POGONIP!!!

In The high Desert of Nevada, there is a town called Fallon, about 70 miles East of Reno on Hiway 50. Also know as THE LONELIEST ROAD IN AMERICA. Fallon is right smack in the middle of the Carson Sink, where the Carson river just finally dries up and sinks into the desert. There are alkaline deposits everywhere. This is also the area that the Pioneers had to cross to get to California. They called it the 100 mile desert, because it is about 100 miles from where the Humboldt River sinks into the sand and where the Carson river actually flows.

there is NOTHING there. NOTHING!! Nothing grew, so nobody settled there. Miles and Miles of Miles and Miles!!!

In the early part of the 20th Century, people decided that they would dig irrigation ditches, and try to offer the land for free. Pioneers went out there, and with the help of the water from Lake Lahonton and pyramid Lake and the Truckee River, they managed to turn the desert around Fallon into an Oasis. Really! Cottonwood trees and Russian Olives started growing and the farmers planted alfalfa hay, and started raising hay and cattle. Dairy Cows every where.

there are irrigation ditches on both sides of every road in Fallon, and because of the water in the fields and the ditches, the winters and fall are very foggy. The heat of the desert, coupled with the -10 degree temps at night, causes tremendous fog! I can remember literally driving to work at 5 MPH with my door open, looking straight down at the white line. If you slid of the road, you drowned. Ditch's were deep, and at least 1 person a year bites it in them.

There is a bright side to this fog though, and that is what the Paiute Indians called POGONIP. It is what we here call Hoary Frost. The Fog freezes into beautiful patterns on everything it touches. This tree was caught by a friend of Kenny who forwarded it on to me because I lived there.

Of all the starkness of the desert, there is beauty there. You just have to wait until the fog forms.