Hinkey Summit: Camping and hiking in the Humboldt National Forest

After we left the Boise National Forest we headed to Nevada.  We entered the Humboldt National Forest from the north, drove up the steep, one lane road to the summit, and camped on Hinkey Peak.  It was beautiful:

 
It was a very interesting spot, both good and bad.

First, the bad:  CATTLE!  And, of course, lots of cattle poop.  See it?  It was everywhere.

I don't understand why our natural areas are leased, for pennies on the dollar of what they are worth, to a few individuals who run cattle on them, trampling the natural grasses, and leaving cattle dung that doesn't go away for many years.

It's not like we need these cattle.  Cattle raised on our public lands accounts for only 2% of all cattle raised.

Those who raise cattle and have to provide their own land pay more for raising the cattle than those who raise them on public lands, putting them at an unfair advantage.

But of more importance, the cattle are very destructive.  And the eventual result is going to be that this destruction will encourage the introduction of invasive species of plants.  Cattle eat the natural vegetation which leaves the ground ripe for exploitation by invasive species.

The Department of the Interior needs to put a stop to this.  When I've talked about it at Ranger Stations, the response has sometimes been that it isn't fair to the people who have leased this land for many years to now disallow grazing.  True, perhaps, although it is also unfair to the other 300 million of us who own this land to continue to allow it to be destroyed.

And, yes, it will result in a change for a very few ranchers, but that doesn't make it unfair to them. Give ranchers one final 10-year lease and expect them to adapt just as every other profession has had to adapt in the past 10 years.  That seems very fair. We saw from the Cliven Bundy situation that many ranchers feel that having these public lands is an entitlement instead of a gift from all of the rest of us. 

OK, that's the bad.

The good.

After our first day there, we discovered a cabin that had a sign on it that said:  Hinkey Summit 4H. We found that anyone can stay there, for free.  But nothing indicating which 4H club provides it or maintains it. 

 It took us another day to discover that there was a pit toilet there, too!  That's like finding buried treasure or a winning lottery ticket.

So, thank you Hinkey Summit 4H, whoever you are.

What was also great about this spot was the opportunity for hiking.  We had incredible views of the surrounding areas:

 

(that's our camper way down below)

 When we got to the top of the steep hill next to where we camped (see the second photo on this blog post), looking down the other side Vicky sighted a herd of wild goats or sheep:

 

We weren't sure what they were.  They have a look of goats.  However, what we discovered when we did more research was that they are a herd of juvenile Mountain Sheep.  They are too young for their horns to have developed the characteristic round horns of Mountain Sheep.

But, how exciting!

This very wild area was a place we are glad we discovered.  We will be back some year, and will have more time to explore even more of it.