Welcome!
Beatty, Nevada, is a tiny community of about a thousand people located 115 miles northwest of Las Vegas up Highway 95. Nestled in the oasis valley between Bare Mountain and the Bullfrog Hills, Beatty lies at the edge of Death Valley National Park and the great Mojave Desert.
Only 6 miles from the Park boundary, and 19 miles from the Hell's Gate entrance to Death Valley itself, Beatty is one of the best-kept secrets in Vacationland, USA. Those in the know use Beatty as a base from which to explore the area, especially Death Valley and the more than 5000 square miles of surrounding mountains and valleys that make up the Park as a whole.
In spite of its tiny size, Beatty provides motels and RV parks, gas stations, restaurants (including one that's always open) and bars, an excellent museum and yes, even a casino. Nearby hills and mountains are riddled with trails for hiking, horseback riding and off-roading as well as the remains of thousands of mines, adits and prospects.
Just outside Beatty is the ghost town Rhyolite, which boomed into existence in 1905 because of gold nearby, florished for five or six years, and was virtually dead by 1911 when the gold petered out.
The population went from several thousand in 1908 to zero by 1920. In the Beatty area, history, especially mining history, abounds.
But the main attraction Beatty holds for me is its geology and the geology of the entire region, especially Death Valley. I'm just, quite simply, in awe. Because the climate is so hot and dry here, the landscape isn't covered with trees, bushes, grass and other flora. The geology is right out in the open, laid bare for for all to see: mountain ranges, young and old; breathtaking alluvial fans; ancient lakebeds and shorelines; evidence everywhere of extensive seismic and volcanic activity, some of it ancient, some not so ancient; and best of all, some of the most drop-dead gorgeous ROCKS on earth.
I am fortunate enough to be retired and to live in this beautiful and remarkable place with my soul mate.. and to have an old digital camera, a computer, some modest html skills and this web site. This is truly the American Dream and I am living it every day.
Thank you for your interest and for looking at my pics. I hope you like them, and that if you like what you see, you will be inspired to visit this lovely, fascinating, mostly undiscovered and unappreciated part of the Great American West.
~ K Hubert
![[BEATTY, NEVADA - Gateway To Death Valley]](docs/images/header13.jpg)