The GREEN western desert,…Take 2….
After getting cut short on our trip last week, Sondra and I decided to do it again! LOL
It appeared that the weather was going to cooperate with us for a day at least so we packed up once more and headed west!
Here is Pilot Peak at Bonneville again, this time the sky looks a little clearer..
As you can see, they will probably not be racing today, hehe. Its not uncommon for the salt-flats to flood, actually it is an annual phenomena and the water evaporates by June or July. I think it will take a little longer than normal.....They usually race here in August and September.
To cut 80 miles off of our trip, we decided to take the short-cut (dirt road north out of Wendover between the Pilot range and Silver mountains range)
Here is what it looks like going north out of Wendover.
This is the back side of the Silver Mountains, the range you saw from the Bonneville location.
And then, standing at the base of Pilot Peak looking up!
This area of the western desert got its fair share of water and snowfall as well.
These streams are moving quite a bit of water. At one I found black sand and a lot of “glittery”, so I loaded up a couple of containers to pan it later at the house. If it turns out OK, I’ll come back for more!
The trail itself was in remarkably good condition, we were able to average about 45 miles per hour and actually got 26.6 miles per gallon!!
Coming into Lucin, we decided to do the tourist thing and stopped at the ruins of the old ghost town. This sign explains a little history of the town. Please excuse the added punctuation that others decided to find necessary to add,.. at least the sign is still somewhat readable.
This is one of the remaining root cellars that is still there.
The spring still looks pretty good for being abandoned over 40 years ago. We were able to see quite a bit of fish swimming around in there too.
They are making good use of this desert oasis, as they have begun to reintroduce big horn sheep in the area.
After going to both pits this time and finding no Verasite at all
We decided to take a ride on the old Intercontinental railway incline. They removed the tracks years ago, and I must say, that old railway right of way is as smooth as any interstate. We did stop at a couple of bridges on the trail and guess what we found! Hehe Yeah that’s right, Verasite!!! Who-hoo! We left the incline and decided to go check out the abandoned airport! After a little investigating, I have a really funny feeling that the airstrip is not as “abandoned” as people think! There is definitely small aircraft activity here and I would not recommend this area to camp in overnight if you get my drift!!!
Shortly, parking the truck and walking around, looking on the ground, guess what I see…more Verasite!!! It is most definitely not top grade material and will need to be stabilized, but useable none the less. Here is a picture of some of what we collected (wet)!
Granted, many pieces are small, but some what useable and come pre-slabbed from mother nature at 3mm-3.19mm thick! I think that a lot of this stuff will still be able to be formed for ear-rings necklaces and small pendants.
Sondra picked up some rocks that she found interesting, some do look promising.
This time around we decided to stay overnight at a casino in Wendover, NV so we could relax a little and enjoy the morning breakfast buffet at the Red-Garter Hotel and casino. If any of you are out and about in this area and travel with pets like we do. The American Inn just next door to the Red Garter does accept pets and the rooms are really nice and reasonable. ($39.00 a night) It also has a direct hallway into the casino next door.
We took a little side trip on the way home, this is what you will see going south on 93 from Wendover.
We ran into a little weather on the way back, naturally, we getting pretty used to this stuff here. Do you see how high the water is right next to the interstate?
Coming into Grantsville,(20 miles from our home) they have some pretty nice rock formations as well.
The other side of the hill, as you can see is really green as well.
Well, we made it back in one piece, and we can look forward to our next trip. Next time, I hope that we can do it right the first time!!!!!
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