Nathan posted on July 19, 2011 15:26
I am so tired…but good tired. This morning we packed up from camping on the trail just past Paradise Valley. It was a beautiful morning, and the temperature today has been far nicer than one would expect for Nevada in July. NH said he thought we must be driving on the moon, for all the soft, fine dust boiling up behind us, reaching its fingers in through our windows to choke us if we didn’t outrun it.
We continued to rise in elevation pretty quickly, and by 9:00, we were up high enough that the sagebrush was a pale minty green rather than the dusty grey-green of sage lower down, and there were tufts of green grass and beautiful wildflowers in between bushes. The wind was cool, too, and we saw snow on the peaks not far away. If you have to spend considerable time driving in Nevada in July, sans air conditioning, I would recommend sticking to the higher elevations. Slower going, to be sure, but cooler, and so much more beauty.
I had my fill of opening and closing gates. Mostly the “gates” admitting entrance to and exit from the ranges are strands of barbed wire wrapped around sticks and old fence post, connected with loops of wire or rope to the fence. They are incredibly sticky to open, especially for a runt such as myself, and pretty splintery, as well. If ever anyone should be lauded for an invention, it is the person who invented the cattle guard. I cannot thank you enough for your contribution to modern ranching, and transportation.
The views were incredible, too. The only damper was that we soon discovered that we were going to be short on gas before making it into McDermitt. We drove over some beautiful hills, past streams and pools in brilliant green grass, hardly seeing the surrounding beauty for fear of having to hike through ten or fifteen miles of it with a gas can to fill up the Jeep.
Just about five miles short of McDermitt, and coasting on what must have been the last fume, we overtook a couple of surveyors who were working on an attempt to settle a dispute between the Fort McDermitt Reservation and the U.S. government as well as local residents of McDermitt. The surveyors were pinpointing the exact boundaries between the reservation and the surrounding BLM land and national forest. More importantly for us, however, they also had a can of gas. They kindly filled our tank and sent us safely on our way.
From McDermitt, we headed back out into pasture-land, where the trail is a lot of rocky two-track, rough and slow riding. Still, the elevation was pretty high, the scenery was beautiful, and the temperatures were comfortable all day. We pushed our way down into Denio Junction, where, after seeing three fellow TAT-travelers, we decided to camp in the grass near the local motel/bar/gas station.
We had a great supper, enhanced by wonderful conversation with Kevin, Ken, and Richard, who are riding the trail in the manner for which it was designed, on duel-sport motorcycles.
Well, since I am, in fact, so tired, I’m going to bed. Good night everyone.
Written by E. Henson
