Re: A summer trip to the area


Message posted by Gregos on July 05, 2007 at 0:12:02 PST:

The glow of Las Vegas from Area 51


I had an itch to go up to Area 51 but near record heat almost stopped me. When we left Las Vegas the truck’s thermometer read 114F! Soon after my temperature gauge started to rise really fast. Mind you the truck is brand new and I almost turned around, but it held steady at 3/4 the way to the red.

We made it up to Rachel and set up camp just as the sun dipped behind the hills. Soon after the temperature started to cool off to a comfortable level. After sunset it got very dark and it was great for stargazing. A waning gibbous moon rose over the Tikaboo Valley just after 11pm lighting up the desert. The temperature continued to cool off. Around 12:30am I had to break out the sweatshirt! The night was very uneventful, not even a peep over the scanner. Around 3:30am I decided to call it a night and get a few hours sleep. It cooled down so much I actually climbed into my sleeping bag. The sounds of coyotes woke us up at 5:30 but we didn’t climb out of our bags until the sun started to cook us an hour or so later. It was so uneventful, hardly worth a post, but I didn’t want the heat to discourage someone else from making the trip. The high desert does cool down much more than Las Vegas at night. For the overnight trip I took 8 gallons of water: (2) frozen solid, (2) chilled in the fridge and (4) at room temp. In another cooler, I took 30 lbs of ice with some Gatorade and a few beers –hey there’s not much to do while staking out Area 51 all night!


In Reply to: A summer trip to the area posted by Hank on July 03, 2007 at 16:46:11 PST:

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