Saturday June 18th:
With a little later start to our day, thanks to about a dozen or so dead empty big bottles saluting us from the campground picnic table as the sun rose over the trees, we cooked up another nice breakfast before launching up the trail to Hamilton. But while everyone was still taking their time and since I had plenty of fuel I opted out of camp a little early to go do some recon on a trail I spotted the previous day.
The trail is actually a very interesting loop trail...or at least the 1/2 I got to see before the radio was alive with chatter about the group being ready to roll north! But its marked for future explore and quite possibly another great camp location tucked up under Duck Water Peak in the White Pine range!
Speaking of crackling radios I, once again, led the group by having the most trouble with my 2m TX and RX. One of these days I'm just going to have to bribe Rusty Dan to come over and prove his talents on my troublesome set-up. Thankfully Gary and Tom had HTTs, antenna adapters, power adapters, etc. to keep me communicating with the group!
The ride north from our camp at White River CG was yet another morning run of unique beauty. This is a super trail that you all should put down on your list of to dos. Nothing technical but just sheer mountain terrain in all its glory.
To add further interest and even suspense and anxiety to the day: Several of the "single tankers" were already below 5-gallons left in their fuel tanks. Onur needed to get back to ABQ and his job at American Toyota where he keeps all our parts requirements fulfilled so he exited on Saturday evening for the long haul back; he was missed especially for his extra fuel cans strapped to the roof of his 80
. Sean's low tank light came on just after we left Currant the day before! And we still had a good 50-miles of combined dirt and highway before getting to our next refuel in Eureka.
But we decided the day before since a couple of us had plenty of fuel with our aux tanks we'd go get gas if anyone didn't quite make it to Eureka. So there was regular chatter on the 2m about everyone's fuel levels that morning
.
This is a stretch of trail we've previously driven and never not seen mule deer or elk...in quantity. One year we counted a line of over 75-head running up the ridge. But once again we were denied any opportunity of seeing more than a mule deer here or there on this trip. Maybe the sudden warm weather pushed them to higher ground. Anyone's guess.
We arrived in Hamilton, stopped to stretch the legs and check out some of the mine artifacts strewn all over. Once again if you've not seen Hamilton you've got to put it on your list! Above the ghost town of Hamilton lies another ghost town: Treasure City. What a cool name eh?! And due to snow blocking the shelf trail you need to traverse that has on two, and now three, previous occasions blocked any chance of driving up to check it out I still have yet to set foot or tire in Treasure City. AT 8,920' Treasure City might just be the highest ghost mining town in Nevada!
Oddly the only other folks we saw this entire trip, other than the 'city folk' in Hawthorne and Tonopah (oh yeah...and one local youngster that came by to introduce himself at our Belmont camp), were a couple of SUV rigs and about 6 folks in them pulling trailers with a couple motorcycles and mountain bikes in tow we saw the day before on the road to Lunar Crater! When you can spend nearly a week off-road anywhere and not come across a single soul you know you've found a slice of remote heaven!
After too little time getting to explore all things Hamilton (you could literally spend a week exploring just the surrounding Hamilton area) we ventured north towards Belmont Mill and then on to Hwy 50 and the run into Eureka. Once we got to the highway I decided to drop back and run sweep behind all the guys with low fuel just in case one ran dry. But not long after I heard a "pop" that sounded like an exploding glass soda bottle, or similar, upon stopping to air up I realized I had a leaking rear PS tire. Fortunately it wasn't a fast leak...so I pushed about 60psi of air into it and off I roared to catch the group ahead. I had to refill it once more for the 25-mile highway stretch into Eureka. And once there I quickly swapped the spare on before lunch. Thankfully and quite surprisingly given how long their low fuel lights were on no one ran out of gas getting to Eureka!
Photos courtesy of Steve White
Pic one: Sitting around the campfire at Six Mile Canyon
Pics two and three: On our way to Cow Canyon
. You know its bad when the brush sounds like scraping fingernails on a chalkboard...only its not a chalkboard easily erased! Is your Land Cruiser! And you ESPECIALLY know its bad when the glass is getting scraped! I really did feel bad (no really...I did actually feel bad about this
) for Sean and his never before pinstriped perfectly waxed 80. I wish someone would have recorded all the chatter from the 2m over that stretch of trail! I can't even imagine driving/riding an ATV or quad through there. We kept pushing along thinking anytime we'd come into a clearing and have all the extreme bushwacking behind us. Nope...nada chance...
