December 8 -- Tundra II At Gold Butte's Little Finland

What an amazing place Little Finland is -- if there is any place that should automatically go on your "bucket list", this is it. I'd visited Little Finland a few times earlier this year, and it is a place that deserves repeat visits as there is so much to see -- and miss. Not that it's easy to get to; you really need a 4-wheel-drive vehicle, and not go after a recent rain. You'll see why the latter in a moment...The Gold Butte Byway is paved -- rather roughly in spots -- for the first 19 miles or so, then at Whitney Pockets turns into a wide, well-graded dirt road. Still, there are those spots when it crosses a wash and you have to slow down. The byway winds tantalizingly through the desert landscape --

The way to Little Finland is marked only by GPS markers and the occasional "Gold Butte Byway" signs, so you have to know which road will get you there. Most of it is in a wash, which is why it's advisable to wait for dry conditions before paying Little Finland a visit. But once you're in the wash, the route is fairly obvious - and the scenery splendid --

Entering the wash

And then, Little Finland is right in front of you ---

It really does look like a spaceship made of rock that has just landed in the middle of the SE Nevada desert -- 

You can park up on a hill that is level with the top area of Little Finland. Here's Tundra II at that tiny parking area, seen looking north along the "battlements" of Little Finland (hence its name) --

Fins, spires, hoodoos, holes both tiny and large -- Little Finland has it all, and is an experience quite different from, say, the Valley of Fire.; Little Finland is fanciful, otherworldly, quite unlike any other place you've seen. I'll "turn off" the commentary now, and just imagine these scenes are in front of you... 

Petroglyphs incised in the rock at Little Finland

It's in this area pictured in the last photo that you find a large hole in the rock, and you look through it, gazing upon what very well could be another world, or dimension; your mind really does become quite fanciful here -- 

The view looking the other way -- 

And the "shelf" where the hole is located -- it's in the wall on the left, behind my 500 f/4 lens -- yes, I lugged it all over Little Finland, and it had its uses, soon to be revealed -- 

One of the most fascinating sections of Little Finland is an area where the rock is weathered so that it forms holes, and in the shapes, sizes and numbers of small holes the images look like a "housing complex" from a fantasy land -- 

 I took the following shots with my 500 f/4 lens, which I'd carried along with me in case I came across any birds; I didn't, but used it for closeups of the bizarre sand sculptures --

More views of Little Finland -- 

I left with regret, but I had a long way to drive back to Overton. The route back along the wash was uneventful -- except for when I got off track, but returned to the byway without too much trouble, and finally arrived back at the junction with Gold Butte Byway -- 

But Mother Nature wasn't done with her spectacular displays. The setting sun cast its glow on the Virgin Mountains -- 

I kept on looking back at the setting sun as I was heading east, and I managed to time my crossing the bridge over the Virgin River as the sunset colors reached their peak, and turned the Virgin River in a molten lava flow -- 

Just before heading onto Interstate 15, I took one last photo of the sunset -- 

Chalk up another memorable day in SE Nevada, and the glories of Gold Butte...