Ranger station Foxtrot and Remnants bunker

The day I headed out here was exceptionally hot, not HELIOS One hot, but still pretty darn hot. I went out into the open expanse of the California side of the desert this time to drive in circles. The map of the game, similar to the real Mojave Desert, encompasses parts of Nevada, California, Utah, and Arizona. I drive back and forth across the state borders a lot, and get them mixed up, and sometimes use the states interchangeably. However, today I drove pretty far west into undeniably California desert.

Locations

# 10 – Remnants bunker
# 11 – Ranger station Foxtrot
# 12 – Brewer’s beer bootlegging
# 304 – Summerlin
# 409 – Hidden cazador nest

Location Details

# 10 – Remnants bunker – The location I want to share with everyone is a literal bunker located northwest of the Mt. Charleston Wilderness. This had to be one of the most amazing locations I learned about thus far – for lack of a name, I will call it the technocracy bunker.

Technocracy was a political movement following the United States’ Great Depression in the 1930’s. It is described as a system of governance that puts scientific and technical experts in leadership positions, as opposed to elected officials, that may or may not possess such knowledge. This line of thought is very much in line with that of the Enclave, which was comprised of a select group of educated and powerful individuals such as scientists, politicians, military members, and industrialists.

The technocracy bunker is distinctive because of the roughly 6 foot letters they created with rocks outside, spelling out technocracy, unity, honesty. It is spectacular, even able to be seen via satellite. Such technocrats who chose to leave society when their ideology faltered in the early 1940s, but due to the letters outside, I doubt it was meant to be a hidden location – which is actually why I did not talk about this in conjunction with the BoS bunker.

I did so with the help of my amazing new friend who asked not to be named, since this location is on technically government owned land – which did not dissuade me at all. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, I always say. Many of these photos are his, since I do not like climbing underground and such, but appear without credit for the aforementioned reason. But you know who you are and how appreciative I am of you helping me find this place.

# 11 – Ranger station Foxtrot – Similarly to the location I found for Ranger Station Delta, I was excited to see the tell-tale golf ball tower in the distance, this time located at the real world Angel Peak. The name of this location is Angel Peak FAA Radar Site, formerly a Cold War era establishment called the Las Vegas Air Force Station. As opposed to the NEXRAD system, this is described as a NORAD system, identification number Z-163.

I found an interesting bit of information, following the lore of the games overall when researching this site. I read that the site was decommissioned in 1969 in part by the transition from vacuum tube technology to transistor technology, greatly reducing the need for local controllers and equipment at every radar station. So perhaps in the fallout world, in our current year this location would still be operational. Maybe 1969 is about the time of The Divergence. I suppose we can only speculate.

# 12 – Brewer’s beer bootlegging – I would not have expected to find a real world bootlegging operation, simply given the fact that it would likely be a covert place. So although I did not find a real world location in this area, I did come across a Bootleg Canyon earlier while close to Boulder City, so I will share it here.

And of note, the advertisement in the cellar of this location is based off of the real world’s Tactical Nuclear Penguin Beer, by United Kingdom’s BrewDog Brewery. At the time of New Vegas’ development, it held the record for the strongest beer in the world, with 32% ABV. As of this year (2019), it has been surpassed but is still one of the 10 strongest in the world. I bet it tastes gross.

# 304 – Summerlin – This location was cut from the final game. The original map of New Vegas coincides with the suburb of Summerlin. Interestingly, Summerlin was named after Jean Amelia Summerlin, the grandmother of billionaire land-developer Howard Hughes, the inspiration for Mr. House. It is on the western side of Vegas, between the Strip and Red Rock Canyon. I drove through it countless times without seeing the welcome sign somehow, since the sign is in the median and huge.