Like many Alaskans, I often find myself nodding politely as people from other places describe why they love their home. As they talk, my mind wanders off and I picture a sunny flight over the Chugach range, an after-work hike with friends or a bright green aurora in the winter sky. No place compares to Alaska.
So it's as surprising to me as anyone that I love Nevada. Nevada, of all places!
I'd never been before 2009, when I attended a conference near Lake Tahoe and flew in through Reno. I pictured the state as a barren desert wasteland populated by the occasional cluster of casinos and brothels, with UFOs crashed into the glowing remains of nuclear testing grounds. I figured it was about an hour drive between Reno and Las Vegas (it's actually about the same as driving from Anchorage to Fairbanks).
At the conference I realized that people actually live in Nevada, and for some reason I couldn't (yet) understand, they love it. I was so shocked I actually shut up for a minute about Alaska, especially when this one fellow, who would later become my husband, described what he liked about his hometown of Reno. Ultimately, I ended up moving to Reno for several years before returning to Anchorage, and here is what I found.
Anchorage-Reno connection
Alaska and Nevada are connected by the Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) program, which offers residents of western states discounted tuition at participating universities. Consequently, Alaska undergraduates flock to Reno, especially for the (except for the past several winters) comparable ski conditions in higher elevations nearby. When I lived in Reno I met many students from Alaska, and back in Alaska, I'm always excited when I meet someone who went to the University of Nevada-Reno. I feel like we share a secret, and that secret is Reno.
Natural features
This March my husband and I ended up heading to Reno for an unexpected visit due to a death in the family. While the circumstances were very sad, the experience of being in the high desert after a particularly terrible Alaska winter was awesome.
People in the know often mention Reno's proximity to Lake Tahoe, the nation's largest alpine lake that shares a border both with Nevada and California. The airport is, after all, the Reno-Tahoe airport and it's only a 40-minute drive from downtown. However, while it's impossible not to love Tahoe for its incredible clarity and gorgeous color on a good day, I also love the entire state of California for being a people magnet. It keeps everyone out of Nevada.
When I was considering whether or not to move to Reno, my now-husband-then-boyfriend took me on a five-day backpack through northern Nevada public lands in the Santa Rosa mountain range. We hiked through sagebrush, aspen, and springs in both bright sunshine and shade. The temperature during the day peaked at a dry 85 degrees; at night, it fell to a cool 50. We didn't see another soul for the entire trek, probably because they were all camped out around Tahoe and in Yosemite. I was sold.
I found out later that the Santa Rosa range was just a very small part of what we would explore. Nearly 85 percent of Nevada's land is publicly owned, the largest percentage outside of Alaska. For some people, this inspires anger at the federal government, but for me it means an amazing wealth of open space and opportunity.
In the years I lived in Nevada, we explored the lush corridors of the largest national forest outside of Alaska, the Humboldt-Toiyabe range, many of the state's hidden and locally maintained hot springs, and of course the expansive dry lake bed in the Black Rock Desert, known as the Playa and host to the famous Burning Man festival. The weather in northern Nevada is famously unpredictable -- by and large it's sunny like you'd imagine, but there are also intense and sudden rains and flash floods, wind and, yes, snow. Reno is situated in the high desert at 4,400 feet, and has very different weather from, say, Las Vegas.
Reno
I'll get it over with. Yes, in downtown Reno, there is a giant lit-up clown advertising the casino Circus Circus. This is surrounded by all the other casinos. Inside the casinos it's dark and full of jangling game noises all day. It smells not just like one person smoking a cigarette but like years of smoke in the carpet and the attempt to mask the smell with perfumed air. A friend once perfectly described the smell: "broken dreams."
However, change is happening. Downtown Reno also now features the world's largest outdoor climbing wall, illuminated pink at night by the famous glowing "Reno: The Biggest Little City in the World" arch. The climbing wall is part of the new Whitney Peak hotel, which caters to outdoors folks like me with non-smoking and non-gaming accommodations. Their advertising features a pile of climbing gear next to a hotel bed, or a bicycle leaned up against the wall. I am, admittedly, part of their target audience (even if the hotel is named after a California mountain).
Snaking through the center of town is the Truckee River. The river starts at Tahoe and ends in the strikingly blue-green Pyramid Lake north of town. The Truckee River plays hosts to kayakers who play in the recently constructed kayak park, fishermen in waders, anyone with a flotation device who wishes to take an hour or two to float from one part of the river to another, and cyclists, walkers and joggers who use the path running alongside. The blue river is a refreshing visual contrast to the surrounding muted greens, yellows and oranges of the desert. The Truckee is the true center of the rest of the city, anchoring miles and miles of viable bike lanes and easily accessible running and mountain biking trails. Reno's own backyard wilderness area, Mount Rose Wilderness, is visible from downtown along with the adjacent ski resort with the same name.
Although Reno really is a well-kept secret, the same forces impacting Alaska's winter are also having a detrimental effect in the high desert. Whereas Alaska is rich in water, Reno is not. The lack of snowfall in the area caused the Truckee River to nearly dry up last summer, and this winter has been just as bad.
Friends and family in Reno warily enjoyed an unseasonably warm March, acknowledging that 70 degrees and sun this early would mean a very hot and arid summer later on.
I've heard Nevada described as "Poor Man's Alaska" which, on the one hand, draws a good connection between the two places but, on the other hand, sells Nevada short. That's OK by me. I don't want people to find out about how awesome Nevada is. Forget you read this. Don't share this story with your friends. Tell them you hear California is lovely this time of year (then book your trip to the high desert).
Alli Harvey lives, works and plays in Anchorage.