Little Finland

The backcountry byways of Gold Butte

By Steven Yan

January 15^th, 2019

POT(HOLES) OF GOLD

It's mile 21 on Gold Butte Road. A random walk through Google Maps during a 60 minute wait for ramen a few weeks back has led us here, where the "pavement" ends and we gingerly roll at 5 miles per hour onto a graded dirt road. Neska dozed off 10 miles back, sedated by the rumble of broken, unmaintained pavement.

We're three miles out from the nearest approach on Gold Butte Road to Little Finland, a curious-looking outcropping of red sandstone in the middle of Gold Butte National Monument. If you have a high clearance 4x4 vehicle, it's a further nine miles over dirt road and soft sand. We don't, so we're doing four and a half miles on foot. It's sunny and 55 F, though a bit windy. It's a fair winter day for a trek across the Nevada desert.

MAKE FOR THE GAP

This is our first wilderness trek. We're shooting for a gap in the hills that should make the hike relatively flat, about 800 ft in elevation change total.

As we start out, I quickly realize that studying a map and navigating IRL are two very different things. Suddenly I can empathize with all those debates in Lord of the Rings about which direction to go.

Things start out very brown. Sagebrush-dotted landscapes, dry creek beds, small cacti, and the occasional yucca palm. The area has a Joshua Tree National Park meets Valley of Fire quality.

As we clear the gap, the history of this area starts to emerge. There's a dilapidated barbed wire fence from ranching days past. Less than half a mile later, we encounter a random bull, staring us down across the desert. Remember that tortoise crossing sign that we saw? The fight to save the desert tortoise was the opening salvo between conservationists who want to preserve this land and the ranching families who have raised their cattle on this land for generations. Obama declared Gold Butte as a national monument in 2016, and the Trump administration is now reversing a lot of these federal protections. There's a fascinating podcast series on the topic. This bull is probably from one of those ranchers, grazing illegally on federally-owned land.

Everything is red

A gentle downward slope takes us toward massive red Aztec Sandstone outcroppings. Reading the landscape is getting tricky here, due to the multiple deep gulches carved into the landscape. We approach on the wrong side of a gulch and it's 30 feet down in all directions. A camera tripod makes a good temporary trekking pole as we scramble down the loose soil.

Hobgoblin's Playground

You know you're nearing Little Finland when the nature of the sandstone starts to change. The formations here are otherworldly and almost sinister, which is why this area is nicknamed "Hobgoblin's Playground".

Vast layers of salt become more visible here, and you start to imagine how the variations in the density of the sandstone, weathered over millions of years by wind, water, and faults, resulted in these thin "fins" that give the place its name. Through a different lens, they looked like a field of giant petrified lobster mushrooms.