Last year, someone on this forum informed me of the existence of an airstrip at Barrel Springs, which is about 20 miles east of the Black Rock desert in NV. The coordinates of the strip are 40.780, -118.723 .

I was down in Nevada for the last few days, and I drove out to see the Painted Canyon, which was on one of the routes of the historic Applegate-Lassen trail. Since the airstrip was right after the bottom end of the canyon, I went to check it out. It appears to be in excellent condition. There was quite a bit of abandoned mining activity in the area, so I presume it was built to service a mining operation.

It's at 4600 ft. elevation, and the airstrip is close to 4000 ft. long. The wind was howling about 45 mph while I was there, and it was going straight down the runway. It looks like an excellent place to find some serious solitude.

Looks worth checking out...

Gump

You might be able to get a reservation at the nearby resort, which is one half mile west of the strip.



The message on the door says

Tennell's place
Welcome to the Rabbit Hole Resort

Did you ever blade off your airstrip on the Lovelock property?

Gump

Nice find Kevbert and thanks for driving out there and checking it out. I added it to shortfield.com - here. I uploaded your picture, but it would be great if you could log-in and add a short description and PIREP.

GumpAir wrote:Did you ever blade off your airstrip on the Lovelock property?

Gump

Not yet, but it should get done this summer, which will make for a fine, dusty mess. There's a road going through the place (badly rutted in the straight spots) from east to west that is the original Applegate-Lassen Trail. I've got my sights on a cheap cat dozer up here in Idaho, but it's under three feet of snow right now. If I get the dozer, I'll put a proper airstrip somewhere on the property, otherwise for a short term solution I will hire a grader to come up and smooth the road out so it can be used for landing.

While I was researching all the legalities of airstrips, I discovered a Nevada law (NRS 361.061) which exempts the owner of an airport from property tax if the airport is open to the public without charge. So, when I put in a proper strip, I will register it with the FAA and all of you yahoos can come and litter the place with beer cans and empty 22 shells. Then, I can put in a nice house, errrr... airport administration building, hangar, etc., and not have to pay any tax.

The section is T33N, R31E, S21, and the center of the property is 40.7112015, -118.4956610. This picture is taken from the center of the property looking west.

law which exempts the owner of an airport from property tax if the airport is open to the public without charge.

I wish Ohio had that law. I wish all states had that law, it might be safer up there, if there were more landing options??

From the pic I see "we" already have an airport dog. Good.

Gump

GumpAir wrote:From the pic I see "we" already have an airport dog. Good.

Gump

Speaking of Dogs, we need an update on Einstein....

Looks like a great place for a fly-in . Is it on private or public land ? Possibly BLM or ???

There's another strip at 41 06'39.59 114 06'50.81 There was some 5 acre plots right by it for sale so I wrote the guy listed as owner and asked if i could clean up the strip. He never responded. I haven't seen it in person, so I don't know if it's useable.

SkyTruck wrote:

GumpAir wrote:From the pic I see "we" already have an airport dog. Good.

Gump

Speaking of Dogs, we need an update on Einstein....

The white airport dog in the pic that "we" have is Einstein. There's another one named Blossom, but she's not white, so she doesn't stand out in the pictures.

Einstein tore his ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) on one of his rear legs, which put a pretty big gimp in his stride. I didn't know what the problem was, but one of Skytruck's friends correctly diagnosed it as a torn ACL when we were at Johnson Creek. I promptly had it surgically repaired, but he's been slow to recovery. Interestingly, he does very well when it's warm out, and won't put it down when it's cold out. The vet says that he probably needs to use it more to stretch the fake ligament they made out of fascia. I'm hoping that as the warmer weather comes on that he will be able to do so. He's getting around better as a result of the surgery, but he's still got a little bit to go.

182 STOL driver wrote:Looks like a great place for a fly-in . Is it on private or public land ? Possibly BLM or ???

I believe that the Barrel Springs airstrip is on BLM land. However, since Nevada is an open range state, if it's private land, then they would need to either fence it or post it to keep you off. Since I drove there, and didn't encounter any fences or signs, it is definitely open to the public regardless of its ownership.

wow, go to burning man, do the barrell springs landing and then on to boggs hot springs for a soak. or visa versa.

kevbert wrote:

182 STOL driver wrote:Looks like a great place for a fly-in . Is it on private or public land ? Possibly BLM or ???

I believe that the Barrel Springs airstrip is on BLM land. However, since Nevada is an open range state, if it's private land, then they would need to either fence it or post it to keep you off. Since I drove there, and didn't encounter any fences or signs, it is definitely open to the public regardless of its ownership.

I fly around Nevada, Arizona , Utah and California and see airstrips quite often and mark them on my GPS as reporting points . There not listed as airports on sectionals -some are found on Terra server . I usually do a low pass at 60-70 mph(California 200') indicated -50 ft. agl or so.Make notes like tree on north end or whatever .I think I have 2 dozen or so. Lots were provided by other pilots information- then i went out and found .Bill Berle has a whole list with written maps of "places to land" in western US.There are hundreds "not reported "on Sectionals . In the Grand Canyon area there are 15-20 not marked on maps . Low and slow observation with plenty of reserve power -early mornings are best time to go scouting .

Is this strip legal to use? I'm going to be moving my plane out to California next month and this looks like a cool place to stop and camp for the night along the way. I don't want to be hassled by anyone for landing there though.

robw56 wrote:Is this strip legal to use? I'm going to be moving my plane out to California next month and this looks like a cool place to stop and camp for the night along the way. I don't want to be hassled by anyone for landing there though.

I don't know with 100% certainty that it's legal, but I'm about 98% certain. You could email the Winnemucca BLM office and get a firm answer. The guy that told me about the strip said he had landed there. As I noted above, NV is an open range state, and because I didn't see a fence to keep people out, I submit that it is therefore open to the public. The airstrip parallels a county dirt road, but there's about a half mile between the two, and the airstrip is 100 ft. higher, so people driving by won't even be able to see you. I'm guessing that the closest people to hassle you probably live in Empire, about a 40 mile drive away.

If you end up camping there, you might not want to drink water from the spring, though. Because of all the mining activity around there, the water tends to have high levels of heavy metals. In fact, the NV Dept of Wildlife says not to eat any fish out of Rye Patch Reservoir due to the high mercury levels.

Thanks for the info.