Johnson Lane, Minden NV - October 26-29, 2012

Friday: Maintenance Day

 

Wayne noticed the engine of the coach was missing, so he figured to replace the plugs. As a result on Friday after a short bicycle ride (the roads are very soft sand in places and not a lot of fun), he worked on the coach.  

 

 

 

When he was changing the spark plugs he found that four of the plug wires were damaged and had to be replaced.  So a quick trip to Carson City resulted in new plug wires, a new kickstand for Wayne’s bicycle and a new California Gazetteer for me. 

 

 

 

Andy helping Wayne change the plugs

 

We spent the rest of the day installing things and checking out the new map. We're not sure of which route to take.  We hear that Highway 395 is beautiful but there is snow up there. Highway 95 through Nevada would have less snow but would be less scenic.  Maybe I’ll see if California has traffic cameras on 395.

Saturday: Dual Sport

The temperatures have been rising both at night and during the day.  It was nice to dress for riding today with far fewer layers of clothing than I had when riding to Mitchell. Today Wayne and I rode 101+ miles in the Pinenut ORV-BLM area where we are camped. We started through areas of sage and Juniper, then climbing into the Pine Nut Mountains and over Sunrise Pass.  Occasionally we found an area of deciduous trees that stood out because of their fall colors.

At the junction we decided to see where the Sunrise Pass Access was. 

 

 

We ended up on Artisia Rd, a gravel road with no town in sight. So we turned around and headed back, taking a small road up to one side, to see if it went over the top of the mountain.  It didn’t, so we stopped in a grove of Aspen trees for lunch, and then headed back to the Sunrise Pass road.

 

Next we headed towards Churchill Canyon.

 Along the way we saw what looked like a large back hoe working off in the sage brush.  It turned out to be a huge brush cutter.  It was mowing down Juniper trees. We had seen the results of this during our drive through Oregon and wondered about how and why the trees are being removed from range land.  Now we know the how.  This machine can mow through a full tree in less than a minute, leaving just a pile of sawdust, branches and debris.  As for the why, I looked up Juniper removal and found that it “has subtly been invading vast acreages of rangeland in the west that were once dominated by sagebrush, grasses, and forbs. Juniper is now estimated to occur on more than 5 million acres in Oregon alone. Although juniper is a native plant, fire suppression and other factors have allowed this tree to expand to sites it never occupied historically. As juniper expands its range, it gradually results in a number of resource problems, such as reduced forage production, increased soil erosion, altered wildlife habitat, and reduced stream and spring flows. Besides affecting a rancher’s bottom line by reducing forage production, juniper invasion is severely impacting rangeland wildlife like mule deer and sage-grouse.” (Natural Resources Conservation Services website) Hmm. When conservation groups state that they want to return nature to its historically correct state, I wonder why.  After all, the earth is continually changing, it’s called evolution and I don’t think they can stop it.  If the trees are invading naturally, if man is not transplanting them there, why are we messing with Mother Nature?  Yes we like deer and grouse, but nature has a way of controlling the size of flocks and herds to sizes that may not be as plentiful as hunters would like them to be.  So who are we helping, the wild life or the ranchers and hunters? Okay, that’s my rant for the day, back to the ride.

After abandoning the road to Churchill as too flat and boring, we returned to the road to Dayton. The road was in horrible condition, full of shale and rock beds.  We stopped several times to decide; do we go forward or back? It was rough and rocky, and 18 miles long.  We kept going, thinking it couldn’t be this bad the whole way.

It was bad, but not the entire way.  It did eventually get better.  We went through several recent fire areas and were amazed to see people with trucks and trailers out on that crappy road, cutting wood.

Recent fire section, open to woodcutters

Then we broke over a small pass, seeing the snowcapped Sierra Nevada’s in the distance. With those in sight I could find our way back to the motorhome.

There were the remains of an old building at the pass, and in the distance, proof of civilization.   

Going over the pass took us out of rangeland and in to mining country.  We passed old buildings and big holes in the ground, nice to see they were surrounded by fences and warning signs. We continued down to Dayton and Highway 50.  This took us to Carson City and another entrance into the BLM Land through Brunswick Canyon.  I have to take a moment and thank the very nice folks in the Sheriff Search and Rescue trucks. They were coming back from some sort of water event (wearing their logo shirts and pulling a nice looking boat). They took the time to help us find the road to Brunswick Canyon.  They sent us up Sedge road which turned into the canyon, from there it connected with the Sunrise Pass Road we are camped on. 101.88 miles and we were back before 5 pm, it was a great ride.

By the way, I found a website for MX parks and ORV areas in the west.  http://www.riderplanet-usa.com/atv/trails/nevada_map.htm.  It seems to concentrate on California, Arizona and Nevada, but it looks like it could help us find ORV-friendly dry camping on our trip.

Sunday: Ride Day, Wayne

Greg came to take Wayne for a ride today. They did about 50 miles, most of which were single track trails.  They started in the sage and sand washes and then moved into the Pine Nut Mountains to ride in the Pinion Pines and Aspens.  Greg says there are hundreds of miles of trails in the local mountains.  We’d like to come back next spring when we are heading north for the summer.

Monday: Virginia City and Lake Tahoe

Today we took the truck and went to Virginia City to play tourist.  I didn’t realize that at Silver City you have to make a choice; you come to a Y in the road and the sign says that both ways go to Virginia City.  One way indicates trucks and RV’s, so we picked the other road.  Next came the sign that warns of 15% grade to come. Glad we were in the truck.  We never saw the other route, but I’m guessing that it is not near that steep.






The road was very cool, and evidence of mining was everywhere.







Virginia City sits directly above the Comstock Lode which produced more than $400 million in gold and silver.  Most of this occurred during a 20 year span in the mid 1800’s.  It was amazing to visit the museum and see the models of how all the tunnels run under town. And the equipment they had to use!

The town itself looks great considering its age.

The Masonic Temple looks newer than other buildings

 

The Suicide Table is named so because three of the owners (dealers) lost their fortune and suicided on the table.  So they say…

I like the name of this place!

We had to visit and mail post cards to Mom and Becca

The Brewery is not open at the moment, much to Wayne’s dismay

 

From Virginia City we continued up and over Geiger Summit and down into the valley south of Reno, under US 395 and back up the other side.  And up is correct, the elevation signs were zipping by.  So were the ski areas, we must have passed 3-4 on the east side of Mt Rose Summit which is at an elevation of over 8500’. Down the other side past another ski area and we were at Lake Tahoe.  Here we opted to stay on the west side of the lake, as the sun was headed down over the hill and the east side is a much longer route.

We were both surprised at how large this lake is and the water is so clear!

 

Tonight is our last night here, tomorrow we head south on US 395.  We decided to go through California Mountains rather than the Nevada desert.  We hope to do some riding along the way.