Web Extra: photos of Carson River Canyon

Local artist Santiago Chavez, a Carson City resident for 15 years, had never seen the Carson River Canyon until I mentioned the upcoming advisory question on whether to invest public money in the private V&T Railway project.

I explained that it was the vital link between Carson City and Virginia City during the Comstock mining boom. Chinese workers built railroad tracks along the river canyon and V&T trains ran out of Carson City headed for Virginia City carrying food, lumber, supplies and passengers. On the return trip, the trains headed back along the same tracks loaded with silver ore to be processed in smelter mills built along the Carson River. Refined bars of silver were then delivered by the V&T to the Federal Mint in downtown Carson City.

On a recent Saturday morning, we drove along the river and up through the river canyon to see this scenic and historical area.

The road was the former railroad bed of the V&T as it paralleled the eastern flowing Carson River. At first, the canyon was wide and lined with old cottonwood trees. We saw remnants of tailings, mill sites and old brick walls partially hidden by sagebrush. As the canyon narrowed, the road began to rise away from the river. Along one steep narrow stretch, an old intricately built rock wall buttressed the road from the river gorge below.

Yet all along the way, the canyon was littered with a mixture of modern-day garbage, cast-off household rubble and evidence of the past. Impossible to ignore were the graffiti-painted cliff walls. In several places, decaying cars stuck out from the middle of the river. Dotting the canyon banks were a huge assortment of domestic waste.

Eroding living room sofas and old mattresses rested near a rusting washing machine and a bullet-punctured water heater. A broken bedroom dresser and treadmill had been dumped by the side of the road. Closer to the river, they came upon the rotting debris from an encampment. Someone had once lived there and left behind bags of garbage that had scattered in the wind. Beer cans, empty bottles and ammunition shells peppered the ground in all directions.

“Oh my God,” moaned Santiago, “People have used this canyon as a dump. You can find more than a household of wrecked furniture and appliances. How could people ruin such a beautiful place?”

As we headed back to Carson City, Santiago concluded that the V&T Railway might just as well be reconstructed through the Carson landfill than along the river.
“Do we really believe this river canyon qualifies as a tourist attraction without a major cleanup effort?” he said. “Is that part of the advisory question.”



• Warren Wish of Carson City is a counselor at Eagle Valley Middle School and an outdoor enthusiast.