by Don Irving

Maps

The Black Rock Desert is just East of the small town of Gerlach, Nevada about a hundred miles North of Reno. It can be very hostile with extreme temperatures, winds, and dust. But when the weather is nice, it is one of the most tranquil places on Earth.

The central attraction is its absolutely flat, dry lake bed 30 miles wide and over a hundred miles long with nothing on it.

Portraits on the Playa

No sirens, no diamond lanes, no airplanes, no nothing. (Well okay, occasional monster rockets roaring into the sky.)
The lake bed is referred to as the "Playa", and it is reputed to be the largest flat place on Earth. Not much, I suspect, goes on in Gerlach except when there is an event in the desert.

Aero-Pac Launch Pictures!

There are several rocket launches there each year. The Playa is also host to races with those little three-wheeled sleds with sails. (They're called "sand rails" according to Ry Jones) There are other events there as well, but mostly the Playa is just there to behold. You may have seen it before in commercials.

Evening on the Playa

It is sometimes used for TV advertising when they want a wide-open space for a video bite.
We have been there twice. In Spring 1994 we went to the AERO-PAC Aeronaut 5 rocket launch, and took pictures for the Web. The weather was mid-70s, clear, and mostly calm. We stayed in the middle of the lake bed in a motor home next to the launch area. (Hey, that's it in the picture!)
In the evening after most of the rocketry club people had left for town, it was absolutely quiet. We rode our bikes around and let the stress of the noisy Bay Area flow away. I doesn't get any better than this.


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Don Irving ([email protected])