BLM Dispatch #49 - Soldier Meadows Road, Nevada
Suddenly the lake appears. Pyramid Lake. Kooyooe Panunadu to the Northern Paiute, the largest remnant of Lake Lahontan, which covered most of Northern Nevada 12,500 years ago. A geological millisecond in the timeline we find ourselves in.
Anaho Island is perfectly lit by a falling sun. 6:58pm. I stop the car right on the road, step out, place my camera on a tripod and take a few photos.
7:41 p.m. A few miles before Gerlach, a pair of pronghorn stand just beyond the shadow. Male and female.
Though I encounter them on nearly every trip to the Great Basin, their presence still gives me pause. They are the second-fastest land animal on Earth, still carrying the speed and endurance that evolved to outrun American cheetahs and other Ice Age predators. Unlike cheetahs, however, they can sustain those speeds over long distances — the marathoners of the animal world. Every encounter feels a little improbable, as if a fragment of the Pleistocene has wandered into the present…
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