MESQUITE, Nevada — Retirement is often filled with finding relaxing hobbies. For one Mesquite man, however, his hobby requires a ladder, shovel, pickaxe and a canvas full of city-owned sandstone.
Pete Karns, 80, has carved images into the sandstone along a half-mile stretch alongside Lower Flat Top Drive in Mesquite, Nevada, for the past 10 years. His most popular creation is what many have called "Little Mt. Rushmore."
“I was out driving, and I saw that, along the road, the city had left these walls of hard-packed sand,” Karns told KSL. “When I looked at it, it looked like an art palette. I thought it would be neat to carve something there. So about 10 years ago, I carved the first image, and it turned out really good, and so I did another one and another one.”
Karns is a self-proclaimed “snowbird,” with a primary residence in Wyoming and a winter home in Mesquite. He is also a retired real estate broker. Having the physical prowess to be able to create rock art while perched on a ladder, however, says there’s more than meets the eye.
Karns is a former Winter Olympic athlete and doesn’t typically offer that information outright.
In fact, he began as a cross-country skier and performed well during his collegiate career at the University of Utah from 1964 to 1967. He then transitioned to the biathlon and was good enough to compete on the U.S. Winter Olympic team in 1972. He finished in 14th place overall, with a time that matched the best individual Olympic result by an American biathlete at the time. He went on to coach the U.S. Olympic biathlon team and served on the U.S. Olympic Committee.
At the time of this interview, he had just returned from Italy after watching the recent Winter Olympic Games there.
“Carving sandstone is so different from competing in the biathlon,” Karns said, when asked if his experience as an Olympian had contributed to his ability to create sandstone art. “But I’ve been active my whole life.”
When Karns started carving images into the sandstone walls, he didn’t give any thought to whether it was allowed. To him, it was just a blank canvas. The city soon got word of these carvings and kindly asked him to stop.
“We were mostly concerned about his safety because he’s out there on a ladder,” a Mesquite City spokesperson told KSL. “But we had such a public outcry that we said he could as long as he signed a waiver (in case he got hurt).”
Karns signed the waiver, adding that he also makes sure to let city officials know what he plans to create in advance.
“We ended up putting together a permit process, so the city has control over what I make,” he said. “Each time I do something new, I just take a photo or sketch into the city engineer’s office, and he writes up a permit for it. Now the city’s on board, and I actually have their encouragement.”
Karns says that he tries to create things most people will recognize.
“I replicate something that is familiar, like the Little Mount Rushmore, which was the first three-dimensional thing that I carved,” Karns said. “I did a lot of other things like the Statue of Liberty and the Sphinx and Stonehenge.”
He also does fun things that the younger generation might recognize, including creating cartoons and a series of emojis.
“It’s just been a strange hobby, and it’s attracted a lot of attention,” Karns said. “There’s no compensation for it. I try to get out every day for an hour or two. I just like to go out and enjoy the fresh air and create the artwork.”
He is currently working on a replica of the Crazy Horse Mural in South Dakota. He also said that much of his time is spent repairing some of his existing creations. In fact, he had to completely redo Little Mt. Rushmore due to weathering and some vandalism.
“Once in a while, I have to build them back up, so I have to take water in a five-gallon bucket and make a mortar so that I can build it up and then carve it back down again,” he said. “It’s all very fragile, and some of the things I’ve done have just totally disintegrated in a short time. Others have lasted a long time. Some have also been vandalized, but I try to repair the things that get deteriorated.”
Karns said he understands the nature of sandstone and that he has no expectation that his creations will last forever — it is all about the process of creating art.
“They’re all strictly just temporary,” he said. “The property is owned by the city of Mesquite. It is zoned residential, and someday they’ll just all be leveled, and so all of the carvings there will just go away.
“It’s such a fun process, and I have no expectations of them staying there forever.”
Until then, sightseers will continue to visit the unique point of interest just a couple of miles off the interstate outside of southern Utah.