National parks are places that have been set aside to protect an environmentally or culturally important area. There are currently 63 national parks, and I have been able to visit 40 of them. Although everybody has heard of our national parks, many people have no idea that there are 129 other parks termed national monuments which have been formed to protect nationally significant lands and waters. The difference between national parks and national monuments is the way in which they were created. National parks are created by congressional legislation while national monuments are created by presidential decree invoking the Antiquities Act of 1906. Some of the national monuments later receive national park designation from Congress. All national parks and 85 of the national monuments are administered by the National Park Service. Other national monuments are administered by the BLM or another federal agency. Most of the time, national monuments are much less developed than national parks without fancy visitor facilities and the bonus of no crowds.
Gold Butte National Monument is a park that few people visit. In fact, few people have even heard of it. The monument covers almost 300,000 acres of rugged and desolate landscape in southeastern Nevada. This park is completely primitive with no visitor center, restroom facilities, water, or paved roads. What it does have are Joshua trees, cactus, yucca, and large sandstone formations full of petroglyphs.
Gold Butte was designated as a national monument in December 2016 by President Barack Obama with the goal of protecting and preserving the desert habitat and its cultural features of ancient native petroglyphs and other artifacts. Many of the cultural sites in what is now this monument are sacred to the Paiute and were being damaged by vandals and careless people. This included the defacing of the ancient rock art by graffiti and bullet holes, the cutting down of Joshua trees just to cut them down and the trampling of artifact containing sites. In addition to its cultural features, the area provides habitat for Desert Bighorn Sheep, the threatened Mojave Tortoise, and other desert plant and animal species.
The monument offers visitors a number of recreational opportunities including hiking, hunting (quail and chukkar), and horseback, bicycle and ATV riding. The incredible rock formations provide many opportunities for nature photography. In addition to the geological and ancient cultural features, the monument has a mining ghost town and some abandoned mines.
I spent my time in the monument hiking among the sandstone formations searching for examples of rock art. You won’t find any developed trails here. Rather, this is a “make your own adventure” place where you choose your own path among large sandstone outcrops, scramble over rocks, view the scenery through windows and enjoy the desert landscape.
The panel below, just one of many petroglyph examples, shows several animals that are probably Desert Bighorn Sheep. Other panels depict animals such at tortoises and snakes as well as hunting scenes. The most famous petroglyph that people try to find is one called “Falling Man” which shows a solitary human figure that appears to be suspended in space. Unfortunately, I was not able to find this one.
Gold Butte is a great place to be alone with nature. There is no phone service unless you have a satellite phone, and you will see few if any people. The roads are rough and best driven with a 4WD vehicle or at least a vehicle with decent ground clearance. This is an arid place in which summer daytime temperatures typically exceed 100 F. The best time to visit is between October and April. I was there during the last week of March, and the temperature was quite pleasant.
The monument has no visitor amenities so you should be prepared for being in the backcountry with a supply of water, food, a map, a full tank of gasoline, and a jack plus good spare tire. Mesquite, Nevada is the closest town with lodging, fuel and grocery stores. The monument is about 1.5 hours of driving time east of Las Vegas.