Nevada Books

While doing due diligence on The Cortez Trend in Nevada I came across this wonderful autobiography of the geologist that reinterpreted earlier work in the Nevada basin and range and discovered the Carlin Trend gold belt, also the Battle Mountain Trend and the Cortez Trend. Nevada had been scoured by prospectors since the gold rush of 1849 and the Comstock Lode silver discovery. Virtually all surface deposits had been found and exploited. The Carlin Trend is micro-gold which does not show up when panning, it must be assayed. With the advent of heap leaching Nevada has produced in excess of 600 million ounces of gold and this will continue for quite some time with the prospective development of The Cortez Trend. Dr Roberts tells of his work in the USGS in Central America during WWII, Nevada, Utah and Saudi Arabia. He gives us his reasons for believing the Ophir mine that produced the gold of King Solomon is in Saudi Arabia. It was very interesting to read about the life of a field geologist.

Excellent read with good intermix of personal and professional history. It is inspiring to read as well as educational. Thank you Dr. Roberts.

Ralph J. Roberts has found that a devotion to family and geology can lead to a life well lived and he relates the story of his life well in A Passion For Gold. Roberts spent 44 years with the United States Geological Survey and after retiring, became a private consultant. His most important discovery was the Carlin-type gold deposit. The reader with a non-geologic background will want access to a copy of the Glossary of Geology to help with the few technical sections included in the book [there is a glossary at the back of the book, but it is not thorough enough]. There are a few awkward sentences and some extraneous commas [I think, being the extra comma and awkward sentece king myself], but this is a suprisingly comfortable read considering that most of Mr. Roberts' earlier writings were technical papers. I trained as a mining/exploration geologist and so it was easy for me to relate to this autobiography, but non-geologists should find much of interest in Ralph Roberts' life story. It was on top of one of the mines near Battle Mountain, Nevada that Mr. Roberts writes about that I found myself deciding to abandon my masters thesis in geochemistry and to devote my life to the education of America's younger citizens [I teach earth science at the high school level]. I knew I couldn't help folks did big holes in the ground just for a little gold. I enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone with an interest in geology, but I can't give A Passion For Gold a full five stars because I think the technical sections could have been handled in a way that would have made this book a little more accessible to a wider audience.

Midnight Louie Does it again!!! He's one cool cat that has the street smarts to solve the case.

Midnight Louie, the suave, sophisticated cat sleuth, has done it again! He and his family and friends come to life in a very unique way. As he "pussyfoots" through the pages, he becomes a part of "the family." As a devoted fan of animal detective mysteries, it is easy to see why this one rates high on the list. And the way the human and animal stories proceed together is excellently done. Keep 'em coming!

*Pussyfoot* draws the reader deeper into Midnight Louie's and Temple's slice of Las Vegas. You get to meet Crawford Buchanan, a rival PR man, and sleazy 50s throwback who completely missed the Women's Liberation movement. After suffering a heart attack, Crawford talks Temple into covering a stripper convention, the climax of which is a competition. Unfortunately, strippers start to show up dead, strangled with items from their costumes. Temple also encounters a striptease protestor who joins in the adventure, and learns some of the dancers' stories. As a special added attraction, the reader meets the Divine Yvette, Midnight Louie's petite, silver coated lady love. Temple's natural nosiness puts her face-to-face with the killer. Carole Nelson Douglas always includes some little device to explain the title...where will it be this time?

Recollections of a Handcart Pioneer of 1860 (Second Edition): A Woman's Life on the Mormon Frontier

As a Gr Granddaughter of handcart pioneers, I've wondered what could have driven them to such extreme efforts, but my ancestors left very little in writing. This book was a small window into a culture that is difficult to understand. I only wish she had gone into more detail. Her calm acceptance of polygamy, and her courage in raising 7 children in such a desolate place, almost single-handedly, leaves much unsaid.

A fascinating peep into the everyday life of one woman who, along with many others, braved the trail west. Her story is told simply and factually - it has the feel of sitting down with an old friend you haven't seen for a long time and catching up on the news. Whether you're of the Mormon faith or not (I'm not, but enjoyed the book for its historical content), you can't help but admire the hardy spirit of this pioneer woman in the face of death and hardship and rejoice with her in the simple delights that come along just often enough to make it all worthwhile. Though the title sounds like the book focuses mostly on the trail experience, it actually tells her story through the rest of her life.

I must admit that I am a bit biased, since Mary was my wife's great grandmother. A touching book, and does not white wash the trials experienced.

I am a resident of Nevada and read a lot of history. Recently I have read a lot of books on Nevada history, and I must say this is one of the best. Thoroughly researched and footnoted, it covers almost every aspect of Virginia City history, yet is eminently readable. Some history books are too dry and dusty, and you have to plow through them (or give up), but Mr. James' book holds your interest from beginning to end. If you are interested in the history of VC, this is the one to buy!

Mr. James cuts through all of the legends that have grown up around Virginia City and its fabled Comstock Lode to give us a truly outstanding and eminently readable history. He draws together primary and secondary sources, demographic analysis and archaeology to give the reader a broad, yet surprisingly detailed understanding of the Comstock from its humble beginnings, through bonanza and borrasca, and right up to the present day. Highly recommended!!

Thoroughly enjoyed reading each chapter of Mr.James' book. I would suggest it for anyone having an interest in the old West, the mining periods, and personnae of the same, and perhaps just as importantly to gain some insightful information behind the storefornt facades and adits of Virginia City. The author has provided much background behind the legends, pulled down to earth other "legends" and truly given this "tourist site" it's legitmate and historical due. I am anxious to visit the Lake Tahoe area once again and take that little jaunt over the hill to visit a now-less-mysterious Virginia City.

This book is very informative in it's text and few pictures. What it really lacked is readable maps, GPS coordinates or really anything other then the very vague directions to any given site. Some instructions are go to site 1 then take this route to site 2 then turn right to site 3. Which is ok assuming they give you good directions to site #1. When they say turn left on dirt road, you have no idea what dirt road they are talking about, because in mining areas there could be 10 dirt roads in a span of 300 feet.

This is an extremely complete history of the local history which provides detailed directions which are easy to follow. Covers many more sites than any other book on the subject I have seen. Excellent contrast of vintage and modern photos.

I have visited Eureka several times since finding out my great grandfather worked in the mines there. Romancing Nevada's Past directed me right to the mining site my great grandfather worked and the book had a picture of the house my grandfather was born in. The information is well written and accurate. I often find myself reading it just for the fun of learning more about Eureka and the surrounding areas.

This book is a look back at Las Vegas and the area from prehistoric times to the present. It is very informative and packed with information that history buffs will love. It also explains the evolution of Las Vegas from a western town teetering on the edge of becoming a ghost town to the boom that started with the building of the Hoover (Boulder) Dam and continues today. This book is very academic in nature, so you have to love history to like this book. Overall a very interesting book.

This books gives an general overall history of Las Vegas and its chameleonistic changes over time. From the dawn of mans first wanderings into the Las Vegas area to modern day gambling mecca and suburban success, this book packs a short, but sweet punch into a somewhat short span. This book is good for people interested in Las Vegas history where general Nevada history leaves off,

The Lands have an easy, breezy writing style. In particular they bring the last 100 years of Las Vegas history alive with many photos of the times and observations of citizens and visitors alike who were there. Although they do not discuss the role the divorce business or the wedding industry played in the city's development (and weddings are associated with Vegas almost as much as gaming), the picture of the city presented here is fun and informative. To quote the authors quoting Steve Wynn, "Las Vegas is a party that never stops. God bless this daffy place."

This poem is so wonderfully written and the pictures are so beautiful. Great book for kids.

This book was actually pretty good, I thought, I had to read it for a Children's Book Project for my 8th grade English class. I randomly picked it from a stack, and thought it was nice. It has beautiful imagery and tone, and amazing artistry with the help of Wendell Minor. As you know, this book is at a 2nd-4th grade level, so I didn't really think any of it, just a blatant book for kids, but its actually a poem in a sort of a way, deeply detailed and carefully written.

Each double page spread includes a beautiful Wendell Minor paintings. The book is really a poem that is told to you as if the mountains are speaking to you about the aspects of its life. In this book, nature has a voice.

I think this is a pretty good book for beginners, but for more advanced flower identification, this book is not that good. First, it is organized by color variation, and not by plant family. Also, there are many species of wildflowers that occur in the sierras that do not appear in this book.

As an example to illustrate how this is a weakness, imagine the following sceanrio:
If you found a yellow flower that was not in the book, you would have a hard time identifying it looking in the 'yellow' section of this book, because closely related species may not be yellow.

The pictures, on the other hand, are very well done. The photos are closeups, and very bright. If you want a basic book this may be the one for you.

Good luck!

This field guide to the wildflowers of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California -- one of the FalconGuide series -- is terrific. It first introduces you to the geology of the region, defining the types of habitat for the plants, and describes how to identify the plants, including wonderful, careful line drawings of types of leaves and flowers. The book itself is organized by color of the flowers (so the chapters are "Blue and Purple Flowers," "Red and Orange Flowers," and so on), which makes identifying them easier, since their most obvious characteristic comes first. Each of the 230 wildflowers included in the book has a picture and a description, habitat locator, and comment from the author. In addition, the book is very sturdy and well-produced, with excellent photographs of the plants and a strong binding. And here's a neat design feature: the corners are rounded, so they'll never become dog-eared. Up until now on hikes I've admired wildflowers in the abstract; this book makes it easy to appreciate more of what you see.

It's obvious the author of this book knows what she's talking about! In our exploration of the Sierra Nevada we've come across a multitude of flora, but never before did we know what it was. In this book, Karen Weise provdes beautiful photographs along with a complete description of the flower, it's blooming period, habitat/range, and her comments, which include the genus of each plant. Owning this book, I find no need to search for any others. I buy this book for my special friends who share the Sierra Nevada with the flora found there!

Great trip planning resource - more overnighters than Sierra South.

I enjoy all of the Winnett books because they are accurate, fun to read and reliable. This book has little chapters on over 100 trips in the Sierra range, and the descriptions of each trek are a total delight. So often these hiking books neglect to tell you how to reach the trailhead and oftentimes they don't provide detailed instructions. Winnett never makes this mistake. You will not need a separate map to locate any of the trailheads, his maps and written instructions are first-rate. In fact, there is even a nifty fold-out map sewn into the rear pocket so you can tote it along on any of your journeys. Equally interesting is that this book doesn't merely give elevation gains, difficulty ratings and desriptions of the trail conditions. These are vital to know, but Winnett also includes little bits of information of what kinds of wild flowers you will encounter, birds, wildlife and other little nuggets neglected in other guides.

The book is supposed to be only for overnight backpacking trips, but there are many trails here that can be used for day hikes. These trips will be in the 10-16 mile range and any strong hiker can easily do these hikes in one day. If you do choose to go the multi-day backpacking route, Winnett describes water sources, camping sites and addresses whether bears or marmots might be a problem for you. Most importantly, he tells you where to find water and whether the water source is reliable throughout the whole year.

I can't recommend this guide highly enough. Even if you're an armchair hiker, you'll derive many hours of vicarious joy from this guide.

My wife and I are volunteer forest service workers in Los Padres National Forest, Ventana Wilderness. We maintain the Pine Ridge Trail, and spur trails, between Big Sur Ranger Station and Sykes Hot springs (with lots of help from friendly hikers). We enjoy exploring other areas for backpacking and camping but don't want to waste our precious leisure time searching for the better hikes, so we use good trail books, like this one, to plan our trips.

Sierra North covers selected better trails in Yosemite National Park, and the following wilderness areas: Mokelumne, Carson Iceberg, Emigrant, Hoover, Ansel Adams and the northern end of John Muir. It meets most of our demands for identifying the better hikes to explore in a convenient easy to use book. It provides good directions to the trailheads and descriptions of the trails, camps and attractions along the way. It provides a description of how strenuous the hikes are and has a neat graph to show the gain and loss of altitude over the distance for each trail. It has a "take out" folded map showing the trails and trailheads and it has a convenient table summarizing information on all the trails to help with trip selection. It is small enough to carry on a backpacking trip.

Some down side knits are. The map is not sufficient for backcountry hiking so, you still need to buy a good trail, contour map. The instructions of how to use the altitude gain and loss graph are located in the Maps chapter (hard to find) instead of in the Introduction with the other information on how to use this book. There is no small single page map showing the general location of all the trails; therefore, you must take out and unfold the larger map each time you want to check a location.

There is a companion book titled "Sierra South" which covers Kings Canyon National Park, Sequoia National Park and John Muir Wilderness. My wife and I use both of these books and recommend them for others. These are good trail books to get you started in one of the above areas. After you make somehikes and wish to explore a specific area more thoroughly, you may want a trail book that specializes in that one area.

This is a wonderful guidebook with very helpful information about some of the best hikes in the southern Sierra. It's not just a good guidebook, but is also just plain fun to read. The pictures are nice as well. The included map is decent, but could use a little help.

I really like how different paces for the hikes are given, leisurely, moderate, and strenuous. Also, information about what season the hike should be take, early, mid, and late. Also, all the topo maps needed for the hike is given. Introductions to various geographic areas is given as well.

One thing I was really disappointed about, though. The description of the Mt. Whitney Trail from Whitney Portal to the summit is pretty poor. I thought they might describe more about the summit, this being the tallest mountain in the contiguous U.S., but maybe I'll have to wait until I get Secour's "High Sierra".

I enjoy all of the Winnett books because they are accurate, fun to read and reliable. This book has little chapters on over 100 trips in the Sierra range, and the descriptions of each trek are a total delight. So often these hiking books neglect to tell you how to reach the trailhead and oftentimes they don't provide detailed instructions. Winnett never makes this mistake. You will not need a separate map to locate any of the trailheads, his maps and written instructions are first-rate. In fact, there is even a nifty fold-out map sewn into the rear pocket so you can tote it along on any of your journeys. Equally interesting is that this book doesn't merely give elevation gains, difficulty ratings and desriptions of the trail conditions. These are vital to know, but Winnett also includes little bits of information of what kinds of wild flowers you will encounter, birds, wildlife and other little nuggets neglected in other guides.

The book is supposed to be only for overnight backpacking trips, but there are many trails here that can be used for day hikes. These trips will be in the 10-16 mile range and any strong hiker can easily do these hikes in one day. If you do choose to go the multi-day backpacking route, Winnett describes water sources, camping sites and addresses whether bears or marmots might be a problem for you. Most importantly, he tells you where to find water and whether the water source is reliable throughout the whole year.

I can't recommend this guide highly enough. Even if you're an armchair hiker, you'll derive many hours of vicarious joy from this guide.

My wife and I are a Volunteer Trail Crew in Los Padres National Forest, Ventana Wilderness. We maintain 12 miles of the Pine Ridge Trail, and spur trails, between Big Sur Ranger Station and Sykes Hot springs (with lots of help from friendly hikers). I also have a full time day job so my leisure time is very precious. I enjoy exploring new areas for backpacking and camping but I want others to do the legwork and report the best trails, so I rely on good trail books.

Sierra South covers selected better trails in Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon National Park and John Muir Wilderness. It meets most of my demands for identifying the better hikes to explore in aconvenient easy to use book. It provides good directions to the trailhead and good descriptions of the trails, camps and attractions along the way. It provides a description of how strenuous the hikes are and has a neat graph to show the gain and loss of altitude over the distance for each trail. It has a small "take out" folded map showing the trails and trailheads and it has a convenient table summarizing information on all the trails to help with your selection. It is small enough to carry on a backpacking trip. I use It and I recommend it for others.

On the down side: Updates to trail information is provided on a page in the back of the book (easy to overlook/forget). The map does not have elevation contours (you still need to buy a contour map). The description of how to use the altitude gain and loss graph is located in the Maps chapter (hard to find) instead of in the Introduction chapter with the other information on how to use this book. There is no small single page map showing the general location of all the trails; therefore, you must take out and unfold the larger map each time you want to check a location.

There is a companion book titled "Sierra North".