May 14-24, 2025
For years we have talked about exploring the extremely remote northwest corner of Nevada. Last summer we started laying out maps and tossing around ideas of what a route might look like. We are in the final stage of planning and thrilled to extend an invitation to this group. Here are some details of the route. At the far bottom is a gallery of locations that we will be passing along the route.
- An off-road route traveling through Massacre Rim, Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, Black Rock Desert High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area
- Start and End in Gerlach NV
- We will stage in Gerlach, specifically inside the 8-mile playa entrance, just to the North (40.752422, -119.271544)
- Depart May 14, 2025, from Gerlach, Arrive Black Rock Rendezvous* at Cassidy Mines May 24, 2025 (+/-). Region map below.
- The route will be broken into 3 segments, of which any can be joined into or departed from,
- Gerlach, NV>Cedarville, CA (Vya, NV), May 14-15. We expect this segment to be the most technically challenging, driving as it will cross the Calico Mtns and traverse High Rock Canyon. Technical Driving wise (zero being I-80, ten being Rubicon) this is a difficulty 2-3.
- Vya NV>Denio NV, May 16-19
- Denio, NV>Cassidy Mines, Black Rock Desert (Black Rock Rondezvouz*) May 20-24.
- Expected Highlights of the route include the crossing of the Calico mountains and High Rock Canyon, migrating herds of Pronghorn Antelope, Fly Fishing lakes and creeks, Hot Springs, Opal Mines, Micro-Playa, Citizen Science – Peer reviewed natural observation project, and unspoiled open spaces.
- This will not be a paid/guided/prepackaged tour. Participants join in their own pursuit of experience, assuming all risk to person and property. Wildwood Open Lands Foundation, Wildwood Expedition, Foundation Directors/Officers/Volunteers/Members assume no liability for damage or injury resulting from participation in this trip.
- The finalized route shall be determined as a team, while en route, particularly in Sheldon Wildlife Refuge. This is dependent upon late winter and spring weather which can greatly impact trail conditions.
- The only loose end is what our scientific partner project is going to be. We have an ongoing dialog with NDOW as well as several other university-based researchers. It will make for an underpinning of exploration. Pretty damn cool in our opinion.
- We’ll use this page to continually add details as they come forward. I will start a dated list beneath the route map below and notify everyone who responds with changes.
With all of this info – next step is your responsibility to email me to say you’re in, email me (jrosenfeld@wildwoodexpedition) to let me know if you’re out. Hit me up with any questions.
*Black Rock Rendezvous is an annual event hosted by BLM, in conjunction with several conservation organizations (Friends of Black Rock High Rock, Friends of Nevada Wilderness, Stewards of the Blackrock) and a wide array of volunteers at Cassidy Mines every Memorial Day Weekend. The event is marked by stewardship, exploration of the NCA, sharing of history, stories, food, and general revelry. The title ‘rendezvous’ pays homage to Rocky Mountain Rendezvous, which was held annually during the 19th century. Learn more here: Rocky Mountain Rendezvous – Wikipedia
Additional Details and Updates:
3/10/2025: We will be traveling in an extremely remote location. We will have medical expertise with us on the trip. That said, if advanced medical treatment is necessary and you need to be heli-evac’d, it will be wise to have flight insurance. A med-evac insurance policy is affordable and available here: Home – AirMedCare Network
4/3/25: Adding responses from a few questions that Erik threw out to the group. STUFF. I think it’s trite to suggest that this crew is anything less than fully equipt. A few things we should make sure that at least one of us has:
- Fire pit, wood/gas – players’ choice. Knowing that there will be some places that don’t have fire rings and don’t want to leave any new fire ring scars.
- several days of water each
- camp games, if you have them and feel like carrying.
- UHF/VHF radio. We’re going to need those.
- a couple of sets of traction boards, kinetic ropes, and static straps. We should have a few sets in the crowd
4/3/25: NEW DETAILS: I’m excited about this! We’ve been talking to NDOW for about 6 weeks now about some sort of naturalist research we can conduct in the Sheldon Wildlife Preserve. We need final confirmation in the next week or so but its shaping up to look like 2-3 efforts. All 100% achievable:
First, they would like us to complete a Herpetology (reptiles and amphibians) survey along our route using the iNaturalist app on our phones. Apparently, NDOW uses this for population density and positive identifications because they can geo-fence an area and crowd source raw data. Pretty Slick
Second, a Pika survey (because they are a declining species in NV) – which may be something to geek out about. If you don’t know what a Pika is, look here:Pika – Wikipedia. Our goal would be to access the highest alpine talus in the preserve (drive as high as we can and then climb the final few hundred vertical yards, and do a photo/hand tally of the critters, documenting as much appropriate meta-data as well. I would expect this would be a limited duration effort for us. (think 8-12hrs over 2 days) We can aggregate findings, and report back to NDOW post-adventure.
Finally, NDOW has some road-drainage devices that they call ‘guzzlers’. They would like us to document the condition of any that we drive across. I guess they are documented in the On-X premium subscription if any of us have purchased it.
The only administrative component is that each of us will need to complete an NDOW volunteer reg form. I’ll get all that business from our contact (Julie) the next time I speak with her.
4/3/25: WHERE TO MEET: I believe we’re going to head out there on the afternoon of the 13th. We will stage in Gerlach, specifically inside the 8-mile playa entrance, just to the North on the playa. (40.752422, -119.271544). On the 14th, after we top fuel, water, etc, let’s all meet at 10am at the BLM Blackrock Field Station. It’s easy to head out from there. Here’s the address 200 Transfer Road, Gerlach, NV 89412.
4/6/25: Dan and I were out in the NCA this weekend, pre-running a route for a different event. Grabbed these photos that will be along our route next month, towards the end of the trip on the east side of the playa.
4/25/2025: NDOW has given us all of the instruction we need for our Science Assignments during the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge portion of the route. There is a fair bit to digest here – so please read through SLOWLY. All this info is updated on the thread on the website as well at
The Sheldon-Massacre Route – Wildwood Open Lands Foundation, in case you lose the email.
First – housekeeping stuff. We all need to be registered volunteers with NDOW for tracking and insurance and permit purposes.There is an attached HOW-TO document for setting up your profiles.
I’ve attached an example Timesheet with associated How-to instructions in the ‘TimesheetHowToSheldonBlackRock’ document.
For this project, we won’t worry about miles so you can leave those blank. I’ve attached another copy of the ‘OFFICIAL Timesheet’. I’ve also got step by step instructions on how to submit on our online system in the ‘VolunteerHowToSheldonBlackRock’. This is a private opportunity, so your team can only access this opportunity through the link below. Sheldon Black Rock Opportunity Link: https://ndow.galaxydigital.com/need/detail/?need_id=1086746
4/26/2025: Our Science Mission in the Sheldon Wildlife Refuge
OK – assignment 1) conduct a Herpetofauna Survey by capturing observations of Reptiles and Amphibians using the iNaturalist App. When you set the app up, be sure to allow sharing with the United States of America. ALSO – make sure that you set preferences to record location coordinates. Land Managers (like NDOW) can geofence the region and catalog our observations. We’ll capture observations along our entire route.
Assignment 2) As we cross drainages and draws, we will make record observations of the condition of the conveyance and storage systems. There is a paper form. I’m hoping to get a list and coords with ID’s for each location. Here’s a little background (albeit So.NV) Water For Wild Sheep – Muddy 7
Assignment 3) Conduct a PIKA survey. We have some latitude in how we go about this. There is a form for collecting data, including photographs. There is also a short training video on how we should approach data collection here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ehnRuXGH0kEkau-xmSnk3Ei6yGxk78dG/view?usp=drive_link . I recommend you download the video and play it from your local machine.
As far as location, we have a good input on where to look from the 2022 NV Pika Atlas (attachedhttps://www.ndow.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2019-2022-Nevada-Pika-Atlas.pdf, see pg 136 for Sheldon), that we can overlay with a number of maps that we’ve downloaded and printed. I recommend that we choose a location on the west side, and another on the east side for survey. We can spend a few hrs in each location over the period of our time there.
4/27/2025: Team Google Meet set for 5/7/25 at 6:00pm PDT meet.google.com/ksk-oqxf-ghd
5/11/2025: Here are the detailed maps of the area:
5/11/2025: Attaching the On-X routes for Days 1-2 here
Day-1: https://webmap.onxmaps.com/offroad/share/content?share_id=01JTZV87ZRM1GR3CSV7XXFQN9W
Day-2: https://webmap.onxmaps.com/offroad/share/content?share_id=01JTZV9M9MPW862MFYX07PH1VE