Part 9 of our holiday in the USA. A visit to Cathedral Gorge and Ely, from our base in Mesquite.

Cathedral Gorge State Park is, in USA terms, a mere skip (1 hour)  north-east of Las Vegas and something more different from that concreted casinoland you couldn't find!! The Park covers 1,608 acres (651 ha) in a long, narrow valley, where erosion has carved dramatic and unique patterns in the soft bentonite clay.  There are a number of walking trails around the park, but because of the extreme heat while we were there, we only explored the area adjacent to the car park. Michael and Mary found this slot canyon for us to visit, and the temperatures within its shady angles were a bit more comfortable. They had not been to the Park before either, so it was a new experience for all four of us.

The beauty that visitors enjoy today developed from violent beginnings, starting with explosive volcanic activity that, with each eruption, deposited layers of ash hundreds of feet thick over the entire area. About five million years after the eruptions ceased,  faulting (fracturing of the bedrock that allows the two sides of the fracture to move in relation to each other) shaped the mountains and valleys prevalent in Nevada today.

Lots of information and a walking trail map clearly displayed for the  visitors.

Astonishing landscape! I felt a bit as if we had landed on the moon!

 Amazing formations in the soft rock eroded by rainstorms.

Adventurous explorers can crawl through small openings and tunnels in the network of canyons to discover hidden chambers.

Not for the claustrophobic!

Michael and Mary exploring the narrow and deep slot canyon...

and Nigel as well, negotiating one of the narrower side turnings.

Deep inside the slot canyon, here's how the sky appears from ground level!

Intricate rock patterns formed over aeons.

After a two or so hour drive north on Highway 93, our next stop after the park was Ely, where we stayed the night. Ely stands on the crossroads with east-west running Highway 50, also worryingly known as the loneliest road in the USA!

Founded as a stagecoach station along a Pony Express route, the town was named after Smith Ely, a local copper mining company president. Ely's mining boom arrived in 1906 with the discovery of copper there.

The copper market crashed in the mid-1970s and Kennecott, one of the main mining companies, shut down, and copper mining  temporarily halted. The dramatic increase in demand (and hence price) for copper in 2005  once again made Ely a copper boom town, but as the Kennecott smelter had been demolished, copper concentrate from the mine had to be transported by rail to Seattle on the west coast, from where it was shipped all the way to Japan for smelting.  However, since the 2008 financial crisis and the drop in the copper price, it is no longer worth producing copper from the Ely mines and Ely's prosperity is suffering  in consequence. There are still a few reminders in the town of Ely's steam railroad history, and the East Ely museum (housed in the old station building) contains some very interesting artefacts of railroad life, not least the preserved steam locomotives, two of which (nos 40 and 93) pull daily passenger excursions for visiting enthusiasts.

In 1961, No 93 was donated by Kennecott to the museum and was subsequently restored to operating condition by volunteers. We unfortunately arrived in town too late that day for the ride, but here she is in the shed cooling down!

One of the old coal tenders.

The grand old ladies of steam on the Nevada Northern Railroad, locomotives No 40 (restored in 2005) and No 93. The volunteers who rebuilt these locomotives and other rolling stock and who today operate the railyard and museum deserve the highest praise for their dedication in preserving this part of United States industrial heritage.However, due to lack of finance, it may close down in the near future and we were therefore very fortunate to see it!

The old station building, now the museum, is on the left of the track.

The amazing  mountain views visible from the station.

Looking down the tracks.

A Ford van belonging to the Railway Express Agency - it's all explained on the sign in the window! (see below).

Safety First is the motto , but this pick-up looks as if it has taken a few knocks!

We left our overnight stop at the Prospector Hotel the following morning and headed for the Great Basin National Park, but that is coming in Part 10 of our holiday!