Ride 5 - Lime Kiln Fish Transplant

Water is a major source of effort around Mesquite Snowbird Headquarters. Much money is spent running pipe around and through the canyons to pipe water to cattle. And the thing is, that a lot of the "water holes" have fish in them! Goldfish. [A complete Google Earth file of this trip is available, free at --> Lime Kiln Canyon - Fish]

There is a water trough on one of our favorite rides which has simply been "begging" for a few fish every time we saw it. It's old and big and has water plants covering the bottom. So, after realizing that we were going up the canyon again, I went to Walmart and purchased 6 little goldfish (they gave me 7).

We trailered up to the first corral on Lime Kiln Canyon road then headed up the canyon. We saw a fairly "hidden" cross-the-flats trail coming out behind the corral and vowed to take it back down.

The main trailhead is at the mouth of the canyon and we stopped in to say "hello" to the "herd" (these are Nevada fish) in the large cattle trough. They were all doing well under a skim coat of ice.

Up the road further we stopped and gave my goldfish their new home. They immediately took to the moss and plants, and began nosing at the water skippers which were still a bit too big for them to eat - yet.

Back at the mouth of the canyon again we found a trail to the left and took it to see where it went. It actually came to a cross roads which went up into Middle Canyon, ahead to the Cabin Canyon Road or down to the first corral and the trailer.

We took the later and accidentally stumbled upon the weirdest looking cactus we had seen. Branches as small as pencils and little bumps where there should have been thorns. I later found one other example at the museum in Mesquite, but the curator didn't know what it was or where it came from.

As with most other rides we take, we found new oddities and several other unknown trails that we vowed to come back later and ride ... so many trails... so little time!