MIDDLE CARPENTER CANYON

After just a few more turns and twists we hit upon this scene:

Before we take it to the top, we can look back some more from the middle of the canyon, between 5,000 and 6,000 feet above mean sea level.

The south end of Pahrump is visible:

The dry lake that covers much of the Pahrump Valley also stands out, in this picture:

We are in a transition zone, with a nice variety of vegetation representing both the desert and the mountain climate zones:

Mount Charleston gets closer and harder to see at the same time, and the road now twists and turns to get us into the canyon at the center of the picture below:

A final look toward Pahrump through a nearby Pinyon pine, and up we go again, into the pine-dominated climate zone:

As we head up into the canyon at the center of the above photo, to my (but not to our guide's) surprise, as soon as we enter that particular canyon we encountered water on the road, running rapidly:

This is what happens when the road is made at the bottom of a canyon, the gravel shows it is a stream- channel bottom:  

What we are seeing is recharge!  Water is infiltrating into the alluvium (water-deposited rock debris) that makes up the canyon bottom, and just before we saw the water on the road, all was dry on the surface.  The stream had/has gone underground to end up, eventually, in the Pahrump Valley and beyond.

There is yet another vegetation change coming: the first Ponderosa pines show we are near the top of Carpenter Canyon:

Soon after passing this stand of tall trees, we explored on foot for a while (see next page) 

1.    Carpenter Canyon, lower portion

2.    Carpenter Canyon, middle portion (this page)

3.    Carpenter Canyon, upper portion

4.    Devils Hole

5.    Ash Meadows, Crystal Springs and Lakes

6.    Ash Meadows, Point of Rocks

7.    Stewart Valley and back to Pahrump Valley

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