The first pic in this second part of my post shows a hut made of the friable stones in Trout Creek Canyon; there are several mines up the hill behind the hut that you can get pretty far back into if you're not worried about cave-ins. The rock's not solid, so the walls and ceilings are lined with (probably) birch or aspen saplings held in place with posts of the same wood. I grabbed a 6" birch trunk when I was crossing a creek in Indian Farm Canyon and it was rotten beneath the bark and gave way, sending me ass over teakettle down into the creek, so I was pretty wary of those mines. Like always, we poked around the canyon when it wasn't too hot, and had a fine camp not too far from the creek.
Saturday, leaving Trout Creek Canyon: Investigated an old rock crusher and some mines on the way down-canyon, and tried to find the beater road that would take us over to Birch Creek Canyon to the south. There's a big patch of private land up in Trout, probably connected with mining and the dead "town" of Trout Creek down at the Gandy road, but it's not gated, and we roamed around in it for awhile trying to find that road. The second pic, with the Cruiser and an International pickup, was taken in a well laid-out but deserted ranch that we went through several times. Finally (and on foot) we found what's left of the road, which ambles around forever before hitting a fairly nasty ford. If we had other vehicles with us we probably could have busted on through, but it wasn't a task for a single Cruiser with no backup. No pic -- sorry. We were pretty disgusted by then. Marshy approach, plenty of decent-sized rock, and banks to climb on both sides. No sign that anyone had been through it recently.
We bit the bullet and drove all the way back to the Gandy road to get back up into Birch Canyon. Even there, the road isn't obvious, but if you take the blue gate just north of the Mormon church, you've got it. The road forks after awhile, and you could take the right fork for Trout if you were willing to deal with that ford. It's generally an easy road left into Birch, and it's a pretty canyon with some fine views of the brown, friable rock. My last pic shows that. Locals must come up this way, though, because there is way more trash here than in all the other terrain that we had covered combined. Still pretty, although the creek is deeply incised, which made us hunt around for access more than usual.
Sunday: Headed back to Caliente, NV to get positioned for the drive to LV in the morning. Drove south down Rainbow Canyon, which has all sorts of nice rock and canyons with roads up into them. Main road was pretty torn up by flash floods, though. Took off the next morning for LV, had a great $5 buffet at Sunset Station, stashed the truck, sweated like pigs in the heat, which hadn't been a problem at all up in the canyons, and made our flight. We're ready to go back again anytime.
Saturday, leaving Trout Creek Canyon: Investigated an old rock crusher and some mines on the way down-canyon, and tried to find the beater road that would take us over to Birch Creek Canyon to the south. There's a big patch of private land up in Trout, probably connected with mining and the dead "town" of Trout Creek down at the Gandy road, but it's not gated, and we roamed around in it for awhile trying to find that road. The second pic, with the Cruiser and an International pickup, was taken in a well laid-out but deserted ranch that we went through several times. Finally (and on foot) we found what's left of the road, which ambles around forever before hitting a fairly nasty ford. If we had other vehicles with us we probably could have busted on through, but it wasn't a task for a single Cruiser with no backup. No pic -- sorry. We were pretty disgusted by then. Marshy approach, plenty of decent-sized rock, and banks to climb on both sides. No sign that anyone had been through it recently.
We bit the bullet and drove all the way back to the Gandy road to get back up into Birch Canyon. Even there, the road isn't obvious, but if you take the blue gate just north of the Mormon church, you've got it. The road forks after awhile, and you could take the right fork for Trout if you were willing to deal with that ford. It's generally an easy road left into Birch, and it's a pretty canyon with some fine views of the brown, friable rock. My last pic shows that. Locals must come up this way, though, because there is way more trash here than in all the other terrain that we had covered combined. Still pretty, although the creek is deeply incised, which made us hunt around for access more than usual.
Sunday: Headed back to Caliente, NV to get positioned for the drive to LV in the morning. Drove south down Rainbow Canyon, which has all sorts of nice rock and canyons with roads up into them. Main road was pretty torn up by flash floods, though. Took off the next morning for LV, had a great $5 buffet at Sunset Station, stashed the truck, sweated like pigs in the heat, which hadn't been a problem at all up in the canyons, and made our flight. We're ready to go back again anytime.
Last edited:
