AdventureTaco - turbodb's build and adventures

I think that in a longer state like Nevada they are just trying to make a continuous route. With the several million acre off limits area in the southern portion of the state they had to make a choice to have the route go east or west to get around the test site. I think going east would have been more enjoyable and would have made the southern portion more palatible during the summer months. But seeing the state south from Tonopah really shows the diversity.

Hopefully in your next area you were able to spend some extra time in the Ruby Mtn's and Lamoille. It's the best part of Nevada.

 

The BDR boys are always down for updates.

 

2018 we didn't make it to Jarbidge from Elko, SNOW!

 

I always forget how big Nevada actually is. Thanks again for sharing!

 

Really? Do the routes change from year to year? I feel like they haven't - not really. I think that's OK, a BDR isn't really about seeing all the cool stuff in a state, it's a path through. Seeing all the cool stuff would add so much time, no one would be able to do it .

Yikes! When were you on the road (time of year)? I think the snow we ran into had only been around for five days or so, as there'd been a recent set of storms through the area... though, the mountains hadn't been clear for all that long prior.

Absolutely! 'nother one tomorrow.

 

They're just releasing a new NVBDR. There are GPS routes as well as maps on the ridebdr.com website.

 

Do you mean the route updates to the NVBDR, or an entirely new route? The route updates are really just about re-routing around places that no longer go through, or are impassable for some reason. If it's a new route, I'd love to see a link...

 

Route updates as far as I know.

 

Elko to Austin - Retracing the Pony Express - NVBDR 2

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Stage 5 - Elko to Austin​

It was just after 5:00pm as we rolled out of Elko after fueling up. This, technically, had been the end of our first stage - but with several hours of daylight left and dirt roads calling our name, we felt no need to call end our adventure early!

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On that note - something @mrs.turbodb and I find interesting about the Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR) stages is that they all start and end in towns. This - to me - doesn't make any sense. I mean sure, it's easier to map from one town to the next, but it also means that the end of a stage is by definition not somewhere you're likely to want to stop and camp for the night. In fact, you probably don't want to stop anywhere near the end of a stage, since being close to a place with food and gas is likely to mean traffic, lights, and crowded camping. The only thing I can think of is that when travelling by motorcycle - which is how the BDRs are developed - packing light, eating at a local joint in town, and staying in a motel is an easier way to travel (though still, most of the BDR reports I've seen from bikers employ camping each night).

I digress... where was I? Oh right, headed out of Elko.

Continuing south, we quickly racked up miles between ourselves and civilization. This was a good thing - for the reasons I mentioned above - and we enjoyed the views of the Ruby Mountains to our east as the snow-capped peaks towered several thousand feet above our route.

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Ruby Mountain, of the Ruby Mountain Range.​

Travelling mostly through what is now ranch land, @mrs.turbodb let me know that she was pretty sure we were on the Hastings Cutoff of the old Emigrant Trail (aka California Trail) - a route taken by explorers before us on their way to settle the west! So, as we noticed an an old rock ruin in the distance, curiosity got the better of us and we turned off the route for a closer look.

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We obviously have no idea the age of this place, but it's clearly been around quite some time - the cows now it's primary residents. Inside, full-dimensional milled lumber boxes for the windows suggested that it was most likely the residence of a reasonably modern-day homesteader.

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Not a bad view for whoever lived here.​

A purported shortcut to the Emigrant Trail, the Hastings Cutoff turned out to be no easier for the wagons than the original route. Most famously taken by the doomed Donner-Reed party. Hastings promoted the trail without having actually traveled all of it, claiming that it reduced the trail to California by hundreds of miles. The Donner-Reed party, with help from Hastings, took this route, costing them an extra month on the trail, which ultimately delayed their start into the Sierras, and for about half the party, cost them their lives, dying in the mountains, only to be eaten by the rest of the party.

Just as @mrs.turbodb was reading about the history of this trail, I spotted what I thought might be a marker along the side of the road and applied the brakes. We got out to take a look.

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Hastings Cutoff marker - Huntington Creek.

"We started on toward or Canann, with sorrowing hearts, for now the awful and fearful truth flashes across our minds, that our provisions are nearly gone." -John Wood, Aug 18, 1850​

40 miles out of Elko, we turned west, up into the Cedar Ridge Wilderness Study Area.

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Anyone who's camped with me knows that I'm always a fan of finding a ridge along which to camp, and my hope was this part of the route - which crossed a ridgeline - would be a great place for us to stop for the night. Clearly - and perhaps obviously - previous adventurers shared my preference and as we reached the ridgeline, a lightly-travelled trail dove off the main road to the south - into BLM land!

We followed it to our overlook.

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Where we setup camp.

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And made dinner.

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A good taco-rrito has as much guac as it does meat.​

A bit of sunlight still left in the day once we finished cleaning up, @mrs.turbodb and I decided to hike out the ridge a bit further, just to see what we could find. Not much, it turned out, though we did stumble upon a little egg shell, its inhabitant now in the wind, literally.

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And, as the sun set to our west, we made our way back to camp and into the tent. It was warm but pleasant - a very nice change compared to some of our trips where we're cold as we climb under the covers.

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The last light on the Ruby Mountains.​

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Not a bad way to end our first day on the NVBDR!​

Day 2

Being the middle of summer, sunrise was early! I nearly missed it when my alarm woke me at 4:45am, and a quick photo from the warmth of the tent was all I could muster before falling back asleep for another couple hours until the warmth of the sun - even through the clouds - was enough to send us both scurrying for the cooler air outside the tent.

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It was a beautiful morning.​

A quick breakfast and teardown of camp before we were on our way, through the juniper trees that cover Cedar Ridge , on our way to Austin.

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Having seen only one road leading away from the Cedar Ridge Wilderness Study Area to the west, we figured that it would be our way out - and it was, Squaw Mountain rising up 6759 feet in front of us and Cissilini Canyon to our north.

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Not technically on our route, a road down into Cissilini Canyon looked too interesting to pass up, so we called an audible less than 20 minutes into our day and headed north. The canyon did not disappoint, not by a long shot!

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it was only a quarter mile or so beyond this that we came to the ruins of what was clearly an old town, perched along the side of Dixie Creek - some old horse shoes still scattered on the ground near one of the buildings. What a fortunate discovery for us!

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A bit of poking around and it was time to go - the NVBDR stage from Elko to Austin is one of the longer ones at 220 miles; we didn't want to dally - so we headed back up the canyon with a different view of Squaw Mountain.

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Our route now took us squarely through high desert. The land around us was dry - the only water, the result of springs that we'd stumble across here and there. And then, the desert would come to life - though only for a few feet on either side.

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Mostly though, long dirt roads carried us through grazing land - most of it leased by the BLM to various ranchers, the limited water and grass only enough to support a small number of cattle.

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Life with little water must be difficult.​

As we neared the north end of the Diamond Hills, a few of the gates that @mrs.turbodb had to open (and close) were in close proximity to a spring that'd been overrun by cattle, but that was also home to a group of four migrating female American Avocet in breeding plumage - at least for the time being.

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And, a little further up the road, a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk put on an amazing display for us as it caught a thermal high into the sky above us.

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And with that, we'd reached our route up and through the Diamond Hills - again, an "advanced alternate" route for this stage of the BDR. Additionally, as it turns out, this part of the trail - as would much of what we'd travel the remainder of the way into Austin - was part of the old Pony Express route.

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Though we all know of the Pony Express, I had no idea that it only operated for 18 months. Running from St. Joseph, Missouri to San Francisco, California, riders (called Pony's) carried mail across the entire route in ten days, where the previous service had taken 2-3 months.

It was lunch time when we reached Overland Pass - the saddle that would lead us down into Telegraph Canyon and despite some howling winds and no shade, we made the call to eat lunch here - surely it would be more pleasant than the stagnant sweltering heat in the valley below.

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There were several markers here as well - for the Pony Express, for the California Trail, and for an old Ham operator (Bob Evans - N6YMA) who must have loved this place.

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Our bellies full of chips, apple, and PB&J, we plunged down into Telegraph Canyon - 10-foot tall sagebrush making it a tight squeeze even for a 1st gen Tacoma. The trail here too was rougher, likely what afforded it the "advanced" moniker from the BDR.

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We popped out on the valley floor just in time to see a reasonably large whirlwind make its way across the playa in front of us.

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The road conditions here in the valley got better once again, and we made great time on the dusty roads, the wind not quite as calm as we'd thought it would be.

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Our circuitous route took us through several passes and valleys at this point as we worked our way generally south west.

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A lone tree calls this enormous desert valley home.​

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Only the rare valley was lucky enough to contain a spring that would support an abundance of plant life.​

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Happy to have found water and green grass in the desert.​

And then, in the literal middle of nowhere, we stumbled upon a huge pipeline and pumping station. Still under construction, workers toiled away in 95°F heat to build the stations as we flew by in the Tacoma, our A/C keeping us cool as the air outside got warmer.

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We didn't know it at the time, but the circuitous route we'd been following wasn't completely random. A marker, as we climbed into the Toiyabe National Forest near Mt. Prometheus, alerted us to the fact that we'd been following the Pony Express Trail the entire time, even after we'd left Telegraph Canyon just after eating lunch.

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The final pass behind us, we started our final descent down into Austin. Having seen plenty of cows so far on the trip, a hillside covered in these fluffy little sheep caught us a bit by surprise; the sheep too, which were much more skittish than most of the cows we'd encountered!

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And with that, we dropped into Austin.

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We entered town right at the location of the Gridley Store. A nondescript rock building, it belonged to Reuel Gridley. In 1864, Gridley lost an election bet and agreed to carry a fifty-pound sack of flour the length of the town, which was about a mile. After his trek, the sack was auctioned, with proceeds going to the Sanitary Fund, predecessor of the Red Cross.

During the auction, the flour was resold many times, each buyer returning it to be bid on again. By the end of the day, the sack had raised more than $6,000 for the fund. Other communities heard of the fundraising and invited Gridley to conduct similar auctions throughout the West. Over the course of the next year, he raised about $275,000 for the fund! Today, the famous sack of flour is on display at the Nevada Historical Society in Reno.

Unfortunately, though Gridley raised the equivalent of $4.5 million for charity, he lost his store to personal bankruptcy, since he was always travelling. (Roadside History of Nevada)

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As we made our way through the small downtown to fuel up, it was just a little after 5:00pm. We'd covered even more ground than the previous day, but we obviously needed to push on in order to find a spot to camp.

This, I knew would not be a problem - I'd read a few trip reports of the NVBDR prior to setting off on this adventure, and I knew that just south of town was an amazing ridge. It wasn't on the official route, and it would surely be slower going than the valley-based track that the BDR riders had put together, but I was pretty sure that our 30 mile detour would be a highlight of the trip.

...it turns out, I had no idea.

 

Awesome as always, Dan.

I love the history of those Western trails. I've drive by plenty of those concrete markers for the Oregon Trail, Pony Express Trail, and Mormon emigrant trail, just several hundred miles east of where you were.

 

Any time you want to run the Utah section between Eagle Mountain and the NV line, lemme know and I'd be glad to be your local. Though I suspect you've done so already...

 

You're exactly right about why routes hit towns. Most of the BDR are researched on ADV bikes. On a 990, you might get a couple hundred miles between fill ups. Maybe. I have a little 2 gallon extra tank and can barely make that.

 

Thanks Brett. The history of these places is pretty neat. Adds color to the trip because @mrs.turbodb usually packs about 6 books about wherever we go, and so I get the stories as we drive through the area. I only wish I remembered all of them, but I'm getting old. Some stick with me though, and I try to include them in my write ups, .

Just read your report about it. Nice that there's a standing structure there. That trip through the canyon looked pretty awesome too; especially that little rock structure a way up the walls! Would love to see that some day.

Yeah, as a rider myself, I know how that is. Still, if I were planning it, I'd do more to try and get stages to end at waypoints rather than in towns - at least that way, if you were shooting for the end of a stage each day, you wouldn't end up on pavement at that point.

 

About the only advantages I see are access to fuel and the ability to start in a place you can leave a vehicle. But if you always want to end a day at camp, you can still do that.

I went back to Docking Pilot’s BDR trip report but a lot of the images are broken links now. Which is too bad. He shared some of his planning in a phone call and the emphasis on fuel, especially in a couple of spots, was impressive. I don’t recall but I think they avoided a lot of towns. When the upgrade is done, you might wanna search for it (if you haven’t already).

 

Always love your trip reports . What bike/bikes do you have?

 

Thanks, always nice when people enjoy!

Nothing BDR capable, but I got this back in 2001 and it's been great. Reliable, plenty fast for me, and FUN! CBR600 F2

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Amazing pics and stories, as always!
And now I'm looking into this BDR thing. Wonder if sections of the mid atlantic or northeast that are near me are do-able in the truck.

 

Austin to Tonopah - A Ridge, a Ghost Town, and a Rocket - NVBDR 3

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Stage 4 - Austin to Tonopah.​

Our fuel tank once again topped off, we immediately climbed out of Austin and into the mountains to the south. We didn't have far to go though - just outside this historic little town is a the craziest little castle tower - Stokes Castle.

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Built on the mountainside overlooking the Reese River Valley, the three-story castle was built in 1897 by Anton Stokes - a wealthy mine owner and builder of the Nevada Central Railway. Constructed of native granite slabs, it was made to resemble a villa that Stokes had admired outside of Rome. (Roadside History of Nevada)

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Also at the castle was an old headframe. It's unclear whether this was also originally a mine site, or whether the headframe has been moved into position as a tourist attraction, but it too overlooked the Reese River Valley and would have been a splendid location to search for gold!

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From Stokes Castle, we made our only planned deviation from the BDR route. Having found a write up by dave6253 on AdvRider.com who took a long, sharp, rolling ridge into Austin from the south, I knew this was the route we'd have to take on our way out. It should - in my opinion - be made the BDR route in future iterations.

We started by climbing up a short connector that I'd routed in Google Earth. Extremely steep and more likely an ATV trail than one meant for trucks, I made a mental note to check elevation profiles more carefully in the future. But, as we crested the top, the entire range upened up before us!

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As we anticipated, the road undulated up and down from one peak of the ridgeline to the next, and we happily followed it - albeit in 4Lo for some of the steeper sections.

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Our progress already slow as we enjoyed every minute, the final - highest - peak had a little extra something waiting over its crest - an enormous pit mine that had decimated a nearby mountain!

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As with other unexpected discoveries along the way - and despite the fact that it was already nearing 7:00pm - we detoured from our detour to go check it out. No longer in operation, it's clearly apparent that some amount of reclaimation of this site has taken place, but it's impossible to fully reclaim a site like this, its impact on the land so great.

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By the time we were done, we knew we needed to find a spot to camp - ideally up here in the mountains somewhere, to help keep the temps a bit more managable than they were getting in the valley's. And, after just a little bit of searching, we settled on a spot that was a little closer to the road than we'd have liked, but that offered spectacular views of the valley below.

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Dinner consisted of the most delicious cheese burgers I think I've ever eaten, and before long we were sitting in our chairs reading as we enjoyed the sunset playing out before us, the moon rising over our shoulders.

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It had been another splendid day; we hoped there were many more to come.

Day 3

Camped on the west side of a north-south range, there was no chance for any sort of sunrise, but we were still up early - out of the tent by 6:30am because we knew we had a long day ahead of us; the more miles we could cover before it heated up too much, the happier we'd be.

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Then, as we were eating breakfast, I happened to spot something unnatural near the bottom of the mountain. I pointed it out to @mrs.turbodb, who grabbed her binoculars and confirmed that it was in fact some sort of old mining paraphernalia. Of course, that meant we had to go check it out - a detour before we really even got started!

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You go, goof.​

Soon though, we were back on our way, now rejoined to the official BDR track and making good - if a little dusty - time until we arrived at Big Creek Canyon in the Toiyabe National Forest.

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Big Creek Canyon reminded us a bit of our climb up into the Jarbidge Mountains just a couple days earlier - as we wound our way up, we crossed Big Creek several times before climbing up and out of the valley and over what was already our umteenth saddle of the trip.

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If you look closely, you can see evidence of mining activity - horizontal banding - on one of the ridgelines below.

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Over the ridge, we made our way down towards the old town of Kingston, but before we arrived, a cluster of white-with-green-trim buildings caught our eye. We knew before we even arrived that this must be an old guard station, specifically the Kingston Guard Station as we pulled up to the fence.

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Someone had vandalized the station, breaking the windows and door locks, but it was clear that this had been a nice place to hang out.​

Our quick exploration of the four buildings complete, we resumed our bombing run down towards Kingston - another of the old towns that we'd pass along our route. Like many, this town had seen a boom around mining, and then quickly faded as the ore ran lean - its old mill and a few old rock structures all that remained from the original inhabitants.

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The old Kingston Mill.​

Today, the town struggles to survive - there's not much here except for the old Lucky Spur Saloon - and today the saloon was closed, the town seemingly empty.

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Seems reasonable.​

From Kingston, we headed east - crossing another large, flat, hot, valley that led us to the Toquima Range, its rocky outcroppings a new type of geology compared to what we'd seen so far on this trip. While still in the Basin and Range, we were definitely diving deeper into desert landscapes.

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Another major difference was that the roads here were like gavel super highways. Plenty of signs along the road informed us that this was likely due to mining that had taken place at the Northumberland mine - another (now legacy) mine that had produced over 230,000 ounces of gold and 485,000 ounces of silver for its owners. And boy, when we came upon the mine, it was quite the operation!

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There was still quite a bit of heavy machinery present, and our guess was that the reclamation of this mine was still underway, unlike the one we'd seen just outside of Austin the evening before.

A few photos and a bathroom break later and we were headed toward our next point of interest - the ghost town of Belmont.

Generally referred to as one of the best ghost towns in Nevada - both by books that @mrs.turbodb had brought along on the trip, as well as several web sites I'd discovered as I researched places on and nearby the route prior to leaving, I warned @mrs.turbodb that we'd probably be underwhelmed.

Because when everyone says something is "the best," it usually isn't.

At any rate, enough of my always-such-a-downer attitude - - the good mining roads meant that we continued at our high rate of speed until we saw another dust cloud approaching. A motorcycle rider, we pulled over to snap a quick photo of the only other (we assume) NVBDR rider we'd see over the entire route!

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Who are you, and were you riding the NVBDR on July 2, 2020?​

Belmont wasn't far now and as we turned onto the main (paved) street, the first thing that struck us was the lack of "ghost" in this town - save for a few ruins, all of the houses looked reasonably new and were clearly occupied.

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Chimney of the Belmont Brickworks, one of the few ruins in this part of town.​

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Brickworks watchman. Will work for bugs.​

Knowing there must be more, we continued on - to Old Belmont, just over the crest of the hill. Here, there were definitely more trappings from the old days, but RV trailers, active residences, and ATV's easily outnumbered and out-tackied what could have been a great place to walk around and enjoy.

We snapped a few photos and were on our way.

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Were these really what they claimed to be, or just bait for the tourists?​

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The old Belmont Courthouse.​

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Bank - circa 1868.​

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Burro sculpture - circa 2020.​

From Belmont, the NVBDR makes a beeline - south then east, before turning west and then north, at which point it flips south, and then west again to arrive in Tonopah.

We, however, would not take such a direct route.

Near the town of Belmont, I'd also discovered the ghost town of Manhattan, NV - purportedly with an old bank whose vault remained locked all these years later. And we were going to check it out.

Clearly, I should have realized that anything I researched on the internet about "best ghost towns in Nevada," was likely to result in a similar experience to Belmont - and when we arrived, that was immediately the case. Manhatten did have fewer RV trailers, and was clearly not-quite-as-popular as Belmont, but there were plenty of residences scattered amongst the few remaining ruins.

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They definitely have a sense of humor here; perhaps the volunteers are lizards.​

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This small chapel on the hill was moved to Manhattan in 1908 from the nearby town of Belmont where it was built in 1874. Belmont citizens later wanted it back, but were unable to reclaim it.​

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The infamous bank, its vault visible through a missing front door.​

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Guess the internet is out of date. Vault is open now.​

The real fun of Manhattan though was the road we took out of town. It started as a reasonably graded road - much like the others we'd encountered in the area - but as we got further from town, road maintenance was clearly less of a concern. Even narrower than the road down Telegraph Canyon, this was the only point on the trip where I suggested that it might even be too narrow for a 1st gen Tacoma.

A few pinstripes later and we found ourselves back in a landscape of mixed juniper-and-trundra, and the perfect spot to enjoy another lunch of tuna sandwiches and chips!

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Except for the 95°F heat, what's not to love about this view for lunch?​

Our detour to Manhattan complete, we rejoined the NVBDR only a few miles from where we'd left it, all of it's meanderings east, south, west, and north still between us and the end of the stage in Tonopah. It was 2:15pm, and @mrs.turbodb was on her eighth gate of the day.

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Up into another north-south range that makes up the basin-and-range landscape of Nevada.​

As we approached the next set of mountains, some old ranching equipment caught our eye - could this be the overlanding and insta-expedition trailer we'd always wanted?

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Probably not going to break that diff...given the lack of power train.​

A little careful positioning of the Tacoma, and joking around about whether this was our dream trailer and we pushed forward, up into the Monitor Range. Here, two notable sights presented themselves. First, 16 wild horses dotted the landscape - extremely curious who we were, and what type of horse we were riding. Each time we'd stop for a photo, they'd politely turn to face us, and as we'd start rolling again, they'd trot along behind us at a distance.

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The other discovery was an old dugout as we made our way down and out the south end of the range. We weren't completely clear whether this was a shallow mine or a dwelling, but it'd held up well over the years and would be - at the very least - a great way to get out of the scorching sun during the day!

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A few miles later, we found ourselves headed west toward Tonopah on Nevada's Highway 6. It was only for a few miles though - rather than a direct shot into town, the route takes a two-sides-of-the-triangle-are-better-than-one approach and heads northwest and then southwest into town.

At the turn off to dirt however is a rocket. Well, a model rocket anyway - where the highway stripers have clearly got a good sense of humor, or at least an interesting practice area.

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Rocket flames, or just a coincidence?​

There was nothing notable about the long way into town - the roads were just meh, and the views - even as we passed through the low hills were nothing to write a trip report about.

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Perhaps the most interesting aspect of our back way into town was the view we got of Tonopah itself as we crested the last hill. Nestled into a hillside that has clearly been extensively mined (and perhaps is still being mined), we were happy to have achieved the next checkpoint on the NVBDR.

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As with the last two, we'd fill up on gas and get out of town - we'd been here many times before and knew it was way to kitschy for our tastes, despite the fact that Lonely Planet: Southwest USA recommended this as a great place to spend the evening!

For us though, it was on to Gold Point - one of our favorite towns of the trip - but not before we hit up Goldfield - home of the International Car Forest; something we definitely weren't going to miss...

 

Carpe Diem!

Victory is ours!



After more than 2 years of diligent research.... ok, occasional brief considerations, I ended up on short notice with 4 days to explore. I'd thought this would be a great destination and from the landmarks and clues I knew what area it was, but wasn't at all confident I'd be able to find the exact spot. I figured a day in, a day to get home, would leave 2 full days to explore and certainly give the area a good shot. What the hell, even if I didn't find it there is plenty to see.

I picked a route and an area and headed out.

By 6pm I was thinking I should be looking for a place to camp and continue on the next day. The trail I was on wasn't looking too promising. At around 7pm the trail opened up and I broke out into the clearing and here I was.

I tried to park on the coveted spot but after 20 minutes of maneuvering I'm just not that good at leveling in a very unlevel tight spot.

Thanks to Turbodb for the write-ups and inspiration to get out and explore. I'm usually pretty open about where I go but I'm following Turbodb's desire to not reveal exactly where this is. I found it, you can too.

One bad note, and definitely the worst part of the trip was here. I couldn't figure out the scenario where someone would bother to get the "biodegradable" shit bags, wait until they fill 5 or 6 of them, and then dump them all in one spot on the open ground. Sure, some people suck, but that took effort.