Nevada Ghost Town Photo Workshop, Tonopah and Goldfield, Nevada - May 19, 2020
Back in December 2019, I signed up for two workshops with Jeff Sullivan Photography. None of us had any idea what 2020 had in store. By Memorial Day weekend, COVID-19 restrictions were just starting to ease up, and we managed to pull off the workshop by sticking to small towns rather than parks. Services were limited, but the workshop was a great success.
I drove up from San Diego, spending the first night in Beatty, NV. The route took me through Death Valley National Park, but nearly everything was closed — pullouts, overlooks, all of it. The one highlight: the Little Dumont Dunes RV area was completely deserted, and the only footprints on the dunes were mine.
I hit some rain coming into Nevada, but things cleared up by the time I reached Beatty. I took the opportunity to explore the ghost town of Rhyolite.
The workshop kicked off the next afternoon, giving me most of the day to make my way to Tonopah. I detoured back through Death Valley just to see it without any crowds — a surreal experience with all the major sites barricaded off.
That evening we photographed the Milky Way using a World War II airplane hangar as our foreground. The next morning brought us to the town of Belmont, where we explored mining ruins and an old stagecoach station, then looped back through the town of Manhattan.
Goldfield and Gold Point were next. We spent two nights in Goldfield, got daytime access to the historic old high school, and headed out two nights in a row for Milky Way shooting. The first night was brutally windy — I called it early. The second night was far better, and we captured the International Car Forest and the headframe over an old mine shaft.
On the final morning we wandered Goldfield a bit more, shooting the old cars and trucks locals had on display, then made my way home with a stop in Las Vegas to visit the Neon Museum.
It was the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, and rather than fight holiday traffic through the Cajon Pass, I decided to take the scenic route home. On the drive out I had spotted an abandoned water park outside Barstow and figured I’d check it out. Turns out I wasn’t the only one with that idea — a group of kids was playing laser tag in the ruins, and photographers were everywhere.
