Year-End/New-Year Far-Eastern Nevada Trip of MarkBC

I left home -- Bend, Oregon -- on December 27, 2012 and returned home on January 3, 2013.

I've been to far-eastern Nevada -- Great Basin National Park (GBNP) specifically -- many times over the past 25 years...and surprisingly (at least to me), most of these trips have been at the same time of year as this trip, a time of year when a harsh land is, arguably, at its harshest. (My "harshness" argument: The climate, especially the temperature, is least-hospitable to animal life in winter )
But it was a between-Christmas-and-New-Years trip that introduced me to GBNP about 25 years ago, and that was a very special trip for several reasons...so maybe I'm forever trying to recapture/relive that initial specialness. It's probably not possible to do that, is it? But maybe it's worth trying...and maybe in the trying I'll find something else special.

And you're just now getting around to a trip report? Oh you've been bad and not even a pic yet.

Others of us are more patient and excited about hearing about this adventure! Nice map and route.

I have a few photos processed, much more to work through.
Maybe I'll post a few tonight... It'll be a work in progress over a couple/few days.

Ah yes, I can once again get on with living vicariously. Thanks in advance for your report.

Looking forward to reportage.

I was on the Winnemucca 95N (aka Idaho-Oregon-Nevada Hwy)stretch of your trip recently, but we stayed on 95 where you went west towards L. Abert. Nice open country up there.

BTW: Ever notice a road called Hot Springs Rd. on 95 just north of the Oregon border? Inquiring minds want to know!

[Note my addition of intro text to Post #1]

Instead of taking the slightly more direct and faster route that heads from Burns to join US 95 at Burns Jct I headed down the Steens East road that runs along the eastern base of Steens Mountain and (eventually) the western edge of the Alvord Desert and on to Fields and joins 140 at Denio Jct.
I had the time to take this much-more scenic and favorite route, and I also had received a request from Craggyman for a report on the state of the Alvord desert (snowcover, etc.) and of Alvord Hot Springs (RE: rumors of changes coming to this institution of many decades! ), relevant to him for a planned New Years Eve trip there.

The east side of Steens was looking fine!
(None of the pics on this day are all that super 'cause it was midday light...but still worth including (IMHO) as documentation.)



Looking ESE across the northern edge of the Alvord Desert.


The rumors, apparently true, about the Alvord Hot Springs are that the Alvord Ranch (private land on which the hot springs are located) is getting tired of the mess and hassle of the hot springs for which they get nothing...and so they're moving towards getting something for it. Putting in some kind of RV parking, camping...maybe even some kind of lodge. (Reportedly another aspect of the story is a pissing match between Alvord Ranch and the BLM...something like that). Anyway, very sad news. They've already closed the traditional road-side parking and entrance and put in a new access point. It's still open as before...but word at the Fields Cafe is that a caretakers shack will be going in this spring.


Link to full-size version of the pano above: Pano-01

[When the full-size versions of these and all following panoramas open in a new browser window, click on them (or whatever for your browser) to view them at full zoom]

Here's a view NE from the SW corner of the Alvord (as I head south):

Full-size version: Pano-02

I stopped at the Fields Cafe and chatted with Tom about what was going on at the Alvord Hot Springs, and he basically confirmed what I'd heard about it through ONDA connections -- the sad (to me) news.
I also noticed a For Sale sign in the window of the Cafe/Store...WHAT?!?! Tom said that he and Sandy have been trying to sell it for almost a year, "We want to retire some time!", he said when I asked "Why?". "I sure hope that the right people buy it", I whined to Tom. He said, "I know...that's why we're taking our time". After the news of hot springs changes, this was more scary/unhappy news for a long-time (25-year) Alvord fan like me. This put me in a kinda unhappy mood at the start of my trip. (the next day I would encounter more unhappy changes in an area I love... )
Time to practice my spiritual principles: All things change, nothing is permanent...and "This, too, shall pass" is a maxim that applies to good things as well as bad.
Yeah, I know -- but I haven't achieved sainthood yet, and undesirable things still bother me!

Oh well...onward, southward, eastward towards the wilds of Nevada...wherever I would end up that night.

That night, Dec, 27, I made it as far as about 20 miles south of Battle Mountain/I-80 on the wonderful NV 305. I pulled off 305 a couple hundred yards at a road that's access to a BLM area, "Mill Creek". I think I spent a night here before...last winter?

Dec. 28, 2012








Full-size: Pano-03

It was cold, of course, this morning...but since I waited so long to post this report I don't remember how cold. Nothing record-breaking (that would come much later in the trip! ).
Even though this spot wasn't far from very-busy I-80 it looked like the middle of nowhere (well...except for the huge gold mine visible a few miles away, but it is Nevada, after all, so of course there's a mine! ). But it was still close enough to I-80 that the Verizon 4G signal that traced the route of the interstate leaked over the hills. So...before heading off from that spot I took advantage of the very-broadband connection and did a Skype video call with Craggyman using my Android smartphone (with him on his Android tablet at his home in Bend) -- my first time to make use of this very-cool techno-marvel. I panned the phone around and showed him where I was camped. I love the wild outdoors...and I love technology, too -- and NO, there is no contradiction in that.

On down that wonderfully remote 305 to where it joins the "loneliest road in America" (that would be US 50) at Austin. I fueled the truck in Austin, and on east up the ridge...
Looking back, down and west, at Austin, the fog-enshrouded Reese River Valley and the Shoshone Mts.:



After passing over the Toiyabe Range and dropping down into the Big Smoky Valley I considered stopping, maybe camping, at Spenser Hot Springs...even considered maybe crossing over the Toquima Range to the Monitor Valley (snowy-roads permitting, of course):



But I decided that my destination really was GBNP, and I really didn't need/want to take two nights to get there (why not? just 'cause), and it was still early-ish in the day so I continued east on "the loneliest road in America".

Refueled and got provisions in Ely, then over the Schell Creek Range to this familiar and wonderful view of the Snake Range, featuring 13,065 (or ,063 or ,064)-foot Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park.


Full-size: Pano-04

However...on the north side of US 50 the view was neither familiar nor wonderful. In what had been wide-open spaces of sagebrush, etc. there is now a wind-turbine power-generating farm:





The last time I'd been through here was on my way home from my Utah trip in May of 2011, and these were not there at that time.
Now...I'm a bleeding heart liberal and environmentalist...so I haven't figured out how I can ethically argue against implementation of this renewable-energy-generating facility. But rationality aside, it still made me sad to see a wild area (no, not wilderness -- there are roads and cattle and mines in the area..but still...) become festooned with technology...the visual impact was what bothered me.
[and NO need to take up the argument for/against this in my trip report-- make your own thread if you feel argumentative...PLEASE]

So, shaken to my core (OK, not really shaken to my core ...but not full of joy, either ) I continued north and east, over the Snake Range at Sacramento Pass and down the east side and south and then up (west) into Great Basin National Park.

I found Lower Lehman Creek Campground (the only c.g., open year round) empty -- ALL MINE!...as it frequently is this time of year. I set up my rig in good old site #11, my frequent (though not always) favorite 'cause it has a wide-open view of mountain to the west and desert to the east.

So far so good! What are the daytime and overnight temps like there?

Wow, Mr BC, those wind farms certainly are an interesting addition to the Loneliest Highway!