Basin and Trail

I stayed in Elko NV for two nights, making a total of three nights I've spent there.  The first night was in August 1990, when I was moving from Denver to Redwood City on my way to my new WSFO duty station in Cali.  BTW next month will mark my 25th anniversary of California residence!  In the Elko area, I wanted to see Lamoille Canyon.  Here it is...a classic U shaped glacial valley.  It was actually carved in an early ice age, 250, 000 years ago, and touched up by more recent glaciers about 15,000 years in the past.  It's in the Ruby Mountains, one of many sky islands in the Great Basin desert.  Even though most of Nevada is sagebrush desert, there are many of these alpine outposts that feature snow, lakes, and pines ranging from ponderosa to whitebark to bristlecone.

I went for a hike at the end of the valley road.  Lots of whitebark pines, and if you blow up this pic you can see the car park where my vehicle lies, just about dead center in the picture.  The hike up here was rated moderate but that is for people who are younger and slimmer than I.  Worked pretty damn hard to get up here!  Still, I'm surprised at how quickly I've recovered the day after.  Not bad for an old sloat.

The Lizards came along but they rode in my daypack...didn't have to walk.

A classic alpine lake in a hanging valley above Lamoille Canyon.

And here's Lamoille Lake...the end of the trail, 9700 feet MSL.  There were actually quite a few people here...one guy was fishing from the promontory just before I took the pic, and two young couples jumped into the water from a rock ledge about 15 feet up.  I used to do things like that back in CO in the 1980s but stopped about thirty years ago.

The mighty Humboldt River...the river to nowhere. Rising in the mountains of eastern Nevada, it tracks across the northern part of the state, basically along I-80, for over 300 miles.  But it doesn't go anywhere...it winds up in the Humboldt sink in western Nevada, a marshy area within the Great Basin, which has no outlet to the sea.  The Humboldt nevertheless irrigates a good deal of cropland along its course.  This picture was taken near the rivers' source...it's a little larger farther downstream.

Cactus Pete's endures.  This venerable casino in Jackpot, NV, just south of the Idaho border about 45 miles S of Twin Falls, has serviced travelers and daytripping Idahoans from the Magic Valley for over 50 years.  I first stopped here in March 1963, when my parents and I were returning from a spring break vacation to Salt Lake.  I was 11 at the time, too young to play the slots, but I gave my parents a dollar and asked them to play it for me on the nickel slots, and a jackpot was won!  I got a windfall of a few dollars.  Cactus Pete's is much larger now than it was back then.

This is the Perrine Memorial Bridge over the Snake River Canyon in Twin Falls ID.  Right next to a shopping mall complex sits this impressive span, 486 feet above the water.  Folks bungee jump off the bridge...I saw three of them take the plunge while I was here!  Young folks, fearless, fit, and strong.  This span was built in 1976, replacing an older bridge opened in 1927.  Perrine, the guy who the bridge is named after, basically founded Twin Falls around 1900.

Looking up the Snake River Canyon from the Perrine Bridge.  Obviously, this area was assaulted by basalt in the past, just like the Columbia River gorge about 500 miles downstream.  This canyon was also widened by a massive flood from Lake Bonneville, which overflowed 17,000 years ago and enlarged the existing gorge.  The Bonneville flood was completely different from the Missoula Floods, which shaped the landscape north and northwest of here.  The Ice Age kicked ass!  Blow up this pic and at the top of the canyon rim near the center you'll see an incline.  This is the ramp built by Evel Knievel in 1974 when he attempted to jump the canyon on a motorcycle.  He didn't make it, but when he realized he'd come up short, he deployed his parachute and landed safely at the bottom.

This may look like a little gully eroded by water, but it's not.  It is the rut of the Oregon/California trail, the main route of  the pioneers traveling westward in the middle of the 19th century.  For several decades they rolled right through here; just a few miles farther west they either went northwest to Oregon, or southwest to California.  Either way it was hard travel.  Five percent of the pioneers died.  Thirst, dust, Indian attacks, heat, snow...all were obstacles.  Now, the trail parallels Interstate 86, only a few yards to the left of the picture.  The pioneers would have tripped out if they could have cruised west in a convertible at 80 MPH (the speed limit here) with A/C, ice chests, and a CD player.  But hey, it's still kinda hard travel...not an In-N-Out Burger or Cracker Barrel anywhere in the vicinity.

On the Road Again

First blog post in over two months!  I haven't been doing much traveling.  There were some old, unblogged pix in the database before I started my current trip.  Back in May these flowers bloomed gaudily at the 29 Palms Inn, where I spent a couple enjoyable days on my way home from the snowy Rockies.

On the last night of my May trip I stayed at a comfy place in/on Morro Bay.  This pic was shot early the next morning.

The signature stacks, photographed in amazing light.  No photoshop used...just a little underexposure.

Went to The City in June and naturally did some street hiking with Suz before seeing Steven Wilson.  Good morning light for the B of A building.

The Warriors were in the NBA finals at the time of my visit to SF and Warriors flags were everywhere.  Golden State is the one Bay Area team everyone pulls for.  The Giants and Niners have their fan bases in the North Bay and on the Peninsula.  The A's and Raiders are East Bay teams.  The Sharks are mainly followed by South Bay techies.  But everyone in the Bay Area, from Gilroy to Healdsburg, barracks for the Warriors.  And, of course, they won!

Didn't have to go far to find this great sunset.  It unfolded above my deck at home!

Now we're up to my current trip.  A shot of Tenaya Lake, nestled among granite domes.  A favorite spot of mine for 38 years.

The Lizards visited Tuolumne Meadows.

Yosemite's granite high country lends itself to abstract art. 

Crossed a good chunk of Nevada today.  Didn't see any cities...or clouds.  It occurred to me that Nevada is basically Reno, Vegas, and a whole lot of boondocks.

The countryside was surprisingly green in many areas, unlike my home turf in Monterey.  There have been monsoonal thunderstorms in Nevada this summer, more than in California to the west.

The ruins of the Overland Stage Line office on US 50 in central Nevada.  In the middle of the 19th century this place serviced stagecoaches, pony express riders, and anyone else who happened to come by.  Living conditions were harsh.  Water was scarce, and obtaining it often required a fairly long walk.  Even when complete, the buildings here had only a fireplace or two for heat during the cold winters.  Food was basic...eaten for survival rather than enjoyment.  Indians attacked occasionally and killed a number of men stationed at such outposts.  Loneliness and boredom were the daily routine while waiting for stages and riders.  In 1861 the telegraph line was built through here, making the pony express obsolete.  In 1869, the transcontinental railroad was completed, dooming the stage lines.  Instead of paying a couple thousand dollars or more in today's funds to ride a bone rattling stage through dangerous country for several weeks, folks could zoom from Omaha to Sacramento in one week, and do it more comfortably, safely, and cheaply, thanks to the railroad.

The Lander county courthouse in Austin, Nevada.  Once a booming mining town, Austin today is eking out a living on tourism.

Just west of Elko, there is a fine new California Trail Discovery Center.  In murals, exhibits, plaques, films, and dioramas, the center expertly depicts life along the trail during its heyday, from 1841 to 1869.  During that period hundreds of thousands of settlers headed west to make new lives in Cali.  They battled harsh weather, hunger, thirst, and just plain horrible conditions.  Five percent of them died making the trip...the percentage of animals that died was much greater.  Included in the group was the Donner party, which is chronicled in depth here.  Back in these days, there were a few traveling animal shows in the US that featured elephants, highly exotic critters in the mid 19th century.  They were said to be so amazing as to be beyond description.  And so were the sights, hardships, and adventures to be experienced in the west.  A pioneer who had been through most of what the country could throw at him was said to have "seen the elephant".  This statue commemorates that saying.