In the middle of November I finally got the chance to take the Land Cruiser out for an off road trip. It would be a solo trip so not the best thing to do - the last thing I needed was to be stranded in the middle of nowhere with no support. At least if I did get stuck I could try out my radio skills and see if I could make contact with anyone. I was not too confident of that.
I headed out early Saturday morning up Mormon Emigrant Trail to Carson Pass and then out through Ebbets Pass to Highway 395. Just south of where the Ebbets Pass road meets 395 there is a road to the east, Topaz Road. That heads to the mountains and then turning north you meet Risue Canyon Road that is a dirt road curving around the top end of the Sweetwater Mountains.
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| Danger Trapper - Watch Kids and Pets |
The above sign lets you know you are not in Kansas anymore. I guess people still trap out here. The road turns into Road 105 and heads up past some old mine workings. I wander around the mine site but it is not too spectacular. Further up the road I get a bit confused as to which way to go. There are lots of options and none of the roads seem to match my map but then the map is not as detailed as I really need. Nevada also seems to be very sporadic and arbitrary in the marking of dirt roads. Occasionally you see a marker, but more often you don’t. I did know roughly which way I wanted to go - towards Mt Patterson, the tallest mountain in the area and one which has a road to the top.
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| The Destination - Mt Patterson |
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| Mt Patterson Trail |
After stumbling down a few dead ends I finally found a marker for the road up Mt Patterson. However at this point it was around 3:00 pm and it would be dark soon. As I was up over 9,000ft I decided to go down a little and hopefully find a warmer spot for the night.
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| Camp for the night |
I drove past Lobdell Lake reservoir and three or four miles further down I found what looked like a reasonable spot to spend the night. It was by now 4:00 pm ish and it was getting cold. I heated some soup and had beer and soup for dinner before I got so cold I had to retire to the truck. So it was 5:00 pm and I was inside the back of the truck in my sleeping bag wondering what am I going to do for the next 13 or 14 hours. That is the problem with backcountry travel in the wintertime - the nights are long.
After tossing and turning and listening to Audiobooks for hours it finally started to get light around 6:00 am. I did manage to heat water inside the truck without getting out, so I had coffee before I braved the cold. Interestingly on a boulder near my site I found a group of grinding rocks. I believe the Paiute Indians once occupied this land.
On the road again I retraced my route to the Mt Patterson marker. It was fairly straight forward path from there to the top of the hill. That is until I found a patch of ice on a tricky hairpin turn. Other than stream crossings I hadn’t seen any ice on the road, and being blinded by the morning sun in my eyes, I was on the ice before I knew it and as I slowed for the corner I started sliding. Sliding backwards until my front end slipped over the edge and I was off road pointing downhill. Not what I needed. Into 4 Wheel Low with front and back lockers on, I tried to reverse back up but to no avail; I turned around and tried to go up forwards, again without success. I stacked rocks in the holes that my tires were digging as they struggled up and took another run at it - again almost but not quite. More rocks and a longer and faster approach but still no luck.
A bit of a dilemma. No trees or rocks around to winch me out, no other people on the road to assist me. I decided to turn around and drive through the brush to the stream bed and follow it down to a point where the drop off from the road was relatively shallow. I scouted out a path on foot and then took off driving blind through the 6 ft high brush along the side of the stream before diving back up the hill to the road. Success, I was back up on the road again.
To turn back or to try again. Try again of course. I went back to the icy corner and spent a good while scattering gravel over the ice to give me traction. Then I approached as I should have done earlier with one side’s wheel on the ice free side of the road. No problem. A lesson learned, don’t be too confident when the sun is in your eyes and it’s cold enough for ice out there. Incidentally I encountered no more ice for the rest of the trip.
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| Mars with Flowers |
It was a relatively easy route (for the Land Cruiser) from there to the top of the mountain. It is barren and treeless on the upper reaches of the mountain. There was a sign half way up that identified the landscape as “Mars with Flowers”. This late in the year there were no flowers so I guess it was just a Martian landscape. I find that kind of barren mountainous landscape quite beautiful. Though there was no real visible vegetation up that high but there was plenty of color variations on some of the adjacent mountains. Plenty of mineralization and plenty of signs of old mine sites.
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| On the Summit - Mt Patterson |
On the top of the hill at 11,673 ft someone had planted a US flag. There were great views over the rest of the Sweetwater Range and over to the Sierra Nevadas in the west.
It was a straightforward route down the other side of the mountain just a bit rocky in places. It made me wonder about the YouTube video I watched earlier in the week. It was titled “Surviving Mt Patterson, one of the world’s most dangerous roads”. I think not.
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| Belfort |
Half way down the mountain you pass through the one time mining camp of Belfort. It was active in the 1880’s but now all that exists are a couple of log cabins surrounded by the debris of other buildings. It is nicely situated and would have made a nice camp spot had I wanted to stay out for another night - I didn’t.
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| The view of Mt Patterson from the East Side |
I continued on down the hill to the flat lands of the East Walker Valley below. It was near lunchtime when I reached tarmac so I headed into Bridgeport some 20 or so miles away where I had lunch and filled up with expensive $5 gas.
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| Walker River |
After lunch I headed back up Highway 182 to the Walker Valley and headed out on Sweetwater Road that runs along the East Walker River towards the town of Hawthorne. On these flatlands the views are not so spectacular but the river itself is quite beautiful.
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| 9 Mile Ranch |
Leaving the river the road I headed south towards 9 Mile Ranch - now abandoned but in it’s day it was a going concern. The Historic Marker informs me that John Fremont camped here in one of his exploratory expeditions and even Mark Twain passed through. I passed through too and nearly stayed. When I got back in the truck all the electrics were dead - nothing at all. I was still a long way from anywhere and no one else was around. I opened the hood and tightened battery connections, jiggled any wires I could see and began to contemplate my dilemma. It must have been the battery connection because when I got back in, all was well and off we went. For the rest of the trip I did not turn the engine off unless I was in a town.
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| Old Mine Workings - Eureka Mine |
From 9 Mile Ranch the road was good to the junction with the Eureka Mine Road and since Eureka Mine is once again active the road there to Hawthorne was excellent (for a dirt road). I took a detour to the Eureka Mine. There wasn’t much evidence of the old mine workings but the modern mine is huge. Huge excavations and vast settling ponds. I bet there is some nasty pollution going on around there.
I arrived in the town of Hawthorne just before nightfall. It is not much of a town - dominated by a large army munitions depot. I got a hotel for the night - no sleeping in the truck for me again. A meal in the restaurant of the sad little casino next to my hotel and a wander around the casino. It was really depressing - no card tables or roulette wheels, just a large number of big slot machines but very few people playing. How could such a place stay open in a town like this.
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| Outside the Munitions Museum - Hawthorne |
Next morning I take a closer look at the town. I don’t know when the town was doing well but there are no signs of prosperity today. Lots of run down store fronts and no modern businesses save a drive up coffee booth in the middle of a parking lot. The military presence is everywhere - from the park decorated with cheerful sculptures made from munitions parts to the munitions museum with the array of scary bombs, rockets and torpedoes sitting outside. Too early to visit the museum however. Outside the museum is a memorial to those who gave their lives to supporting the military - about a dozen folks who were killed in explosions at the munitions factory in the Korea and Vietnam War era.
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| Walker River outside Schurz |
North from Hawthorne the road passes the very beautiful and brilliant blue Walker Lake to the town of Schurz. There’s not really much in Schurz but from there I left the road onto the dirt road running west along the Walker RIver towards Yerrington. It’s desolate dry country but relatively flat along the valley floor. It is an Indian Reservation. There are no residences there only signs of failed agricultural land (fenced fields, dry irrigation canals, etc). We did not leave the Indians with any really good land around here. The marshlands where the river meanders around did look quite beautiful though.
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| Marsh Land Walker River Valley |
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| More Typical Landscape along Walker River Valley |
Back on the highway again I headed south to Yerrington - another nondescript town struggling to make a go of things. Then on through Wilson Canyon to Wellington. From Wellington I took the dirt road out of town, Hoye Canyon Road. This follows the south side of the Walker River through Howe Canyon and then out to Antelope Valley. I bounced along this road for a few miles until I was at the point where I started the off road trip on Saturday morning. Since it was still only lunchtime I traveled into the mountains again along RIsue Road and then wandered around along one of the valleys. There was a dead Desert Bighorn Sheep by the side of the road and a game warden parked nearby. I stopped to see what was going on. The warden was probing around in the bush above the eviscerated carcass of the sheep. As I walked up, she stopped me saying “this is my crime scene - don’t come any closer”. Apparently she was looking for evidence of who killed the sheep - most likely a mountain lion.
I drove around a little more then went back to Highway 395 and headed home. A great weekend away that rekindled my desire to do more of that kind of travel. Time to get the Land Cruiser in shape again - or buy something newer and more reliable - a Fore Runner perhaps?
