Today on Outdoor Nevada, we explore the Gold Butte National Monument where we walk in an otherworldly landscape, stand at the edge of the Devil's Throat and visit a sacred petroglyph.

We also camp under the stars to gaze at the beauty of a meteor shower, and later we tour an area scarred by a fire and see how it's returning to life.

All this today on Outdoor Nevada.

♪♪♪ Nevada.

It's an adventure waiting to happen.

Waiting for you.

What do you say, you ready?

Because I am.

♪♪♪ (John Burke) You know, there really is nothing like it.

You're cruising down Interstate 15, you come to exit 112, you cross over the Virgin River, you go right and then you find yourself in 300,000 acres of public land that is absolutely jaw-dropping, then you reach Gold Butte National Monument.

Now, this place is of incredible historical significance.

Lots of Native American art, amazing rock formations, and this place is just flat-out stunning.

First, I made my way to Little Finland.

It takes some time and it's a bit of a rough road.

You'll definitely need a high-clearance vehicle with off-road capabilities.

When you arrive at Little Finland, you'll feel transported.

It's otherworldly.

The shapes and formations are amazing.

It's here I met up with Mandy from the Bureau of Land Management.

She volunteered to show me around, and her love for the outdoors and sharing this love with others, it's inspiring.

How did Gold Butte even get its name?

(Mandy Royal) Gold Butte's name comes from the Gold Butte townsite.

Back in about 1905, 1906, gold was discovered here at Gold Butte, creating this huge boom of people moving in and trying to mine for gold, strike it rich out here.

A saloon and a post office was built in Gold Butte, but it only lasted a few years.

By about 1910, 1911, almost everyone was gone out of Gold Butte, but the name stuck because it's gold; everyone wants gold.

-It is phenomenal, isn't it?

-Yes.

-Want to see?

-Yes, let's go see.

A lot of what we're seeing here at Little Finland is wind and water erosion over a very long period of time.

So if you feel this sandstone rock right here, it's a pretty soft, porous rock.

When it gets wet, wind can easily shape it and form it to a lot of these shapes you see out here.

Little Finland is not named after the country.

It's named after the different shapes you see out here, which to a lot of people look like little fins.

-Oh, bingo.

I got it.

What about the white sediment that I see, is that salt?

What is that?

-There is a lot of salt out here as well, so that salt has also helped to shape these rocks too.

So if you look out that way, you'll see just the white salt in the soil and these rocks out here.

-It's amazing.

Come on.

It's like pulled taffy.

You can almost make out shapes, you know?

You can see things.

-Yes, and everyone sees something different too.

It might not be a fin to someone.

-It seems to me that there's a certain fragility to some of this.

What do you tell people about coming here and just being safe with all this?

Because can't this stuff kind of collapse on you a little bit?

-It can, especially after a nice rain; this can fall.

So one good thing to remember when you're out here are the "leave no trace" principles, maybe even leave it better than how you found it.

So just be careful, especially on sandstone after a rain.

Watch where you're going and be prepared, and remember to leave no trace.

-How does it get its color?

-So the sandstone has this color from iron.

So the same reason our blood is red makes these rocks red as well.

-The solitude, I'm guessing you could probably see a few stars out here at night.

-Oh, yes, quite a few stars out here because if you think about it, we're two hours from Las Vegas, so there's not a lot out here.

There's not a lot of lights so when you're out here, you might see that Las Vegas light bubble and the light bubble of Mesquite as well, but once you look up, you're going to see so many stars, more than you're probably used to seeing out here.

-Now, 300,000 acres in Gold Butte, and we've seen how much of it?

-A very small amount of it.

-Let's get going.

Come on.

More to do.

What I saw next was amazing and kinda scary.

-Whoa!

-Welcome to Devil's Throat.

-Devil's Throat?

What is this, Mandy?

-This is a big sinkhole here at Gold Butte National Monument.

This used to be filled with water, and that water eventually dried up.

And then one day, this just opened and now we have a giant sinkhole at least 100 feet wide here, and it's getting larger and larger every year.

-How deep is it?

-So don't quote me on this, but I'm going to guess it's a little over 100 feet deep.

It's not something you want to be right on the edge looking at, so you see we have our lovely fence here.

This is not the first fence that's been at Devil's Throat.

If you look out carefully, you can actually see the cement where the other fence was.

That was swallowed up by Devil's Throat.

-So it's getting bigger.

-It is getting bigger, so it is very important that when you visit here, you stay behind the fence and enjoy it from behind because, I mean, I think it's a beautiful view from here, and personally I'm good not looking down a 100-foot-deep hole.

-Especially, Mandy, when it's named Devil's Throat.

I'm good.

I don't need to go there.

-I respect it.

I respect nature, and I'll appreciate it from afar.

-Yes.

There's nothing you're going to get closer than staying back here.

It's the same experience, right?

-It is, and you can walk around Devil's Throat.

You have a 360 view here, and you can really appreciate it from right here.

-Do they have any idea when this thing started?

-I believe it was early 1900s.

That's when it was discovered.

I'm not sure about when it started, though.

That's definitely a question for one of our geologists.

-This thing is rugged, it's sort of bizarre, but it's got its own personal sense of beauty about it, especially surrounded by these mountains and clouds and the shadows.

-Yes.

This is a beautiful spot here because you are surrounded by these mountains.

So you're looking down and then you're looking up, and there's just always something to see here.

You can see those spots of the red sandstone too in the distance, and this is a beautiful spot for the sunset because if you look to the west right now-- so you look at Devil's Throat from the parking area, you're going to get a beautiful sunset view here as well.

-Well, I'm impressed with Gold Butte, I'll be honest with you.

-But there's more to see.

There's one more site I want you to see.

-If you want me see it, I'm going to see it.

Let's go.

♪♪♪ So what trail is this?

-Right now we're on the Falling Man Trail, and we're going to go check out the falling man petroglyph.

So we won't show it on camera because the local tribes have asked us not to publish any petroglyphs of human form.

So we're just going to see with our own eyes, and we encourage everyone else who does want to see it to come check it out with their own eyes as well.

-That's great.

Adventure always comes with mystery, and we can leave this one for the audience to come see it for themselves, right?

-Yes, and it's highly worth coming to check out because it is a beautiful petroglyph, and one of the reasons it's so famous is because it's one of the first petroglyphs that shows fluidity of human movement.

-Wow.

Gold Butte is one of my favorite places in Nevada, and it's doubly better when I get to spend the day with someone like you, and I want to say thanks.

Thanks so much for your time today.

-Yes, thanks for joining me.

It's always fun to have company when you're out here on the public lands, especially in Gold Butte.

There's so much land, it's great to have company out here.

-Let's go check out the mystery.

So as the sun set, we made our way along the trail as it led up through a rock formation.

The mystery turned magical.

Falling Man and Newspaper Rock are breathtaking.

I really encourage you to visit these petroglyphs and see it for yourself.

Make the trip to Gold Butte.

You will not be disappointed.

Gold Butte National Monument really is a special place in Nevada.

♪♪♪ You know, if you'll just get out from underneath a blanket of light and go out and look up at the dark sky, you will see a spectacular display that will really fill you with a sense of wonderment.

And when the time and the place is right, the universe will provide you with a light show that only it can produce.

Tonight is one of those nights.

♪♪♪ Meteor showers happen throughout the year.

Each provides an amazing light show.

To understand the meteor shower's beauty, you have to see it in person.

That's why I met up with Greg McKay from the Las Vegas Astronomical Society.

He's an amateur astronomer and avid astro-photographer who loves the night sky and the wonder it offers.

Okay.

So take me through the difference between a shooting star, a meteor and a comet and what we're going to see tonight.

(Greg McKay) Well, shooting stars and meteors are one in the same.

Children generally call them shooting stars, but the technical term is a meteor.

These meteors are just fine grains of dust that are slamming into the atmosphere at 25,000 miles an hour so they immediately heat up and burn up, and that's what you're seeing is the streak of fire from something as small as a grain of dust.

I mean, we're talking about stuff that's tiny.

If you see something that's really bright, a really bright meteor, they're called fireballs.

Those are generally about the size of a pea.

-That's shocking to me.

I always thought they were big rocks, you know.

-No.

The big rocks actually make it through the atmosphere and hit the ground and become meteor craters.

-Any idea how old this meteor shower is?

You know, we're just now seeing it, but how long has it been out there spinning around?

-I think the Geminid Meteor Shower has been observed for hundreds if not thousands of years.

-So those specks of dust that you talk about that we get to see from way down here, there must be bazillions of them.

-I think bazillion is a good number to describe it, yes.

There's thousands or, you know, bazillions of them, and what's happened is the Earth passes through the path where the dust is.

But then we move on and that dust continues on, and it's in the same location next year around the same time so we pass through a different section of it the next time.

And then when the asteroid that originated the dust comes through again, it leaves more dust so it basically is like the opposite of a vacuum cleaner.

The next time it comes around, instead of picking up all the dust, it drops more dust behind.

And I think 3200 Phaethon is the name of the asteroid that's responsible for the Geminids, and I'm not exactly sure of how often it orbits, but it could be multiple times in our lifetime.

-And to see it at 2:00 in the morning is optimal not just because it's dark, right?

I mean, there's a physiological reason for it.

-Yes.

The way the Earth is rotating, the part of the sky that's overhead is actually turned into the path of the dust, so we have more dust hitting us.

You can see meteors at 8:00 at night.

You know, we may see a few here in the next little while, but the higher numbers are going to happen after midnight, between midnight and 4:00 a.m., and I think the Geminids peak around 2 a.m. -You've seen countless numbers of these but on a night like tonight when we're expecting it to come through, do you still get excited?

-Every time I come out for a meteor shower I'm excited, yes.

Even if it's a faint one, it's just another notch in the belt, you know, kind of keep track of them.

The Perseids one year, we saw over the course of two nights, we counted, I believe, close to 500 in two nights so, you know, it's one of those things that you just want to-- you want to look and you want to catch the next one.

You're hoping for that bright one.

At a certain point they become-- are called fireballs where they're a little bigger than that grain of dust that we talked about, and they might be the size of a pea and when they hit the upper atmosphere, they will literally cast shadows on the ground they're so bright.

And they're pretty rare.

I've seen maybe ten my entire life, you know, and I spend a lot of time out under the stars.

But when you see one, you never forget it.

You never forget it.

-If somebody's never done this before and they're thinking about doing it, what would you say to them?

-Find a local astronomy club and join the club and become-- you know, ask, because there's tons of people out there like myself that are eager to introduce you to the night sky, and there's such an abundance of information online now that there's no reason to not really dive in headfirst.

-I remember wanting to be an astronomer and thinking it was just too much math.

I wasn't smart enough.

-Yes.

I'm not a mathematician myself, anybody that knows me knows that, but there's a whole different side of astronomy that doesn't require the math or the physics.

I mean, if you want to work for NASA or be an astronaut, yes.

You know, you've got to have that kind of brain.

But to just get out and enjoy the night sky, have a telescope and view galaxies and nebulas and star clusters and meteor showers, anybody can do this.

-Have you ever thought about how fortunate we are to be in Nevada right now and to be able to do this?

Because there's places in this country where people have never done this.

-Well, it's true.

I mean, there's kids that have grown up in big cities that have never seen more than a handful of stars when they look up at the night sky.

You know, Las Vegas being the city of lights, it is a pretty heavily light-polluted area, but you can't really blame that all on the Strip.

A lot of it has to do with the streetlights and neighborhoods as well.

But one of the great things about Nevada is you can get in your car and drive a half hour in any direction and be under pristine dark skies like we're enjoying here tonight.

-That's well said.

You can go anywhere an hour and a half out, and it'll change your day at the minimum.

I got to tell you, one of the most amazing things you said tonight is that what I'm going to be seeing, these things racing across the sky, are the size of dust particles.

I can't get over that.

It's amazing to me.

-Yes, it is, and hopefully we'll get lucky and we'll see some of the slightly larger ones, because those become the fireballs and they're absolutely amazing.

Once you see a fireball, you will not forget it.

-Let's see what we can see.

-All right.

Now, to sit under the night sky and see this-- and this looks fake-- but I can personally attest this is what was in perfect view with the naked eye.

You know, if there's one thing I took away from this experience, it's that I don't spend enough time looking up.

♪♪♪ Fire: Its power is undeniable.

Its existence is both a factor in creation and destruction.

In a fragile ecosystem, fire will feed and grow until there's no more fuel.

When it's done, it will leave a reminder of its power.

This reminder is a fire scar.

Our friend Lara from the Bureau of Land Management takes us on a tour of a section of scarred desert.

Once a place teeming with life, it continues to heal 15 years after the fire.

(Lara Kobelt) I like to hope that I might be able to make a difference for the desert, so that's what's important to me.

-You know, it's interesting.

When we come upon something like this, I look over this area, something happened here.

It just doesn't look right.

Can you tell me the history of this place?

-So this area was part of the 2005 Goodsprings fire, burned 30,000 acres.

It's a lightning-caused fire.

This red broom here, which is an invasive species, helped carry the fire.

-You're talking about this grass?

-Yes, the grass.

So it's non-native.

It fills this space between the shrubs, so it carries fire really well.

And the problem with it is it's also fire-adapted so when there is a fire, it comes back even thicker than before.

-So what now?

Because obviously there's lots of damage, and these were very old.

So what happens now?

-Yes.

So we're 15 years past these fires now, and it's still not where we want it to be.

One of my coworkers, his name is J.J. Smith, he does restoration for our office.

He's working on a very cool project with the USGS to try to restore this habitat.

-How do you do that?

-Well, I wish it was an easier answer.

We kind of don't know yet.

We're trying a lot of different things.

We're trying seeding, out-planting seedlings.

We're trying what they're calling diversionary seedings, so putting sterile seed out that the animals will take instead of the native seed.

We're trying different types of weed treatments.

Just a whole host of things to try to figure out what works best for the least amount of money.

-Why do we care about restoring this?

Obviously there's an aesthetic, but I know you're passionate about it.

Why?

-For me, a big part of it is the plant diversity; I think that's really important.

It's important for keeping the soils in place.

That helps air quality, that helps water quality, and it's important to people in Las Vegas.

Also, this is habitat for the threatened Mojave desert tortoise, so this is not great habitat for the tortoise anymore.

It's not awful, but they can't-- this grass is really not good for them to eat, so we want to make it better for that species specifically.

-Can you not just go out somewhere, find a bunch of these trees and replant them here since, you know, we're looking at things that aren't coming back?

-We couldn't do that.

The problem is for one, these trees are really long-lived, so you have to raise them for maybe 50 years before they get to the size to out-plant them.

They also need a lot of water.

So when you grow something, you want to get it big fast in the greenhouse, right?

You give it all the water, all the nutrients at once.

Then you put it out in the desert, it has nothing.

Unless you're bringing it water, you're bringing it nutrients, it can die right away.

So you have that big investment up front, and then the plants don't survive.

-You have a puzzle to unravel, don't you.

-I do, and there's a lot of really great people in my office that I work with, and we're all working towards that goal.

-How much hope do you have?

-I have a lot of hope.

I think I work with really awesome people who really care about this place and about the species that live here, the animals and the plants, and I think, you know, hopefully great minds can try to solve this problem.

-Yes.

Well, you're one of them.

Let's keep heading this way.

What can the average man or woman do to help you and your cause?

-I think it's important for the public to stay on existing roads and trails.

That's a big deal, not creating new roads.

It's just more disturbance that these plants have to deal with.

Another big thing is making sure you're following all the fire restrictions that are in place.

So if the forest or the BLM has said no fire, don't burn a fire because that's how we have a lot of problems here in Southern Nevada.

-You know, this isn't all one kind of grass.

I mean, I know the invasive grass that comes from Russia, but there's other grass here, isn't there?

-Yes, there's some native grasses.

We can look around and see if we can find some.

It's called fluff grass, and that one is native.

You can kind of tell it's native because it's not totally filling these inner spaces.

It's got these little distinct patches where it grows.

-Speaking of patches, I noticed these patches of like-- what I thought was burned land, but it doesn't feel like that.

-No.

So what you're looking at is actually what we call biological soil crust.

It's made up of a bunch of different soil organisms so there's lichen, there's moss, and those things help hold the soil together.

But they're actually alive.

-So with this, what appears to be burned soil, is actually a very good thing.

-Yes, it's great for the desert.

-What about this bush here?

This is different.

-This is a creosote bush, and this is the plant that everyone associates, in addition to the Joshua tree, with the Mojave Desert.

This plant is everywhere.

You'll see it almost everywhere in the Mojave Desert, and that's part of why it's so important.

-What makes this one different, it's just not by itself?

-So this plant grows clonally, so sometimes you'll see them growing in rings out from the same plant.

That's all one organism, so these are some of the oldest organisms that exist on the planet today.

-How old is it?

-Estimates are that the oldest one they know of right now is over 11,000 years old.

-Oh, my gosh.

-Think about what this plant has seen in its lifetime.

I mean, 11,000 years ago, I can't even imagine.

-That's older than the bristlecone pine, right?

-Yes, that is.

Bristlecone pines are around 5,000 years old.

-That's amazing.

That's amazing, and the fact that you know that and you can share that with me, I just cannot tell you how valuable that is.

As a matter of fact, this whole day has been very valuable to me.

I get to see it through your eyes, and it's a whole different story.

I just want to thank you and your team for everything that you're doing.

It's vitally important that we understand this information.

Thank you.

-Thank you.

-You know, when she comes out here, she sees an entirely different story than most of us.

But based on what she's saying here today, it's a story that we should all read and understand.

I hope you'll do your part.

♪♪♪ Support for Outdoor Nevada comes from Jaguar Land Rover Las Vegas.

♪♪♪ Inspiring the spirit of adventure with confidence in any terrain or condition.

We're proud to help introduce a new generation of adventurers to the diverse experiences that our state has to offer.

Information at jlrlv.com.