Take A Ride Through Nevada's Past, Present and Future

Mark Maynard, Reno.com
April 30, 2008

Driving at Dawn
Dawn is giving way to full-tilt sunlight as I drive east out of Carson City, Nevada towards Dayton. It is important to remember when driving on an east-west highway that heading east in the morning and west in the late afternoon will put the sun directly in your eyes. I will put in well over 500 miles of east-west driving today, much of it done in the early morning and late evening.

"The Loneliest Road in America"
I am traveling a good portion of what has been dubbed "the loneliest road in America." Highway 50 travels through the heart of Nevada, nearly bisecting the state horizontally. I am headed for Roberts Creek Ranch, located northwest of Eureka, Nevada for a wild horse gathering conducted by the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Most of the land that I will see on the 250-odd mile drive will be Federal land, most of it under the jurisdiction of the BLM. (It is estimated that somewhere around 90% of all the land in Nevada is owned by the Federal government.)

Following the Pony Express Trail
Highway 50 roughly follows the old Pony Express trail that existed briefly from 1860 to 1861. Along the way, drivers pass an eclectic mix of Nevada's past, the untouched desert, and the ultra-modern future of naval warfare. The highway is one of the best places to see how Nevada is situated in the Great Basin. The road crosses immense flat valleys ringed by impressive peaks in all directions. The highway also lives up to its "loneliest road" moniker, and I find myself waving at the few drivers I pass just for companionship.

Dayton
Beyond Carson City, I pass through Dayton, Nevada. The Carson River winds through downtown providing a green ribbon of vegetation that parallels the road. The river powered several mills during the Comstock mining days, (Virginia City's Comstock Lode is only a few miles away). The town is now a quickly growing suburb of Carson City, Nevada's capital, and new subdivisions are sprouting up for miles on both sides of the highway.

Lake Lahontan
Highway 50 leads drivers east out of Dayton through the small town of Silver Springs and out to the shores of Lake Lahontan and the Lahontan State Recreation Area. The lake is named after the ancient Lake Lahontan that once covered more than 8,000 square miles of Nevada during the Ice Age and helped carve out what is now the Great Basin. The current Lake Lahontan is actually a reservoir, created when the Lahontan Dam was built in 1915. The damn diverts and stores irrigation water that helps maintain the fertile farmland around the town of Fallon. The irrigation drainage then flows to the Stillwater Wildlife Management Area, said to have some of the most abundant collections of wildlife in the state. Lahontan offers picnicking, camping, beaches and fishing. There is also a boat launch area and a marina.

"Oasis of Nevada"
Beyond the shores of Lahontan, the road leads into downtown Fallon. Be sure to watch for the speed limit signs as downtown approaches. I have a brief but pleasant (meaning ticket less) encounter with a Churchill County Sheriff who politely reminds me that it is "rush hour" in Fallon and that I was going 67 in a 55 zone. Called the "Oasis of Nevada" (thanks in large part to the irrigation water it receives from Lake Lahontan,) Fallon is one of the most fertile agricultural areas in the state. Besides hay and grain, Fallon is known for its "Hearts of Gold" cantaloupes. Fallon is also home to the Fallon Naval Air Station, home of the Navy's "Top Gun" fighter school, made famous by the movie of the same name. (The school moved from Miramar, California to Fallon in 1996.) The Top Gun program trains naval aviators in air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. Several of the school's training ranges lie just south of Highway 50 several miles south of town and drivers will often see fighters screaming low out of the sky bombing dummy targets visible from the road.

A mountain of singing sand
Twenty-five miles east of Fallon lies an amazing sight just north of the highway. In the distance is a giant dune called Sand Mountain. The mountain stands 600 feet tall and extends over two miles end-to-end. Sand Mountain is contained within a 4795-acre recreation area managed by the BLM, and is a favorite with off-road vehicle drivers. It is said that when the conditions are right, visitors can actually hear the dune "singing" in the wind (a phenomenon which is caused by shifting sand).

Flats, jets and the Pony Express
The drive east from Sand Mountain traverses some rugged, arid territory including the Eight-Mile Flat and some of Fallon Naval Air Station's bombing ranges (look for scaled down versions of buildings, bunkers and other bombing targets on the south side of the highway). The road eventually turns north and enters the small town of Cold Springs. The "town" consists mainly of a bar and a convenience store. A one-and-a-half mile walk from a roadside interpretive station leads to the Cold Springs Pony Express Station. Much of Highway 50 roughly parallels the Pony Express trail, the short-lived mail route along which adventurous young men rode relay along an 1800 mile trail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California. The stations were interspersed to allow riders to reach a station, change mounts, grab fresh water and continue on their way. The Pony Express only lasted nineteen months from April 1860 until October 1861 and was done in by the completion of the first transcontinental telegraph line. Continuing eastward, the road steadily climbs to the 6,348-foot New Pass Summit. The crest of the summit offers a sweeping view of the Reese River Valley and the town of Austin, perched on a hillside, can be seen in the distance.

Austin
Austin was once one of the largest towns in Nevada, benefiting from the discovery of silver in 1862. The ore was discovered at the nearby Jacob's Spring Pony Express Station and legend has it that a rock kicked loose by an ornery pony revealed the top of a rich vein of silver. Austin retains several remnants of the 1860s silver boom, among them Stokes Castle, a replica of an old Roman tower built to order for the wealthy eastern mining financier, Anson Phelps Stokes. It has long since been abandoned and now stands as a silent sentinel guarding the uphill approach into town from the west. The International Hotel on Main Street watched two Nevada towns strike it rich in the 1800s. It was built in Virginia City in the winter of 1859-1860 and was loaded into wagons in 1863 and hauled to Austin where it was reassembled, and became famous for its grand ballroom and dining room. (Virginia City rebuilt another International Hotel on the same site once the original had moved to Austin.) Present day Austin is becoming a mountain biking Mecca and bike rentals and trailheads can be seen on nearly every street corner (all five of them). The town hosts an annual mountain biking festival and offers maps outlining hundreds of miles of local single track and dirt road trails. Austin is also the last place to get gas for the long overland trek to Eureka, and this fact becomes readily apparent on the gas pump signs. I check the gauge and decide to fill up on the way back (a decision that will find me driving into Eureka later to avoid having a desert monument erected to my stupidity).

Traffic jam
My destination is Roberts Creek Ranch where I will be covering a wild horse gather run by the BLM. It will require an alert eye to spot the road to the ranch as it is one of several that meets the highway perpendicularly, identified only by a small sign that passes quickly out of sight at 80 miles and hour. Luckily, I won't have that problem as traffic (if you can call an odd conglomerate of 8 cars that had been stretched out for over a hundred miles an hour ago "traffic") has come to a complete standstill. Did a navy fighter accidentally bomb the road? Is the line of cars and trucks waiting for an errant cow to cross the road? I soon discover the real reason we are stopped is road construction. The highway is only two-lanes wide and repaving them can apparently be done more efficiently by closing both of them, paving the stretch and then letting cars pass in a single direction, alternating first westbound, then eastbound traffic.

About 10 miles out of Eureka (I am already fearing I have overshot the turn) the Roberts Creek Road sign blazes past. I manage to stand on the brakes quickly enough to make the left turn onto the dirt road without rolling the car (crossing oncoming traffic is not much of a problem on the "loneliest road in America"). Roberts Creek Road looks like it was carved out of the desert with laser precision to ensure that it was absolutely straight. It climbs and dives numerous times along its 14 miles, the far end merging into the horizon.

The dilemma
Covering the horse gather requires more driving along dirt roads between several different pens and trapping areas. By the time I head back to the highway, I notice that the gas gauge says that I have ¼ of a tank to work with, dangerously low when you are miles from the nearest gas station. As I return to the paved comfort of Highway 50, I am faced with a dilemma: make a right turn and try for Austin (and home beyond) or take a left and head east into Eureka, less than 15 miles away. As tempting as it is to head for home, the image that I saw earlier on a postcard in Austin makes me turn left. (The postcard had a photo of what was left of a prospector in the middle of the desert, making a meal for a pack of buzzards).

Eureka
The town of Eureka is eerily quiet on a late Monday afternoon. It has an "old west" downtown typical of rural Nevada burgs but there is no one on the streets and sidewalks. I park the car and walk down a wooden sidewalk to the local casino where I walk into the coffee shop. The staff in the coffee shop outnumbers me four to one and the hostess jokingly asks me if I made a reservation. I pick the best looking table of the 15 in the room and finish 5 tall glasses of ice tea before my cheeseburger reaches the table. Eureka also started as a silver mining town but the high quality of lead in the ore meant that the less glamorous mineral became the mainstay of the town. Even today one can see the remnants of the lead mining industry as dark tailing piles line the highway on both sides.

A daunting task - turning around
It is quite an adventure to cover over 250 miles of the "loneliest road" in a single day, but turning the car around to head back on the same day is a daunting task. I will retrace the same route in a westbound direction this time (again driving straight into the sun) and will arrive in Reno some five hours later (after stopping for numerous leg stretches and food and gas).

One last reminder
The next morning, Highway 50 left me one last reminder of how desolate it can be. The left front tire of the car was completely deflated, and I thought of how many stretches of road it could have gone flat on, glad that it waited until I returned home.

If you are going...
If you decide to tackle the "loneliest road" make sure that your vehicle is well stocked and that all parts are in good working order and that you top off all essential fluids. Be sure to carry food and plenty of water for all occupants of the vehicle. Although cell phone reception is impossible on some of the more desolate stretches, one would definitely come in handy in an emergency. To make the "loneliest road" even more fun, the Nevada Commission on Tourism has put together a "Highway 50 Survival Kit" which includes a list of services available on the road, a guide to the points of interest and a map which holds a place for stamps available from businesses in the towns along the route (Fernley, Fallon, Austin, Eureka and Ely). Get all of the town stamps and send the form back to the tourism commission and they will issue you a certificate verifying that you did indeed survive the "Loneliest Road in America." Survival kits are available at many stops along Highway 50, or from the Nevada Commission on Tourism at:

401 North Carson St.
Carson City, Nevada 89701

http://www.travelnevada.com/infopacket.asp