Kavanaugh Ridge

Way back in January at a geo-event at the Silver Club in Sparks, we were sitting at a table with Okra and Desert Lady and they mentioned a cache located at an elevation of 11,000 feet on Kavanaugh Ridge. A cache you can DRIVE to at 11,000 feet!! When we got home I did the research and discovered that there are several caches in the area and started planning the trip. More than eight months later we made the trip.

But, as it happens frequently in geocaching, there were a couple of caches we needed to get before Kavanaugh Ridge. You see, after being the first Nevadans to complete the Nevada Delorme Challenge, we started working on the California Delorme and 58 counties caches. On the way down to Conway Summit on Hwy 395 we took a detour up and over Sonora Pass to grab a cache in Tuolumne County and Quad 100. The cache was near a small but spectacular unnamed waterfall. After taking some time to find the cache and photograph the falls, we turned around and headed back to Hwy 395. BUT WAIT!! Of course! There was another cache at Sonora Summit we just had to get. After that one we really did head back to 395 and continued south to Conway Summit. The summit is at about 8100 feet and offers a great view of Mono Lake. That’s what most folks think of Conway Summit, just a place along Hwy 395 with a great view. Most people don’t even notice the sign pointing to Virginia Lakes. Next time you’re making the trip up or down 395, take the time to visit. We did.

My plan was to tackle Kavanaugh Ridge first and then grab the other caches later if we had time. That was my plan but GeoJeepette gets agitated if we pass a cache without stopping so we compromised and grabbed a few of the closest, easiest ones on the way up the road to Virginia Lakes. Less than a mile before Virginia Lakes we turned north onto Dunderberg Meadows Road. When I first saw the sign I felt a sense of foreboding but then I realized it said Dunderberg, not Dunderhead. Here is where things got interesting. The USGS topo map didn’t have any roads to Kavanaugh Ridge but Google Earth hinted that there may be something from Dunderberg Road to a small lake and then something even less than a hint from the lake to the ridge. I went with Google Earth but didn’t know exactly where we would find this hint of a road. We only took one wrong, short detour before we found the right road. We knew it was the right road because of the sign pointing to Kavanaugh Ridge. This isn’t the first time I’ve been reminded that despite all the fancy high tech GPSr’s, satellite imagery and laptop computers, sometimes you just have to read the signs.

But I have to give Google Earth credit. How in the world (pun) did it see this little spit of a “road” from up there? But not to worry. I slipped GeoJeep into quad mode and repeated over and over again, “You are a quad, you are a quad...”. It worked. It didn’t take too long to get to the lake (10400 feet!) but we stopped anyway to take a break from the bruising road and find a cache. I’m sure that in the winter this lake and the few trees around it would be a pretty scene, but in the middle of August all we saw was a puny pond with a few stunted wind tortured trees. Surrounding this was a ridge of barren crushed rock.

Normally, when a road seems to disappear there are usually some telltale signs to point the way, like a lack of vegetation or a variation in color or texture. I’ve never seen a road just vanish before. If I hadn’t seen the Google Earth images I wouldn’t have believed the road continued north from the lake and up onto a ridge. We drove roadless north through and around some trees and saw a “road” going up the side of the ridge, so, with a shrug we went up the hill with rocks flying out from underneath spinning tires. The really exciting part ended when we got onto the top of the ridge. From there it was a more sedate, albeit rocky, climb up to Kavanaugh Ridge.

Kavanaugh Ridge is a huge rock and gravel pile that spans two peaks, Dunderberg Peak to the south and an unnamed hunk of rock to the north. At just over 11,000 feet, it’s well above the timberline and even in August after a very dry winter there were snow banks on the north facing slopes. The west side of the summit is a 2000 foot precipice overlooking an alpine valley decorated with at least five lakes. Beyond this valley is the Hoover Wilderness Area. Back toward the east you can see from Bridgeport to Mono Lake. Unbelievably amazing views.

Here, at just over 11,000 feet there are two caches and they are located very near the edge of the precipice. The first cache was about 8 feet from the edge and the wind made it difficult to stand let alone sign the log. The other cache was about a tenth of a mile north in a pile of boulders. While up in the boulders I could see GeoJeep down below and it looked tiny and insignificant against it’s surroundings. We thought we were alone and expected to remain that way but off in the distance a pickup appeared followed by three more cars. Well there goes the neighborhood! We climbed back down to GeoJeep just as everybody showed up so we waved and headed back down the ridge.

By the time we got back to Dunderberg Road we only had about an hour to pick up as many caches as we could find before we had to leave. In the end we found 17 caches and had another amazing geocaching experience. Thanks Okra and Desert Lady!