Reconnoitering in the Great Basin & Eastern Sierra By 4x4 - Trips - Trip 2001

RECONNOITERING* IN THE EASTERN SIERRA NEVADA & GREAT BASIN
BY 4-WHEEL-DRIVE
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Great Basin Research Trips
Trip 2001
Northern Nevada, Southwestern Idaho
(and a Blip of Southeastern Oregon Thrown in for Good Measure)
Part 2
June 22 - 23, 2001:
Lye Creek Campground to Buckskin to National to Delamar to Silver City to Rio Tinto to Pattsville to Aura

Friday, June 22, 2001

Lye Creek Campground.

Coffee and breakfast at Lye Creek Campground. Check digital camera. Working normally as if nothing happened. Break camp. Drive down mountain into interesting badlands country. Good dirt roads. Drive back up into northern Santa Rosa Range to high summit of Windy Gap (definitely lives up to name).

Mine site high on Buckskin Mountain.

Park Gil's car and Graham's truck at Windy Gap. Graham hops in with me, Gil with Alan. Drive to top of 9,000 foot high Buckskin Mountain. Find superb little ranch with houses, fixtures and furnishings (buildings locked, but peek through windows allows look back into time). Views into Oregon, Idaho and across northern Nevada. Drive to top of mountain to mine. Ruins, machinery, superb views. Drive down to Buckskin ghost town site. Log buildings, collapsed frame buildings, milling machinery, superb views. Drive back to Windy Gap. Drive down most thrilling, switchbacking drive from 9,000 feet to 5,000 feet in very short distance.

Drive to US95. Drive north a short distance. Park Gil's car and Graham's truck on highway. Drive back into to canyon in Santa Rosas to ghost town of National over flour fine dusty, bumpy path for seven miles [note: no photos available - my camera, which was acting up, corrupted this disk as well as others, so I could not retrieve the photo files]. Dropped hard into creek bottom, bent front fender out, cut part of the tread on front-passenger side tire. Hot in National. Nothing except sage, cows and little else - boards, metal, cans and tailings piles. Drive to McDermit, NV/OR - small, 2-block town w/one block in Oregon and one in Nevada. Eat lunch in casino on Nevada side. I have patty melt, bowl of clam chowder. Drive north along US95 over featureless terrain for 100 miles across SE Oregon to Jordan Valley. Passed into Mountain Standard Time Zone along the way - my bored mind contemplates if whether it was near sunset on the Pacific Standard Time Zone on one side of the sign, if it would be dark on the other... Very warm outside - 100º most of the time. I note along the way that my air conditioner fan is blowing but no air coming from vents - gets hot inside truck. Jordan Valley is a nice town at foot of mountains. Gas up, get ice and water - Texaco @ $1.74 per gallon, and you get full service (against the law in OR to fill your own tank). Leave Jordan Valley. My air conditioner working normal again. I figure a vacuum flap directing air under the dash froze up. A mile after leaving US95 at Jordan Valley, we cross into Idaho and road turns to very good dirt. Drive to Delamar ghost town. Neat buildings (appear to be occasionally occupied, one for sale), huge mill ruins. Delamar founded by same Captain DeLamar who founded DeLamar, Nevada and had large interest in Keane Wonder Mine in Death Valley.

Alan and "Charlie"in Silver City

Graham and Gil inside Idaho Hotel having pie ala mode

Drive to Silver City over rough dirt road with lots of water on it. Set up camp along stream just out of town. Walk back into town. Talk to locals. Graham has pie and ice cream at saloon. Good pie and ice cream, but served in paper fish & chips box, coffee served in Styrofoam cup. Graham didn't care for such ambiance. I simply have a beer. Locals get rowdy in the saloon. To us, a nuisance. Probably a minor thing in historic Silver City. Graham finds Rubber Boa snake. Docile. Walk back to camp, shower and crawl in. Read newspaper purchased at Winnemucca. Read about death of Carol O'Connor and blues musician John Lee Hooker. Lights out (we're on Mountain Standard Time, so go to bed after midnight local time, 11pm the time our bodies are used to - mini jet lag). Sleep.

Additional Images June 22, 2001: Click on Any Image Below to Open Full Size
Note: All images below were chosen to enlarge upon this page and are in the same sequence as taken throughout the day; they all have details of location or subject in text within image.

Map of our travels June 22, 2001.	Looking up Lye Creek canyon. The campground is up the road a couple miles, below 9,732' Granite Peak.	Up on the side of Buckskin Mountain is this nice ranch.	Ranch on Buckskin Mountain, looking south to Granite Peak country.
Mining equipment high on the side of Buckskin Mountain. The flywheels show above within the story are also seen here in the background above.	Mine site high on the side of Buckskin Mountain.	Overlooking the site of Buckskin, Nevada. View is to the northeast.	Buckskin, Nevada.
Buckskin, Nevada.	Buckskin, Nevada.	Buckskin, Nevada.	Buckskin, Nevada.
Delamar, Idaho.	Delamar, Idaho.	Delamar, Idaho.	On the road to Silver City, Idaho.
Silver City, Idaho.	Silver City, Idaho.	Silver City, Idaho.	Alan Patera in front of the Idaho Hotel and Bar, Silver City, Idaho.
Solidly dusk at 10:00 PM, Silver City, Idaho.

Miscellaneous Verbal Notes From the Day as Recorded on Microcassette Recorder.	"It’s amazing, every time you go through country like this, you vow that you’ll come back. But uh … life goes on and you seldom do. ... So that’s Dave’s deep thought of the day from the outhouse."
	"One of the few advantages of an outhouse is that you never have to worry about plugging up the toilet."
	"There’s a pungent mixture in the air. Mountain mahogany and sagebrush."
	"There’s a mine opening, closed door. Water coming out of there. Foul smelling, like hydrogen sulfide. And uh … the water is tainted yellow, and everything that is in it - rocks, a few screws and bolts - are coated in an orange algae like stuff. You certainly wouldn’t want to drink the water!"
	"The sign says “National Canyon Road.” [Alan on radio: 'Hey, we’re all together. What a remarkable coincidence!']"
	"We’ve got a creek here that … well, it’s National Creek. We’re letting Charlie have a drink of water. Come around a corner and we find Graham waving and jumping up and down. We thought maybe Alan went into a hole or something."
	"This is dank, stagnate water. Here the cows have fouled it. It stinks!"
	"Not much to McDermitt. The business block. If you can call it that. It’s maybe a block long. Straddling the state line."
	"About ten miles north of McDermitt, I got a great cell phone signal, and you can’t see a darn thing anywhere in sight."
	"We’ve got a couple of big turkey vultures on the telephone poles waiting for something to die on this highway."
	"Just passed into Mountain Standard Time Zone ... I wonder what it’s like, if the sun sets at 8:30 Pacific Standard Time, if it’s dark on the other side of the sign? If the sun is up on the south side of the sign, is it down on the north side? Food for thought. Dave’s musings from an outhouse, part two."
	"I’m bored and whiny because I’m sitting here and driving this long, boring two-lane, when I’ve got a really good cell phone signal, air conditioning, stereo and jazz music. ... Life’s a bitch!"
	"Alan and Graham were thinking of going down to the hotel and having a beer, but I don’t think I’ll join the party this time. I’m going to take a shower and crawl in."
	"I’ve got a copy of the Idaho Press-Tribune. Serving the eastern Treasure Valley. On the front page, 'CAROL O’CONNOR DEAD AT 76: TV’S INDELIBLE ARCHIE BUNKER SUCCUMBS TO A HEART ATTACK.' ... Blues legend John Lee Hooker also died. 83 years old."
	"Well it’s about twenty after eleven. About ready to turn in. I’m ensconced in my camper shell. Creek running out my window. Maybe it will serenade me tonight. So I’ll finish this tape for the day. June 22nd, 2001. And the third day of our trip is over."

Saturday, June 23, 2001

Camp at Silver City, Idaho.

Silver City, Idaho.

Awake before sunrise. Graham and I walk all over town for a couple of hours photographing and videotaping picturesque homes and businesses. Walk back to camp. Have coffee. Break camp. Drive around northern part of town. Look for great photo spot for overall town view. Find one on northwest side of town on big mine dump up on hillside.

Group shot at the Idaho Hotel in Silver City, Idaho. Left to right: Graham C., Alan Patera, Gil S., the Sagebrush Reconnoiterer, and Alan's dog, Charlie.

A female deer lies under tree and allows us to walk within a few feet of her, then slowly ambles away. Leave Silver City at noon. Drive north out over pass and down mountain. Fairly heavy weekend traffic, near misses with speeding pickup trucks, ATVs. Graham had gone down a bit before rest of us do. Find Graham at foot of mountain putting air in his tires (he lowered the air pressure to give better ride on dirt roads). I stop behind Graham, Alan behind me. Gil, who was running between Alan and myself kept going. He drove short distance to junction of Silver City Road and highway and stopped. All of us figured he was going to stay put until we came. After Graham airs up tires, we resume.

Gil nowhere to be found. We drive six miles east toward Grand View, ID when we stop and wonder where Gil went to. I decide to drive to Murphy, ID, west of junction on hunch he went there, as the town was spoken of a bit earlier that day between us. I get within a mile of Murphy when I hear Gil on radio calling. Gil went to Murphy, back to Silver City road, then back to Murphy. Batteries went dead on his radio, so bought a set at Murphy. Gil followed me back to Grand View, where we found Graham in saloon/cafe having a bite to eat and coffee. Alan went into town (a mile off the highway) for ice and fruit. I decide to have a bite myself and ordered cheese fries. $2. Expecting to have a small amount of fries smothered in Velveeta. Pleasantly surprised to find huge plate filled to top with fries, smothered in grated Mozzarella and cheddar cheese. Gil has same. Alan doesn't eat.

Tiny Chevron at Mountain City, Nevada.

Drive over featureless roads to near Nevada border, then enter scenic Duck Valley and cross state line. Drive through Owyhee to tiny Mountain City. Gas up at one pump Chevron station (unleaded and diesel only), taking 45 minutes to get our vehicles through the line and taking turns with other vehicles, including Indian Reservation Police car, at pump. Gas $1.89 per gallon. Ice and soda for me and others. Drive to Rio Tinto ghost town. Remains of orderly company town of the Anaconda Copper Co. era of the 1920s - 1940s. Site is now Superfund site - water down Rio Tinto Creek runs orange. Drive to Patsville ghost town. We find filthy hippie sitting Indian fashion inside a tent he set up inside old store building. Mosquitoes eating him alive and they also ambush us.

We leave post haste. I scratch and itch like crazy, worrying if same mosquitoes who bit me had also bitten the hippie, and what diseases he might have had. Turn off on dirt road leading through beautiful meadows, aspen groves into snow covered Bull Run Mountains. Drive over Maggie Summit. Drive to Aura ghost town (large stone ruin of saloon - more of townsite within private property), then double back to unnamed summit just south of Maggie. Set up camp on mountain top amid thick aspens with superb view of snow capped peaks. I find huge trash dump from previous campers. Make supper, drink beer, watch sunset. Alan, Graham and myself take two mile walk to another overlook. Go to sleep.

Camp near Aura in the Bull Run Mountains, Nevada.

Additional Images June 23, 2001: Click on Any Image Below to Open Full Size
Note: All images below were chosen to enlarge upon this page and are in the same sequence as taken throughout the day; they all have details of location or subject in text within image.

Map of our travels of June 23, 2001.	Silver City, Idaho.		Silver City, Idaho.		Silver City, Idaho.
Entire Row: Silver City, Idaho.
Entire Row: Silver City, Idaho.
Entire Row: Silver City, Idaho.
Entire Row: Silver City, Idaho.					Alan Patera and Charlie in front of the Idaho Hotel.
The Sagebrush Reconnoiterer in front of the Idaho Hotel.	Our group in Grand View, Idaho, at the Y Bar & Café. Graham's rig, my Chevy and Gil's Pontiac are seen left to right. Alan is still in town and hasn't yet joined back up with us.		Just outside of Grand View, Idaho, Graham heard a loud pop when he pushed in his clutch and he found a piece of spring on the floor. We ascertained that his clutch return spring broke, but clutch action felt normal. It was the first problem of the trip, which eventually lead to the disabling of Graham's rig. Gil is helping Graham check the situation out.		My Chevrolet at the Idaho / Nevada border at Owyhee.
Rio Tinto, Nevada.	Rio Tinto, Nevada.		Rio Tinto, Nevada.		Rio Tinto, Nevada.
Rio Tinto, Nevada.	The Rio Tinto school house.		Gil and Graham at the Rio Tinto school house.		Pattsville, Nevada.
Pattsville, Nevada.	Pattsville, Nevada.		Aura, Nevada.		Aura, Nevada. The Bull Run Mountains in the background.
Aura, Nevada.	Aura, Nevada.		Our camp north of Aura near Maggie Summit.		The Sagebrush Reconnoiterer enjoying a cold beer in a “cool” camp after a long day of reconnoitering.
Gil S. enjoying his supper in camp.		Graham C. (left) and Alan Patera.		Alan (left) and Graham on our walk at dusk near our camp near Maggie Summit.

Miscellaneous Verbal Notes From the Day as Recorded on Microcassette Recorder.	"This outhouse at Silver City is dark and dank compared to the one at uh … at the Lye Creek Campground yesterday. This is smaller. Concrete, but kind of a prefab type construction. A big, heavy door with one small, square, opaque window and that’s it. Not dirty, but it’s … not near as nice as the other. ... No thoughts from an outhouse this morning. I guess that one wasn’t inspiring enough."
	"Alan had mentioned that … the uh ground glitters at night to a full moon. I pulled the flashlight out last night and the ground was glittering in the flashlight beam. Must be a lot of mica in the ground, or quartz glass."
	"It’s 9:34. Actually, it’s 10:34, Mountain Time, but I set my clocks back since we’re going back into Nevada today. I’m not going to live on Mountain Daylight Time, it just screws up the biorhythms."
	"I just about took out a minivan. A sharp, downhill corner. I was sort of in the middle, he was in the middle."
	"ATVs are sure popular around here everywhere you go. They’re everywhere. Silver City has as many quads as there are people."
	"Nobody seems to know where Gill went. We’re stopped on this Oreana Loop Road. And Alan was under the assumption that he was with us. And Alan was leading this pack. I don’t know what’s going on here."
	"I guess helmets aren’t required in Idaho. A motorcycle went by, a Harley-Davidson, no helmet on. Or he thinks out here in the middle of nowhere that nobody is going to catch him."
	"That was the Y Bar and Café where we had our lunch. I had cheesy fries and a cup of coffee. I was pleasantly surprised, for $2.00 I had a big plate of French fries, small cut French fries. I was expecting a small plate of French fries with Velveeta all over it. This was real cheese, mozzarella and cheddar combined. And a cup of coffee. Coffee was only 50¢."
	""Graham might have some problems. He pushed his clutch in and something sprang loose. He’s going to check it out. ... OK, there’s a piece of wire on his main clutch spring. It’s kind of like a wound spring underneath the … where the … [End of tape] ... Well, GE [microcassette recorder] does it again to me. I hate not having auto stop at the end of the tape like the Sonys do. I’ve been chattering along for three hours at the end of the tape and got nothing. That was back by Grand View, that Graham lost his clutch. We’ve gone all the way through Idaho, and we’re sitting here at Rio Tinto, Nevada now."
	"Ha! There’s a guy staying in a tent right there in the store. I heard Alan go in there and say 'Are you Pat of Patsville?' I thought he was just joking. There was a man with a tent set up, and he was sitting Indian fashioned in the middle of the tent."
	"The mosquitoes are eating me alive! This is horrible! ... I suppose all those mosquitoes that bit me have been eating on that ratty looking character laying there in that tent. I hate to think about what they’re going to give me. What kind of disease they’re infected with."
	"I learned a new word tonight. 'Crepuscular.'”

Continue to June 24-25

Revised: 11/09/2008