Massacre Rim Wilderness Study Area

Stargazers rate how dark a sky is on a scale from one to nine, called the Bortle scale, where a bright city is a nine and the darkest wild places are a one. Massacre Rim rates a one, the very darkest end of the scale, and it is measured as one of the darkest spots in the entire lower forty-eight states. On a clear night here the difference from a city sky is staggering: thousands upon thousands of stars, the Milky Way blazing overhead, and meteors streaking through in season.

The darkness comes from pure distance. There is simply nothing out here to make light, no town, no highway, no ranch cluster close enough to matter. That is what earned Massacre Rim its Dark Sky Sanctuary title, and it is why serious skywatchers treasure it. On the very clearest, moonless nights, the Milky Way glows brightly enough to throw a shadow, something almost no one alive has ever seen.

Massacre Rim sits in the basin-and-range country that covers much of Nevada, where the crust long ago stretched and cracked into parallel mountain walls and flat valleys between. Here that pattern shows as broad sagebrush plateaus lifted above wide valley floors, with the rim, a fault-block escarpment, rising along the western edge and dropping steeply to the valley below.

The interior is essentially roadless, a rare thing even in the empty West, which is part of why it was set aside as a wilderness study area. Sagebrush stretches to the horizon, dotted with scattered juniper, and from the higher ground the views run for many miles across country almost untouched by roads or buildings. Walking here means quiet, distance, and the kind of open space that has grown scarce.

The sagebrush that covers Massacre Rim looks plain at a glance, but it is one of the West's important habitats, and much of this land is prized ground for the greater sage grouse, a bird known for its strange, bubbling springtime courtship dances. Pronghorn, the fastest land animal in North America, range the open flats, and mule deer move through the higher country.

Wild horses roam here too, and raptors like hawks, falcons, and golden eagles hunt along the escarpment and ride the updrafts off the rim. Smaller creatures fill in the rest, from rabbits to coyotes to the rattlesnakes that warn you to watch your step. It is a spare kind of abundance, the sort tuned to a dry, windswept land, and it shares the country with almost no one.

Reaching Massacre Rim takes planning and a willingness to be truly on your own. It lies well north of Reno, and the nearest places with fuel and food are small towns and ranch settlements many miles away, like Cedarville just over the California line. The way in follows dirt and gravel roads, passable in a passenger car when dry but far better traveled in a high-clearance vehicle, with the interior side routes calling for four-wheel drive.

There are no facilities out here at all: no water, no restrooms, no lights, and no cell service. That means bringing everything you need, telling someone your plans, carrying a paper map, and picking dry weather, since the roads can turn to mud after rain. Come ready to be self-reliant, and Massacre Rim gives back one of the deepest, darkest, most star-filled skies anywhere in the country.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.