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All the United States Nevada Nixon Mud Slough
AO Edited

Mud Slough

As fallout from an irrigation project, a formerly cottonwood-lined stream is now a sandy, desolate, post-apocalyptic channel lined with weathered stumps and tumbleweeds.

Nixon, Nevada

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slgwv
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Stumps along the slough in the foreground, with a sand dune behind.   slgwv / Atlas Obscura User
Stumps along the slough in the foreground, with a sand dune behind.   slgwv / Atlas Obscura User
The slough, looking upstream.   slgwv / Atlas Obscura User
Stumps.   slgwv / Atlas Obscura User
Stumps along the slough.   slgwv / Atlas Obscura User
Stumps along the slough.   slgwv / Atlas Obscura User
Tufa tower by the slough.   slgwv / Atlas Obscura User
Looking north toward Winnemucca Lake (the dry white flats in the distance). The slough is highlighted by the darker brown tumbleweeds.   slgwv / Atlas Obscura User
Sand dune and tumbleweed. 4wd is desirable; that’s the road!   slgwv / Atlas Obscura User
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About

The Truckee River flows out of Lake Tahoe, in the Sierra Nevada of California, and ends at Pyramid Lake in Nevada. For much of its length, it is paralleled by Interstate 80 with Reno, Nevada at about the halfway point. Before Euro-American settlers arrived in the mid-19th century, an overflow channel split off the Truckee before Pyramid Lake to fill a shallow lake, Winnemucca Lake, in the next valley to the east. It apparently supported a thriving waterfowl population.

The water in the Truckee, however, was soon diverted for other purposes by the settlers. Most notably, the Newlands Irrigation Project built just after the turn of the last century diverted part of the Truckee into Lahontan Reservoir, newly constructed on the Carson River to the south. That diversion spelled the end of Winnemucca Lake. By the 1930s it had dried up completely, as it remains today.

Mud Slough is the now-dry distributary channel that once fed Winnemucca Lake. Old weathered cottonwood stumps line it—the trees presumably salvaged for firewood at some point—but it's now hard to imagine water flowed this way a hundred years ago. "Mud" is now a misnomer! There are even sand dunes, unusual in Nevada. The main vegetation now is tumbleweed, itself an obnoxious invader species. And the howling of the desert wind has replaced the calls of birds. 

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Rivers Deserts Water

Know Before You Go

Mud Slough is reached by unimproved dirt roads on which high clearance is required and 4-wheel-drive strongly recommended. It can be accessed either from the north or south off Nevada SR 447; coming in from the south (or going out that way), however, crosses the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation and so requires a day-use permit from the tribe.

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slgwv

Published

June 14, 2021

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Mud Slough
Valley Rd
Nixon, Nevada, 89424
United States
39.908716, -119.343195
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Nearby Places

Pyramid Lake

Reno, Nevada

miles away

Winnemucca Lake

Nixon, Nevada

miles away

Incandescent Rocks

Sutcliffe, Nevada

miles away

Explore the Destination Guide

Photo of Nixon

Nixon

Nevada

Places 2

Nearby Places

Pyramid Lake

Reno, Nevada

miles away

Winnemucca Lake

Nixon, Nevada

miles away

Incandescent Rocks

Sutcliffe, Nevada

miles away

Explore the Destination Guide

Photo of Nixon

Nixon

Nevada

Places 2

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