Spring Mountain Ranch State Park offers recreation, special programs

With the beautiful Red Rock cliffs as a backdrop, historic Spring Mountain Ranch State Park provides a scenic spot close to Las Vegas for picnics, hiking, ranch tours and special programs all year long. During balmy autumn weekends, the park offers living history presentations highlighting events and people from the ranch's fascinating past.

The park's location near Highway 159 puts it within easy reach for Las Vegas Valley residents from either West Charleston Boulevard or the Pahrump Road, Highway 160. A drive of less than 30 minutes takes you to the park's entrance from most areas of the valley.

The park remains open daily from 8 a.m. until dusk. Rangers at the entrance collect a $5 per vehicle fee that entitles visitors to parking, use of picnic facilities, taking guided tours, following self-guided routes and enjoying programs. Call the ranch at 875-4141 for information and arrangements for groups.

Because of its water resources in this arid landscape, the ranch site drew visitors from the earliest times. Long before Europeans landed in this hemisphere, native cultures frequented the area to hunt, to gather wild foods, preserve or roast their harvests and perhaps to plant small plots with corn, beans and squash.

Trailblazers like early mountain men and explorer John C. Fremont welcomed respite from the desert's heat near the mountains where they let their livestock water and graze. It became a stop along early overland journeys, including rustling forays upon the ranchos of Old California. The site developed into a ranch during frontier times. Later the beauty and remote location of the ranch drew those with celebrity and wealth seeking privacy. Acquisition of the site by the state in the late 1960s saved it from being parceled off by developers, creating a popular 520-acre park thousands of people enjoy annually.

Fifteen years ago, Spring Mountain Ranch State Park began sponsoring living history programs. The programs include first-person interpretations of events by costumed historical figures, demonstrations of frontier and pioneer skills, gatherings of mountain men in the tradition of the historical rendezvous, and re-enactments of Civil War skirmishes and soldier encampments.

Meet some of the previous owners of the ranch on Owners' Day on Saturday at the ranch house and the historic area from noon until 4 p.m. The ranch changed hands several times since the days when it was listed on early maps as "Old Bill Williams Ranch," after the mountain man turned outlaw who brought stolen herds from California across the Spanish Trail. Pioneer ranch families followed to develop the ranch legitimately. Later celebrity owners included radio personality Chet Lauck of the "Lum and Abner" program, munitions heiress Vera Krupp and Howard Hughes, aviation innovator and Hollywood mogul.

Visit the park on Oct. 6 to learn about old-time skills and crafts. From 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., sample fare cooked in Dutch ovens over campfires with techniques perfected by wagon train emigrants and cooks during trail drives. Get a chance to ride in a horse-drawn wagon like the pioneers. Watch spinners, weavers and needle crafters at work. Learn about black powder shooting.

Civil War re-enacting groups set up camp at the park Oct. 27-28. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., visitors stroll along streets between the tents where costumed soldiers and their families live during the event, demonstrating skills needed for camp life. They browse through goods offered at the sutler's store and sample a variety of foods offered by vendors. Typically, the opposing Union and Confederate groups agree on a battle or skirmish to portray several times during the encampment, sometimes complete with artillery and mounted cavalry.

A mountain man rendezvous marks Veterans Day weekend Nov. 10-12. This large demonstration event from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day provides visitors with glimpses of the past when fur trappers wore leather clothing and survived in the wilderness with special skills. Watch trappers craft leather goods, make bullets, flake arrowheads, shoe horses, and demonstrate the use of weapons like atlatls, knives, tomahawks, lances, bows and arrows and black powder rifles.

Margo Bartlett Pesek's column appears on Sundays.