Potts Ranch Under the Stars

A Cold November Night in Nevada's Monitor Valley

There are places I've photographed on a whim, and then there are places that stay on my list for a long time before I finally make the trip.

Potts Ranch was one of those places.

Located in Nevada's remote Monitor Valley, it had been somewhere I'd wanted to photograph for a couple years. And yes, the name certainly caught my attention, although as far as I know, there is no relation between the Potts family who once lived here and my own.

Getting there from our home in Carson City meant about a four-and-a-half-hour drive into the middle of Nevada. In November 2022, I finally decided it was time to go.

My plan was to photograph this piece of Nevada history beneath the Milky Way, spend the night in my rooftop tent, and hopefully return to the ranch again for sunrise.

A Piece of Nevada History

Potts Ranch isn't simply a collection of old abandoned buildings.

The ranch dates to the 1870s, when William Potts established a cattle operation in Monitor Valley. A small settlement eventually grew around it, and the ranch developed a reputation as one of the better cattle operations in Nevada.

At its peak, the Potts family operated three additional ranches in the area. A post office opened at Potts in 1898, with members of the Potts family serving as postmasters until it closed in 1941.

Following the death of William's son George Potts, the family sold its ranch properties in 1944.

More than a century after the ranch was established, remnants of that history remain, including the old ranch house.

That's what I had driven all this way to see and photograph.

Arriving at Potts Ranch

After the four-and-a-half-hour drive from Carson City, I arrived at Potts Ranch at about 5 p.m.

With November days already short, it was nearly dark by the time I got there.

That didn't leave me much time to get familiar with a place I'd never visited before. I began exploring the ranch and looking at the remaining structures, trying to figure out how I wanted to compose them once the sky became completely dark.

The old ranch house and surrounding buildings immediately gave me plenty to work with, but daylight was disappearing quickly.

And places like this definitely feel different once the sun goes down.

During daylight, an abandoned building is interesting. You look at the weathered wood and stone and imagine the people who once lived and worked there.

At night, alone in the middle of Nevada, your imagination becomes a little more active.

At one point, I began hearing noises coming from inside the walls of the old ranch house.

I'll admit, it was a bit creepy.

Eventually, I figured out what was happening. Birds were nesting inside the walls, apparently trying to escape the cold Nevada night.

The creepy mystery solved.

But it certainly added something to the experience.

Bringing the Ranch Back to Life

*Photo from when I returned to this location in April of 2025*

One of the challenges with photographing an abandoned place beneath a dark Nevada sky is finding a way to reveal the buildings without making the lighting look too unnatural.

For this photograph, I placed low-level lights inside the structures.

I didn't want the buildings to look brightly illuminated. I wanted just enough light spilling through the doors and windows to reveal some of their character while still allowing the scene to feel like nighttime.

These buildings had been dark and abandoned for decades, but for the few hours I spent photographing them that night, there was once again a faint glow coming through their windows.

Under the Milky Way

Once complete darkness settled over Monitor Valley, the reason I'd driven four and a half hours became obvious.

Away from the lights of Nevada's cities and towns, the night sky seemed enormous.

I composed the photograph around two of the ranch's remaining structures, with the old buildings anchoring the foreground and the mountains of the Monitor Valley stretching across the distance. Above everything, the Milky Way filled the sky while thin clouds drifted through the scene.

That contrast is what I love most about this photograph.

Below was something left behind from another time, buildings constructed by people who lived and worked in this isolated Nevada valley generations ago.

Above them was something timeless.

The night sky that watched over this ranch during its working years was still there, long after the people had gone and the buildings had fallen quiet.

For a few moments that night, with a little light once again coming from the windows and the Milky Way overhead, the old ranch didn't feel quite so abandoned.

A Very Cold Night

Eventually it was time to pack away the camera gear.

Once I finished photographing the ranch, I drove a short distance looking for a place to spend the night in my rooftop tent.

It was already extremely cold when I settled in for the night.

By morning, I discovered just how cold.

My alarm went off at about 4 a.m., and when I woke up, the inside walls of my rooftop tent were completely covered with a thick layer of frost.

I keep a thermometer inside the tent, and I remember looking at it that morning and seeing a temperature somewhere in the low teens.

For a moment, staying tucked inside my zero degree sleeping bag sounded a whole lot better than getting up.

But I hadn't driven four and a half hours into the middle of Nevada just to sleep through the morning.

So I climbed out of the tent, got myself together, and headed back toward Potts Ranch in the darkness.

This time, I was going back for sunrise.

Worth the Drive - and the Cold

By the time the trip was over, I'd photographed Potts Ranch beneath the Milky Way, spent a frigid November night sleeping in my rooftop tent, and returned before dawn to watch a new day begin over this remote area of Nevada.

It was my first visit to Potts Ranch, and I knew it wouldn’t be my last

These forgotten places continue to draw me back. Maybe it's the history. Maybe it's imagining what life must have been like for the people who once called these remote valleys home. And maybe it's simply the experience of standing beneath an enormous Nevada sky, far away from almost everything.

Whatever the reason, Potts Ranch had been on my list for a long time.

On that cold November night, I finally got to experience it for myself.

And I came home with the photograph I'd traveled there hoping to make.

Potts Ranch Under the Stars.