1st Nevada Hike: Golden Eagle Regional Park

Golden Eagle Regional Park - August 23rd, 2014
BLM high usage recreational area, Sparks, NV
Mileage: 7.9 mi (Round Trip)
Elevation Gain: ~1000 ft.
Highest Elevation: 4974 ft.
Dogs: Allowed
Difficulty:  Easy (if acclimated)
Required Pass: None

Before I tell you about hiking at Golden Eagle, let me share a little parable about the effects of moving to a location with drastically increased average elevation:

Allison and I woke up the first morning after we moved to Nevada at our friend Tina's house.  She lives in a really nice housing development on the border of Sparks and Spanish springs.  Since her housing development butts right up to the base of the mountains, we decided to go for a short morning walk up the hill...  Let's take a short break right now to talk a little about elevation change and how much it effects the physical performance capability of the human body.  As many of you know from reading older blog posts, Allison & I were in pretty awesome shape by the middle of the summer 2014 hiking season.  Thus, we thought we were prepared to handle any physical adventure, especially gaining a mere 500 ft. of elevation while walking to the top of a foothill behind Tina's house.  Boy were we wrong!  The twin cities of Reno and Sparks, NV sit at about an average of 4400 ft. elevation above sea level.  Our bodies were still used to living at about 100 ft of elevation above sea level in the Seattle area and occasionally hiking to the top of a mountain that was 4400 ft. tall!  By the time Allison, Jaxxon, and I had ascended about half of this HILL behind Tina's house we were panting.  We both looked at each-other and then at the no trespassing sign ahead and decided it was time to head home.  

It is important to note that our body's are built to adapt to changes in elevation. According to Wikipedia the number of days it takes the human body for the physical changes to occur, "can be approximated by multiplying the altitude in kilometers by 11.4 days".  Over this time period a number of major, long term, changes, primarily in the cardiovascular system, occur in an effort to oxygenate more blood.

About three weeks after the above experience, once our bodies had had adequate time to acclimate,

Bird's Eye View of Golden Eagle Regional Park

Allison and I decided to go on our first small hiking adventure.  After our first breathtaking walking experience at Tina's house on our first morning, Allison and I made a decision to start walking for 45-90 minutes around Tina's mother, Jan's neighborhood (where we stayed until we found our own apartment) about 4-5 times a week.  On one of these walks we discovered Golden Eagle Regional Park which is a large city park that features six softball fields, two full-size baseball fields, two little league baseball fields, a stadium-size multi-use (football/soccer) field and two additional multi-purpose fields.  It also connects with a large piece of Nevada Bureau of Land Management's land which is designated as a high use recreational area.  I could easily get technical and explain the ins and outs of what this means, but suffice it to say these high use areas are pretty much like the old West.  You can drive your vehicle anywhere you want, you can shoot your guns, you can party or you can do something more innocuous like exploring, camping or hiking, like we choose to do on this day.  

Allison, Jaxxon and I parked at the entrance to the BLM area, and headed out on a dirt road towards the closest peak which we thought would probably have a view of downtown Reno.  Being that it was summer, we were in the desert, and the entire hike offered exactly 0 trees for shade, we started the hike early in the morning to avoid being baked alive in mid afternoon.  Prior to the hike we did the ceremonial desert hiking routine of covering ourselves in copious amounts of sunscreen and drinking and packing in a bunch of water, think 4.5 liters.  For a hike that wasn't going to take more than 2 hours max.

After hiking about 1 mile on the road, we turned slightly right to start up an unmarked trail towards the peak.  As the trail began to gain elevation, we began to pant, but luckily all of the walking in the neighborhood had really helped us get better used to the elevation.  I can't imagine how bad it would have been if we had tried to do something like this the first week we were in Sparks!  After about an hour of taking it nice and slow, we reached the top of the peak.  We ended up with a view of downtown Reno, like we expected.  It wasn't really anything to write home about as we were about 10 miles away from it, so it was kind of hazy and hard to see.  Allison and I were talking about the fact that this would be a really cool place to bring a picnic dinner and watch the sunset since the city skyline and the mountains that make up Tahoe were almost due West.

After taking a short rest and hydrating ourselves and Jaxxon, we began the return portion of the hike.  This part would have been easy and uneventful if we hadn't run into Billy Bob and his friend doing some impromptu target practice with their guns... Thanks for that one BLM high use area!  Please don't get me wrong, we were totally safe and they were totally shooting legally and as respectfully as possible.  The main problem was that Jaxxon, as you may remember from previous hiking posts, is completely, absolutely, scared shitless of gun fire.  So, immediately after the first shot was fired, he hit the deck and wouldn't move.  We tried to coax/drag him for a few hundred feet, but the guys kept shooting and he actually began to pull violently in the opposite direction.  At this point I emptied my backpack and put him in it with his head sticking out of the top.  This worked for about another 200 ft. until they started shooting again and he decided to jump out of the backpack.  Luckily my ninja senses were in full swing, and I was able to catch him with my left arm before he hit the ground.  After a long and arduous struggle the rest of the way back to the car, we were all glad to be calling it a day. 

Overall, our first desert hiking experience was kind of a mixed bag.  On the one hand, it was really cool to have access to the mountains and BLM land basically right in your back yard.  On the other hand it was BLM land and the guns almost made Jaxxon's little doggy heart explode.  The desert is also really ugly during mid day but is absolutely gorgeous during sunrise and sunset.  The lack of shade during the day also makes planning your hike quite different than in the PNW.  During the summer you pretty much have to avoid hiking during the middle of the day or get cooked.  Either way it was cool to be spending time outdoors in such a drastically different environment and also cool to be building on our hiking knowledge and outdoorsmenship by having to figure out how to navigate this new environment safely and successfully.

Still, given the bleak, ugly terrain, it would take another hike before we really felt okay about our decision to move...