Columnist Susan Snyder: Congress should use Hall way

Monday, March 29, 2004 | 8:03 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

Nancy Hall lives in Mesquite, but her garden is about an hour's drive away in Lincoln County's Mormon Mountains.

We had driven north from Glendale, then turned onto a dirt road that turned into a narrow dirt path that followed the railroad line before swinging onto yet another dirt road, which led us to our destination.

"Welcome to my garden," Hall said, stepping from the truck and spreading her arms wide.

The desert rolled off in every direction. Wind whispered through the creosote and bursage shrubs. Wispy clouds streaked the blue sky overhead. Not a fence, tower or structure of any kind was visible in any direction. Ridgeline after ridgeline simply faded to the horizon.

How do people find places like this?

"You volunteer, and you get maps," Hall said.

Hall volunteers, all right. When she's not earning her paycheck serving coffee in the Virgin River Casino buffet, this youthful grandmother is writing letters to Congress, organizing volunteers and getting people to sign petitions to protect the mountains she considers her second home.

"I guess I'm an activist," Hall said. "It took me a long time to say that's what I am. I started doing this eight years ago. Whenever you volunteer, you learn from the people you volunteer with.

"I was hiking with an archaeologist last Thursday," she said. "And I was asking, 'Can you get the botanist to come out next?' "

Hall is a volunteer for the Nevada Wilderness Coalition, a nonprofit group working to set aside wilderness areas in Nevada before development takes over.

Most recently, the coalition has created a proposal for the wilderness component of public lands legislation being written for Lincoln and White Pine counties. The legislation is a measure similar to the public lands bill that created new wilderness areas in Clark County last year.

The coalition's proposal calls for setting aside about 3 million acres of public lands in Lincoln, White Pine and small parts of northern Clark and western Nye counties as wilderness.

Hall's beloved "bajada" is the slope region of the Mormon Mountains straddling the Clark-Lincoln county line. The 226,485 acres up for wilderness protection encompass an existing wilderness study area.

She has spent many weekends in these hills, helping Bureau of Land Management officials log and monitor historical Native American sites through a federal volunteer steward program. There are at least 28 such sites in her area.

"The Mormon Mountains have the highest concentration of agave roasting pits" in the region, Hall said. "These pits are everywhere, and they're really cool."

We drove higher on the skinny dirt road until we reached a pit of enormous proportions -- some 40 feet across. We parked and continued on foot, following a roadlike trail that rose gradually.

"This is the place for people who are out of shape, like me, to hike," Hall giggled.

The wide spot where we parked next to the roasting pit is where Hall and others would like to close the road, so that all-terrain vehicles would do no more damage to the historic sites farther up the trail.

After about an hour's worth of walking we reached another pit -- or what was left of it.

"See? There's tracks here. You can see where they went here and then went over there. It goes right over the plants," Hall said. "You have to allow the access. But you designate the wilderness so that when you get out here, you've got something.

"If you have no rules you're not going to have anything left."

Spring is amazing in the desert. Orange, poppylike globe mallow, brilliant yellow desert marigolds and scarlet Indian paintbrush dot the landscape. Tiny caterpillars work to break free from weblike cocoons stuck to the branches of desert almond shrubs.

And if you're lucky, you might spot a desert tortoise emerging from its burrow.

Wilderness designation isn't a lockout. It still allows grazing permits and hunting. Roads can still lead into the areas -- just not so many and not so far. We don't need four roads leading to the top of Mormon Peak.

"I'm just a waitress. I'm not a botanist," Hall said. "But I know you don't want to take these roads all the way to the mountain because you expose the habitat to invasive weeds."

We finished the hike, got back into the truck and then stopped on the sloping bajada for one more look.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Hall said.