But Calico Basin residents have discovered that preserving this invisible natural resource is difficult. If someone moves out here and puts a bunch of floodlights up, we do something about it. “We’re all here for a certain type of experience,” he says. Some had seen the chopper flying low over Red Rock’s trails. Within a matter of weeks, Marsh estimates, the small commercial helicopter was buzzing his property and the surrounding hills three or four times a day. I can run a table saw in my garage, and if the door is closed, my neighbor doesn’t know it.” I make noise sometimes, but I don’t want to disturb anyone. You have a distance barrier between you and your neighbors. “But one reason we live here is the two-acre requirement. “I’m not the quietest person in the world,” confesses Marsh, an amateur carpenter, who also produces music in a specially built studio in his basement. Instead, Marsh was surprised to see a civilian pilot flanked by two beaming tourists looking out the windows, snapping pictures of the colorful sandstone cliffs around his house. A 25-year veteran of Las Vegas Fire and Rescue, he has buddies in search and rescue, and takes notice whenever a team arrives at Red Rock National Conservation Area - whether for training or an actual operation.īut this wasn’t one of those teams. Birds scattered from the trees as Marsh looked up. Last fall, Randy Marsh was outside his Calico Basin home doing yardwork when he heard a familiar sound: the rhythmic chorp-chorp-chorp of a helicopter overhead. But what about preserving assets you can’t see - like silence? Activists have spent years fighting to protect Nevada’s natural areas.