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I used to live and farm near Eureka. Fossett came out to the Eureka County Commissioners a couple years ago to ask about holding his speed trial on the playa north of Diamond Valley. If you look at a map of Nevada (you’ll have to look at more than a road map), look for where Sadler-Brown road forks northeast off NV-278. Go out Sadler-Brown about 10 miles. Go south of the Brown Ranch (which will be on the south side of Sadler-Brown) or look south of the Sadler Ranch on that road. You’ll see a big empty playa. That’s where Fossett wanted to do his speed run.

Here, easier yet:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Eureka,+NV&ie=UTF8&ll=39.963438,-115.988159&spn=0.904144,1.367798&t=h&z=10

OK, see that big white area in the middle of the map? That’s it. All the green circles at the bottom are the farming area of Diamond Valley. Our farm used to be at the southernmost edge of that farming area.

Anyway, the BLM red tape was fouling Fossett up. Eureka County was thrilled to have Fossett’s team come out and we residents of the area were as excited as all get-out to have him come in.

So Fossett went off, looking for other areas. There’s one area in particular where I think he could have been scouting the day he disappeared:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Eureka,+NV&ie=UTF8&ll=39.31491,-117.505646&spn=0.456335,0.683899&t=h&z=11

The problem is, there is no town to speak of nearby for logistics support, lodging, etc. But that playa (last I was over there) was nice and smooth.

The first one is the one I was thinking of, I worked a couple of wells up in Pine Valley years ago, and a well over at Buck Station, but had seen the playa from up in the vicinity of Coffin Mountain. The playa is pretty obvious on google Earth, and watching the ground level readout shows a variation across it under 2 feet. It doesn't get much more flat than that except up by Wendover on the Salt.

I figured Fossett had the means to just trailer in whatever support he needed, from fuel to shop facilities to living quarters, without much trouble.

Thanks for confirming that that was the area he was looking at.

That playa over toward Austin doesn't look so bad either, and iirc, those are not the only ones in the area.

Frankly, I think the search has been centered in the wrong area from the get-go, unless he went down before he got that far.