cool enough that there was no damage to the engine. What to do? Call a tow and wait for three days to get it fixed? Cancel the trip? Absolutely Not!!!!!! We are talking OPAL here!!!!!

"Like Noah, I called the campers to repentance, and ordered an ark to be built!  Did they listen?  No!”  

 

With the obsession of a true opalholic, and the resources of a fairly prepared desert rock hound, I set about to fix it myself. I found the worst case scenario, a freeze plug that had been replaced four years ago, had failed and was located dead center under the motor mount.  I used the pretty orange RV leveler blocks to build a wheel ramp to get the van high enough to work underneath it. I blocked all four tires front and back with fire wood.   

I used the scissor jack from the Chevrolet Tracker 4x4 I was towing and some firewood for blocking to lift the engine off rubber motor mounts for removal. I had just enough tools in the tool box to remove all the bolts and brackets and other parts to get to the freeze plug. I drove into Truckee, got the freeze plug, some antifreeze and a couple of new 11/16 deep well sockets for my socket wrench. I sort of lost the one I was using in the ford square frame access hole! 

Back to Donner Summit, where I replaced the freeze plug, reassembled the motor mount assembly, and refilled with fresh antifreeze, and cold mountain water. Just in time, it started dumping snow pellets! 

I got three good days of digging in the bank, got a few good specimens, and a bucket full of unknowns. Friday night, around the campfire, I had mentioned to other visitors that I had never witnessed a flash flood in all my desert travels. Dumb thing to say!  

Saturday afternoon became cloudy which we had anticipated from news reports. After the dig, at about 4:30 PM, I headed out east of Virgin Valley along SR 140 to do some rock hounding. I didn't get far when a big black ugly cell moved in with lightening and heavy rain. I beat it back to the car and made my way back to the CCC camp. By then, the road was a solid shallow river of water. As I worked my way back the 13 miles to the Royal Peacock camp, I had to ford about five flash flood zones several hundred feet long. While they were shallow, they were full of slimy mud and rock debris. Fortunately, the Virgin River ponds were dry and the drop off was only about a foot or two in these areas.  

There was no danger of drowning; however, the lightening and hail made for a very uncomfortable trip. I got back to the camp and found it still dry. Like Noah, I called the campers to repentance, and ordered an ark to be built!  

Did they listen? No! A wicked wind came up, the lightning bore down all around us, and a rain — no, a deluge—commenced. Within minutes, the entire camp became a sheet of flowing water. The tents in the dry camp area were flattened and full of water. As the campers realized that   their clothes and bedding were getting soaked, they tried to salvage what they could. The hail came. Those out in it got beat with balls the size of large shooter marbles.  

The ravine just west and above the camp became a raging river. The sound of a fast moving river in such a dry place is a very strange sound. 

The camp host had opened up one of the rental trailers for the tent campers. Unfortunately, it leaked badly and we set out pots and pans in about five locations. A fear began to circulate about the whereabouts of the camp kittens. These kittens were stowaways in a fifthwheel from Fresno last spring. They were the most playful and friendly cats anybody had known. They endeared themselves to the campers by jumping up in your lap around the campfire and purring.  They were nowhere to be seen in the flood, and this would have been a new and dangerous experience for them. 

The rain stopped about an hour and a half later. The water subsided. The tent campers surveyed the damage. It was not pretty. I had plenty of firewood, some still dry as I had stashed it under the van just in case it rained. We started a bonfire, shared what food we had, laughed and howled at the moon until past 11:00 PM. Trailer campers cleared out their cars, we all pulled our extra sleeping bags and blankets and got the tent campers into a dry place to sleep for the night.   

As I pulled open my spare sleeping blanket, three kittens rolled out onto my bed. They were high and dry, since they had found an ark! They were the only ones who took heed of the warning!  

The next morning, we put a convoy of five cars together, those of us who needed to leave. We found the road covered with up to 7 or 8 inches of slimy mud and debris in about 6 or 7 locations and in some places, another 6 or 7 inches of hail. The hills around us were white in hail that had remained all night.  

We all made it through, barely. A couple of rental cars were going to need some extreme cleaning, and my tow car was completely mud covered from one end to the other. 

As I left Reno and headed towards the Donner Lake Inspection Station, the most incredible rainbows appeared, two of them. One appeared as if it was just on the other side of the guard rail on the east bound side; the other, more intense one, closer to the mountains. The trees and rock were visible through the intense fire of the full rainbow. Traffic came to a stall on both sides of the freeway as motorists pulled off and, with cameras in hand, tried to capture the incredible sight. What a way to end one of my more memorable trips to the desert! The thing that impresses me the most was the way people come together to help each other in a crisis. More impressive than rainbows, more impressive than opal. 

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