Great Khan encampment and tribal village

Awaiting a delivery, but it’s a no-show. I’m guessing that the deathclaws in the quarry have something to do with that.
Melissa Lewis

Close to my place is a location called Sandy Valley Ranch. You can sign up for ranch-esque activities, including a BB-gun lesson. I thought it would be fun to do this, similar to the tutorial segment with Sunny Smiles in Goodsprings.

Around Sandy Valley Ranch is also the Mesquite Wilderness area, where there are a great deal of tipis and other locations that remind me a lot of the encampments of the Great Khans. Sandy Valley Ranch rents out some of theirs, which I stayed in a few times just for kicks.

Locations

# 15 / 259 – Chance’s map / grave
# 79 – Tribal village
# 85 – Makeshift Great Khan camp
# 89 – Great Khan encampment
# 302 – Sandy Valley
# 303 – Ripley

I hope my recent traumatic brain injury does not impact my ability to hurl grenades wantonly into groups of enemies, since I have now discovered using a gun is pretty challenging. After a long, long time of trying – I got two bullseyes!

The most exciting part is the lady who teaches the lessons looks just like Sunny Smiles AND she has a dog with her! She rescued the dog and her dog sister who were abandoned in the desert as puppies. The wonderful dog-saving, BB-gun teaching lady’s name is actually Dana, and she was very patient with me. My tutorial gun segment took forever as I was very bad at this, but she was so encouraging and then gave me a great big hug! You can follow Dana and the Sandy Valley Ranch on Instagram here. They also have delicious food and cute dogs to pet.

Location Details

#15 / 259 – Chance’s map / Chance’s grave – I did not find a map while walking around this general area, but awhile back I was hanging out with the mayor of Nipton (who is very nice and not at all like Mayor Steyn) and he drew me a map of how to get somewhere unrelated. In hindsight it kind of looks like the map here.

# 79 – Tribal village – This location was a main location in the graphic novel All Roads, which is a prequel of sorts to Fallout: New Vegas, and most importantly, it was written by our lord and savior Chris Avellone. It tells the story of events before the beginning of the game, watching Benny and the Great Khans he hired to help him on their way to intercept the Courier.

Thankfully, there are no corpses or cazadors in this location. In our world it is called Lovell Canyon Campground. In the summer the road is accessible but in winter it is pretty challenging to get through.

# 85 / 89 – Makeshift Great Khan camp / Great Khan encampment – The real world equivalent, geographically at least, is a tiny A-frame cabin that is called either Ninety Nine Mine Cabin, after the nearby mine, or Wild Horse Cabin, located in Cottonwood Canyon. I did also find some similar looking installation art later on in my journey, thankfully without human skulls.

This area is also where the plane crash of Carole Lombard took place. In 1942, a plane carrying Carole, a famous movie star and wife of Clark Gable, crashed into the east face of Mt. Potosi. All 22 people aboard perished. The hike to this location is challenging, but worth it. The entire area is covered in airplane debris, even nearly 80 years later. I read on Dr. Boone’s site that human remains are still found at the crash site. Please respect those who died and rebury any remains found on the surface.

I read that the flight in question was scheduled to take off from Boulder City but was diverted to Nellis Air Force Base. The navigator neglected to change the flight plan so the original flight plan took the airplane straight into Mt. Potosi. Clark Gable took up residence at the Pioneer Saloon in Goodsprings while the plane crash was investigated and the bodies were recovered.

# 302 / 303 – Sandy Valley / Ripley – I mentioned earlier that these two locations were cut from the game, but they do very much so exist in our world, with Sandy Valley being the best place on earth! But I am biased. Alongside Ripley, which make the five original mining communities that combined to make the overarching Sandy Valley, the other being Kingston, Mesquite, and Platina.