2003 02 Nevada

First, I want to tell you all that this is a beautiful part of Nevada.  It's all quite high up, between 5000 and 6500 feet, and all high desert.  Lots of sage.  The mountain ranges are all quite tall, with the tallest, the Ruby Range, going over 10000 feet.  It's beautiful.  All the mountains are covered with snow down to about 6500 feet.  The valleys are all long and flat and sage covered.  There are very few people here.  Spectacular.

This morning I went to Tuscarora, the semi-ghost town about 60 miles north and west of Elko.  The drive is about half paved and half dirt and not a hard one.  There was a lot of ground fog though, so I did not see much until I was almost there.  I was surprised by the number of people that appear to live in Tuscarora - I'd say a 10 or 20.  It does not appear that anything goes on there, so I wonder what they all do.  Even more amazing: there is an operating Post Office in Tuscarora.  Who knows why that is still there.

Tuscarora is an old silver and gold mining town.  At one point several thousand people lived in the area.  There's very little left of the old structures, although the foundation and smokestack of one of the very large smelters survive.  There is also rusty junk everywhere in the sage.  It is at the edge of the Independence Valley, one of the many many basin and range valleys that cover Nevada.  The first shot is of the valley from the smelter:

Those are the Independence Mountains (natch) in the background.  I am standing in tfront of the smelter ruins.  That yellowish heap of stuff in the right middle distance is one of very many heaps of mine tailings (processed ore) that are left everywhere.

Here are a couple of shots of the smelter ruins.  The foundation is really solid and all stone.  It's not going anywhere, and there are two more levels going down the hill to the left.  There must have been a huge wood frame structure on it.

This is a shot of the town itself.  It was really hard to tell what was occupied and what was not, and I knew that people lived here, so I did not do a whole lot of poking around.  (I was reminded of a line from one of my favorite movies: (Little Big Man) "I see the dump, but where's the town?")

There are old mine openings around:

Would you go in there for anything?

I think one of the mined byproducts of either silver or gold is appliances.  You see this all over Nevada.  Perhaps Sears knows about this:

On the way out of Tuscarora I noticed this guy giving me the beady eye.  I was apparently too large to cart off so he left.

After Tuscarora I intended to go to Midas, another semi-ghost town.  But after 15 miles of increasingly wet dirt road I ran into a lot of water..  Too wide and probably too deep to risk out in the middle of nowhere.  The road had been pretty soft for several miles before that, so I turned around.  Lots of snow melt..  There is another way in that starts at 80, but that was too much backtracking for one day.  Instead I went south and looked at the Lamoille Valley, a very scenic drive into National Forest in the Ruby Mountains.  The first is looking up the valley road where it is closed due to snow:

This next shot is of the Lamoille Glacier.  Small, but definitely a glacier:

This valley is about 12 miles long and is covered with aspens.  I am sure it is spectacular in the fall.  In the winter though it is filled with snowmobiles and related contraptions.  Any of you that are wondering if that Hummer H1 will really get the job done might consider one of these:

Fully articulated, all four tracks driven.  Amazingly enough it was quiter than most of the snowmobiles!

Order yours today:  tucker sno cat

Also on the way out I ran into the local heli-ski outfit.  Apparently these mountains are fabulous skiing.  I talked to one of the skiers (the guy in the green jacket) that got off the helicopter and he said that they had done 30,000 vertical feet today, and they were done at 3:00.  There were 5 or 6 that got off the helicopter and they were all raving about the skiing.  You go with a guide on the mountain, and they take you all over the Ruby Range.

Check them out too: Helicopter Skiing: Ruby Mountain Helicopter Skiing

The shot above is looking out the Lamoille Valley towards Spring Valley and on to Elko, which is over that low range in the background.

Since the day had started to get pretty gray I did not do much photography in the afternoon.  Some stuff of brush and trees that were interesting colors and textures, some pretty colorful "dead fall" colors.  There really was not much sun though, and I know that these sage valleys and snow covered mountains will just light up with sun on them.  There was a little sun at sunset, which was weird considering that the weather droids are all yelling about snow down to the valley floor tonight or tomorrow.  But there is a lot of material here.  I hope the weather speculators are wrong and I can get out in the sun tomorrow.  That would be great.

 I did drive around the "backside" of the Ruby Mountains, the east side, since I could see that there is another wide flat valley over there and that the mountains could be beautiful at sunrise if the sun is out.  I noted several places that would be good to park myself in the morning if the sun is available.  If the sun is not available and looks like it will be unavailable for a while I might get out of here for the time being and go see what the Bruneau Dunes State Park over the border in Idaho looks like.  I think that is about  2 hour drive.

All in all this was a good day and this is a spectacular area.