In terms of absolute numbers, Reno didn't see huge growth until the 1950's on. At that time, the city was primarily between downtown and westward along the Truckee River. By the 60s and 70s, real estate development got a lot more ambitious and started developing huge tracts of land in the Northwest, pushing up toward Peavine Mountain.
In that time, McCarran Boulevard was only a dream. The house I rent now was part of the late-60s development. At that time, it was near the outskirts of the city. Now, it's at least a couple miles inshore. As they started building north and west, the rougher terrain and federal lands were the only barriers to construction. Now, it's fully built up to the Forest Service border.
But there's a great privilege to butting up against Peavine Mountain, which is a jewel of Reno in terms of recreation, as well as a thorn in its side as the North Valleys/Stead grows in economic importance to the city, causing the 395/N Virginia streets to experience the only real traffic in Reno. As the crow flies, Reno is so close to the mega-warehouses/industrial plants that employ so much of the city, but so far because of this one mountain.
If we were running into this in the 50's, they would've blown a tunnel through the east side of the mountain and set up a 6 lane highway. But we're past the Manifest Destiny era, so we'll likely just live with it.
Now, Peavine is a little Mecca for four-wheelers, motorbikes, and mountain bikers. And for the couple years that I've lived here, it's been one of my favorite places to visit. And there are so many ways to visit. Behind almost every McMansion subdivision that encroaches on the foothills, there's a trailhead that takes you either on a footpath or road up the mountain.
For the more adventurous, you have many ways to get to the peak of Peavine, which is already about 4-6 miles away as the crow flies, or 7-9 miles of rocky, steep, and rough trails to take to get up there. On the backside, near Stead, there is a direct way up the peak, which I only try to take after the winter mud has dried up, maybe around April or May. But sometime, I'm going to just walk up from the King's Row access to that peak. That'll be a highlight.
The great thing about the south side, the suburban side of the foothills is that it's a south-facing aspect, and with the sparse amounts of snow that Reno actually gets, the roads and trails stay pretty accessible in one sense or another. The mud stays manageable, and most of the road trails are rocky messes away, so I'm never too worried about getting stuck. I'm not looking for overly-technical roads just to let the dogs out to run.
The negative is that the dogs get pretty heated up on this side, even when it's in the mid-40s. Twenty minutes in, and Princess is already looking around for old pockets of snow to eat, with bits of rest in the shade of brush.
Peavine as a hiking space is magical because you can walk in one direction for hours and have no issue. While there are dedicated mountain bike and wheeling trails, there's no rule to Peavine for the bipeds. Just choose a spot you want to walk to, and you'll get there. This is one reason I've enjoyed the Nevada desert more than other states: I'm right outside of Nevada's 2nd largest city, and I'm not railroaded in anyway. While this isn't Bureau of Land Management-owned, it certainly feels like it.
On the other hand, there are parts where the land is not taken care of, where meth-funded boondockers leave landfills in their wake, and teenage partiers are happier to throw their cans into a ravine instead of packing it out. The city's relationship to its public land is spotty, but after several generations of Nevadan resource exploitation, what was I supposed to expect?
Princess was pretty good at keeping that ball in her mouth the whole time we were there, besides snow-eating breaks and a couple charges at rabbits. At the end, she did fully forget the ball, and I had her search for it, with success. It's a good ball, which has survived two years without getting destroyed by her, still squeaking whenever she gives it a really good squeeze.
The last highlight of this walk around the hills was approaching a hawk, who decided to say hello before Princess got too close.
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