Trans America Trail: A month's journey in a 96 Jeep XJ.
- Thread starter NHenson
- Start date
NHenson
Observer
The thread is definitely not dead. I have just returned from a week in the woods with a bunch of 12th graders, teaching survival skills. Thanks to all of our readers for their patience. I'll be working on another couple of posts today.
A full-size truck, with some imagination, could make most of the trip. There is, however, a couple of tight turns and low clearance (side and top) that made me fold in my mirrors on the Jeep and were about 2 in above my fuel can on the rack.
NHenson
Observer
TAT III Day 4: Saturday, July 10, 2010
Last night's sleep was perfect & it made up for several nights previous of not-quite-enough sleep. We had a wonderful breakfast, packed up, and were on our way by 8:15. The road out of our big long canyon (Dragon's Wash, as you will recall) was much easier from that point on, and we were soon driving flat Utah landscapes.
Carl at Swazey Cabin. This is right before we split ways so Carl could take a stress free bypass of our next section. Turns out we had a hard time getting back in contact with him.
When we reached signs for another canyon, and saw that Sam had put on the maps a bypass due to difficult road conditions, we mentioned to Carl that he might take the bypass. No more crunched running boards. NH showed him the directions that were on the map for taking the interstate, taking exit 105, and finding a road to drive about five miles, at which point he would intersect with us. Carl turned around, and we ventured into the canyon.
Eagle Canyon Arch (also known as Needles Eye) in the San Rafael Swell. Just one of the cool landscape features seen today.
I think it was called Cat Canyon, and it was some of the most fun driving yet. We followed the dry riverbed again, but this one was almost all sand and maintained dirt road, not river rocks. We careened around nicely banked corners and a few exciting switchbacks, and generally loved the canyon. We thought the entire time what a shame it was that Carl had taken the bypass—if any canyon should have been bypassed, it was yesterday's.
Going under one of the bridges for I-70. We actually paused for a short amount of time to see if we might spot Carl's truck going overhead.
And then we saw the road to get out of Cat Canyon. One turn, one maneuver can make an entire section of trail impassible, and that was true of Cat Canyon; for Carl at least. We managed without any damage.
This trail sign denotes the beginning of the section that a full-size vehicle may have problems with. Our Jeep XJ and Caleb's Trooper had narrow tolerances on one of the hairpins that includes a boulder on one side and drop on the other.
Going under I-70 again. This one required folding the mirrors in and we only had about 2 in. above the fuel can on the roof rack.
After a couple of hours of fun canyon driving, we arrived at the intersection where we were supposed to meet Carl. Carl was not there. Caleb and Jennifer stayed put in case he showed up while NH and I drove around looking for him. And around, and around. We came back to see if he had showed up at the intersection, and there were Caleb and Jennifer. No Carl. We drove to Emery to get gas and to find cell phone signal in case he had tried to call—no messages.
Finally, after two hours of looking, and after deciding to drive back 30 miles on I-70 in case Carl had gone back to point A, we passed Carl going the other direction on the interstate. Carl pulled over while NH made an illegal U-turn. He had Carl in his sight, and he was not going to let him go.
Carl's directions were, sadly, not accurate. There was no exit 105. It was exit 108. The mileages weren't exactly accurate to the turns, either. Fortunately, nothing worse than a little extra time was lost, so we all gratefully headed back for the trail together.
Erin, doing what she does for every turn of the TAT: read the direction and distance off, then roll the chart forward a bit.
After having driven through so many canyons, we were happy to see a new kind of landscape. The red dirt upon which we were driving, while soft and easily erodible, was not the top layer of earth in this part of the world. While the red dirt is eroding rather quickly, the rock layer above it is slower to erode. This causes washes and gullies of red soil with exposed and fallen hills of rock, slumping in strange hills with the foundations washing away beneath them. In most cases the rock was white and flat, falling over like the cement porches on old houses. In some cases the rock was oddly spherical, black volcanic rock. It littered entire hillsides like leftover canon shot from an old Civil War battle.
Spherical, black volcanic rock. This was part of a very unique landscape that was only present for a small part of our journey.
We made it to Salina, Utah today. Salina is pronounced Sah-LINE-ah, which doesn't sound nearly as pretty as Saleena, as we had been pronouncing it. It sounds too much like saliva. Or slime.
In general, I am all for colloquial pronunciations of place names. Notre Dame with a French pronunciation denotes the church in Paris. Pronounced “noter dayme,” it denotes the Fighting Irish and their school. “Charlotte,” pronounced like the title character of the E. B. White book denotes a city in North Carolina; pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable, it's a small town in southern Michigan. I like that when you're in Chattanooga or Ooltewah, Tennessee, you can tell tourists from locals—only an out-of-towner pronounces the “l” in Ooltewah. It's more like “Ew-te-waaah.” However, with Salina, I may just do their town a favor and pronounce that name like it has any scrap of dignity at all.
Camping in Butch Cassidy Camp and RV park tonight. It's just as campy and/or gauche as it sounds. But I will take a hot shower, so that's nice. - Written by EH.
Butch Cassidy Camp, Salina, UT.
Last night's sleep was perfect & it made up for several nights previous of not-quite-enough sleep. We had a wonderful breakfast, packed up, and were on our way by 8:15. The road out of our big long canyon (Dragon's Wash, as you will recall) was much easier from that point on, and we were soon driving flat Utah landscapes.
Carl at Swazey Cabin. This is right before we split ways so Carl could take a stress free bypass of our next section. Turns out we had a hard time getting back in contact with him.
When we reached signs for another canyon, and saw that Sam had put on the maps a bypass due to difficult road conditions, we mentioned to Carl that he might take the bypass. No more crunched running boards. NH showed him the directions that were on the map for taking the interstate, taking exit 105, and finding a road to drive about five miles, at which point he would intersect with us. Carl turned around, and we ventured into the canyon.
Eagle Canyon Arch (also known as Needles Eye) in the San Rafael Swell. Just one of the cool landscape features seen today.
I think it was called Cat Canyon, and it was some of the most fun driving yet. We followed the dry riverbed again, but this one was almost all sand and maintained dirt road, not river rocks. We careened around nicely banked corners and a few exciting switchbacks, and generally loved the canyon. We thought the entire time what a shame it was that Carl had taken the bypass—if any canyon should have been bypassed, it was yesterday's.
Going under one of the bridges for I-70. We actually paused for a short amount of time to see if we might spot Carl's truck going overhead.
And then we saw the road to get out of Cat Canyon. One turn, one maneuver can make an entire section of trail impassible, and that was true of Cat Canyon; for Carl at least. We managed without any damage.
This trail sign denotes the beginning of the section that a full-size vehicle may have problems with. Our Jeep XJ and Caleb's Trooper had narrow tolerances on one of the hairpins that includes a boulder on one side and drop on the other.
Going under I-70 again. This one required folding the mirrors in and we only had about 2 in. above the fuel can on the roof rack.
After a couple of hours of fun canyon driving, we arrived at the intersection where we were supposed to meet Carl. Carl was not there. Caleb and Jennifer stayed put in case he showed up while NH and I drove around looking for him. And around, and around. We came back to see if he had showed up at the intersection, and there were Caleb and Jennifer. No Carl. We drove to Emery to get gas and to find cell phone signal in case he had tried to call—no messages.
Finally, after two hours of looking, and after deciding to drive back 30 miles on I-70 in case Carl had gone back to point A, we passed Carl going the other direction on the interstate. Carl pulled over while NH made an illegal U-turn. He had Carl in his sight, and he was not going to let him go.
Carl's directions were, sadly, not accurate. There was no exit 105. It was exit 108. The mileages weren't exactly accurate to the turns, either. Fortunately, nothing worse than a little extra time was lost, so we all gratefully headed back for the trail together.
Erin, doing what she does for every turn of the TAT: read the direction and distance off, then roll the chart forward a bit.
After having driven through so many canyons, we were happy to see a new kind of landscape. The red dirt upon which we were driving, while soft and easily erodible, was not the top layer of earth in this part of the world. While the red dirt is eroding rather quickly, the rock layer above it is slower to erode. This causes washes and gullies of red soil with exposed and fallen hills of rock, slumping in strange hills with the foundations washing away beneath them. In most cases the rock was white and flat, falling over like the cement porches on old houses. In some cases the rock was oddly spherical, black volcanic rock. It littered entire hillsides like leftover canon shot from an old Civil War battle.
Spherical, black volcanic rock. This was part of a very unique landscape that was only present for a small part of our journey.
We made it to Salina, Utah today. Salina is pronounced Sah-LINE-ah, which doesn't sound nearly as pretty as Saleena, as we had been pronouncing it. It sounds too much like saliva. Or slime.
In general, I am all for colloquial pronunciations of place names. Notre Dame with a French pronunciation denotes the church in Paris. Pronounced “noter dayme,” it denotes the Fighting Irish and their school. “Charlotte,” pronounced like the title character of the E. B. White book denotes a city in North Carolina; pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable, it's a small town in southern Michigan. I like that when you're in Chattanooga or Ooltewah, Tennessee, you can tell tourists from locals—only an out-of-towner pronounces the “l” in Ooltewah. It's more like “Ew-te-waaah.” However, with Salina, I may just do their town a favor and pronounce that name like it has any scrap of dignity at all.
Camping in Butch Cassidy Camp and RV park tonight. It's just as campy and/or gauche as it sounds. But I will take a hot shower, so that's nice. - Written by EH.
Butch Cassidy Camp, Salina, UT.
Last edited:
UncleBilly
Observer
What an awesome trip, story, and photos! Thx for sharing, I'm enjoying the hell out of this! 😜
NHenson
Observer
TAT III Day 5: Sunday, July 11, 2010
I am writing this rather hurriedly this morning. We want to get away before the sun gets too hot. Yesterday seems to have been a simple day. We got up, drove, stopped for lunch, drove, and got here.
Of course, some things did happen along the way. We left Butch Cassidy campground a little later than we wanted to, but no harm done when there’s no deadline to meet. From Salina, we drove past a couple of small towns to Richfield. The trail routed us along a canal road, which was small and sometimes very bumpy, but it ended up bringing us into Richfield through one of the more posh neighborhoods. In Richfield, we all had a few errands to run, so we split ways with plans to meet in a parking lot. NH took a test for his online class (he’s working on a Master’s degree in leadership), and then we picked up some groceries.
Canal road that we took into Richfield, UT.
Often we would arrived and departed towns via two-tracks and small dirt roads that simply dumped us out on the main street. Our canal road took us right behind these houses and put us on a street not too far from fuel.
From Richfield, we had several miles over a small mountain range before we hit open desert. We actually lost the trail at one point—the mountain was covered in ATV trails—but the GPS saved us, and we hit the correct road on the other side of the mountain.
By this time, it was starting to get very hot. We were crisscrossing a creek the whole way down the mountain, and at one point I was so hot that I got out and walked in the creek to cool down. I wasn’t thinking how loose the dirt on the road was, and when I came to get out, I found myself facing the prospect of very muddy Chacos in our already dusty Jeep. Fortunately, NH pack-horsed me out and into the vehicle. What a guy!
A little 2 legged transport, out of the creek, for EH.
Caleb also lent us his Misty Mate, a genius invention which he uses while flying in hot weather—no AC in the cockpit, apparently. It has a hand pump that allows you to build up pressure, and then a small hose which, when the valve is opened, emits a fine mist—just enough to evaporate and cool the skin. Thank you, Caleb!
Just after the mountains, we entered the small town of Kanosh. Kanosh is a very nice, very small, Mormon town. Tiny brick houses with their small lacy Victorian porches, obvious landmarks of a past era, were kept up neatly with flowers in every garden. The one next to the local station where we stopped for gas had a log cabin of a shed in the back yard. On a Sunday, around 1:30, we met several young people walking past us home from church. Businesses weren’t open, but we sat on the bench in front of the service station, drinking bottles of soda and watching a small rainstorm roll in.
The weather has been somewhat rainier than we expected—we’ve run into small patches of rain every day. While I think this has increased the humidity, making the hot sun feel even hotter, it has certainly brought cool periods where we have roiling cloud cover, cooler winds, and brief spatters of rain.
If rain did hit Kanosh while we were there, it was so little that I don’t remember it. From Kanosh we had 80 miles of open desert with nothing, and I mean nothing, by way of civilization. The roads were very smooth, though, and NH had fun speeding through the desert. We made it to the state line in just over an hour.
Open desert and dry lake bed ahead. I even set the cruise at one point.
We are camped just over the border in Nevada. The Jeep is parked right on the trail—no worries of traffic. Last night while I watched over supper, Carl got out his shotgun and clay pigeons, and the boys shot skeet. After supper they got out the fireworks and gave the local wildlife—nothing more than a few lizards, bugs, desert rats, and a snake or two—another run for its money.
Shooting clay birds with Carl. There is always something fun hidden away in Carl's truck. (Ice cream, clay pigeons, fireworks, TONS of extra food, etc.)
West of us is Great Basin National Park—I am looking at it's mountains now. We won’t actually drive in the park; the trail routes south around it and then continues west. I will be surprised if we get any rain today. The sky is clean blue, no clouds anywhere. But the scene may change on the other side of the mountains. - Written by EH.
I finally figured out why artists paint the desert in so many pastel colors. The sunset was gorgeous.
Caleb's rig in camp for the night.
I am writing this rather hurriedly this morning. We want to get away before the sun gets too hot. Yesterday seems to have been a simple day. We got up, drove, stopped for lunch, drove, and got here.
Of course, some things did happen along the way. We left Butch Cassidy campground a little later than we wanted to, but no harm done when there’s no deadline to meet. From Salina, we drove past a couple of small towns to Richfield. The trail routed us along a canal road, which was small and sometimes very bumpy, but it ended up bringing us into Richfield through one of the more posh neighborhoods. In Richfield, we all had a few errands to run, so we split ways with plans to meet in a parking lot. NH took a test for his online class (he’s working on a Master’s degree in leadership), and then we picked up some groceries.
Canal road that we took into Richfield, UT.
Often we would arrived and departed towns via two-tracks and small dirt roads that simply dumped us out on the main street. Our canal road took us right behind these houses and put us on a street not too far from fuel.
From Richfield, we had several miles over a small mountain range before we hit open desert. We actually lost the trail at one point—the mountain was covered in ATV trails—but the GPS saved us, and we hit the correct road on the other side of the mountain.
By this time, it was starting to get very hot. We were crisscrossing a creek the whole way down the mountain, and at one point I was so hot that I got out and walked in the creek to cool down. I wasn’t thinking how loose the dirt on the road was, and when I came to get out, I found myself facing the prospect of very muddy Chacos in our already dusty Jeep. Fortunately, NH pack-horsed me out and into the vehicle. What a guy!
A little 2 legged transport, out of the creek, for EH.
Caleb also lent us his Misty Mate, a genius invention which he uses while flying in hot weather—no AC in the cockpit, apparently. It has a hand pump that allows you to build up pressure, and then a small hose which, when the valve is opened, emits a fine mist—just enough to evaporate and cool the skin. Thank you, Caleb!
Just after the mountains, we entered the small town of Kanosh. Kanosh is a very nice, very small, Mormon town. Tiny brick houses with their small lacy Victorian porches, obvious landmarks of a past era, were kept up neatly with flowers in every garden. The one next to the local station where we stopped for gas had a log cabin of a shed in the back yard. On a Sunday, around 1:30, we met several young people walking past us home from church. Businesses weren’t open, but we sat on the bench in front of the service station, drinking bottles of soda and watching a small rainstorm roll in.
The weather has been somewhat rainier than we expected—we’ve run into small patches of rain every day. While I think this has increased the humidity, making the hot sun feel even hotter, it has certainly brought cool periods where we have roiling cloud cover, cooler winds, and brief spatters of rain.
If rain did hit Kanosh while we were there, it was so little that I don’t remember it. From Kanosh we had 80 miles of open desert with nothing, and I mean nothing, by way of civilization. The roads were very smooth, though, and NH had fun speeding through the desert. We made it to the state line in just over an hour.
Open desert and dry lake bed ahead. I even set the cruise at one point.
We are camped just over the border in Nevada. The Jeep is parked right on the trail—no worries of traffic. Last night while I watched over supper, Carl got out his shotgun and clay pigeons, and the boys shot skeet. After supper they got out the fireworks and gave the local wildlife—nothing more than a few lizards, bugs, desert rats, and a snake or two—another run for its money.
Shooting clay birds with Carl. There is always something fun hidden away in Carl's truck. (Ice cream, clay pigeons, fireworks, TONS of extra food, etc.)
West of us is Great Basin National Park—I am looking at it's mountains now. We won’t actually drive in the park; the trail routes south around it and then continues west. I will be surprised if we get any rain today. The sky is clean blue, no clouds anywhere. But the scene may change on the other side of the mountains. - Written by EH.
I finally figured out why artists paint the desert in so many pastel colors. The sunset was gorgeous.
Caleb's rig in camp for the night.
Last edited:
NHenson
Observer
TAT III Day 6: Monday, July 12, 2010
Yesterday we woke up because the sun was already heating up the inside of our tent. At 6:30 in the morning. NH curled down in a little ball to attempt going back to sleep in the shade, but to no avail. We just got up.
Green in the middle of the desert. These occurrences never ceased to amaze me. No water for miles and then a green spot.
It was warm enough that we didn’t want anything hot for breakfast, so we were quickly ready and set off. We finished driving around Great Basin National Park and turned north. The maps for the TAT around that area show a detour that can be taken because the trail for a few miles is too narrow. We didn’t notice the detour until we were long past it. And really, the trail wasn’t impassible. We turned to go up a mountain, and then the trail turned into more of a single track—but a very wide one. It was just narrow enough that we scraped branches continually along both sides of the vehicles. NH and I don’t drive with the air conditioning on because the Jeep tends to run a little hot (I guess that’s typical of Jeeps), and driving on such challenging terrain, and in such extremely hot weather, it comes too close to overheating for us to push it further by running the AC. So we roll with our windows open instead.
Naturally with the trees so close, we had a decision to make—roll up the windows and keep the pine needles out of the vehicle, or leave the windows down and have some hope of the temperature inside being bearable. I vacillated between the two, so that not only did I get miserably hot, but I also filled my side of the Jeep with needles, small branches, and general fauna. NH was quite decisive, and his side resembles a forest floor, as well.
After we came down the mountain, it was time for lunch. We stopped and ate, and then continued down a side road toward some town that starts with a “p,” I don’t remember what. This road was challenging as well, but what I remember most about it was the bull. Naturally, we have been coming through lots of open range and cattle ranches. We have passed many the cow, driven several out of the road, and almost hit a couple of calves. Yesterday afternoon, we passed one calf who was chewing mischievously on its mother’s tail and, seeing us, was either so shocked as to leave it gaping, or was attacked with pangs of guilt, because it dropped the tail and started behaving itself.
We began to drive up a hill, and in the road met another cow. Only it was a bull. And it didn’t want to admit defeat. It stood in the trail and challenged us. We inched closer. I rolled up my window, just in case. The bull eyed us ominously. We inched closer. It put its head down. We pulled forward ever so slightly. Finally, the bull realized that we were definitely the larger beast and so turned tail and ran out of the trail, presumably to go nurse its pride and hope none of the herd saw its defeat.
Standoff with a bull. This guy didn't want to move, but was persuaded as I inched closer to him each time he lowered his head.
After we reached—I’m going to say Preston, that sounds about right—Carl had to head home. Work could not do without him. We decided to press on in hopes of reaching Eureka, 120 miles away. If the 120 miles were anything like the last 100 miles we had come through, we wouldn’t make it before dark. We didn’t mind camping somewhere off the trail again, but NH needed internet to do homework, and we were all dusty enough to want showers, so we were hoping to reach the town.
Most of the 120 miles were relatively smooth dirt roads, and NH drove them as though they were paved racetrack. Looking behind us, we saw that Caleb was driving similarly, because he and Jennifer were keeping up very well. We careened around hills and down into flat desert until we were less than ten miles from Eureka. Then the trail told us to leave the road before it went through the wash, and to drive out onto the grassy flat. The instructions were adamant about not going into the wash. I assumed this was because the wash was impassible—we have driven through so many barely-passable washes that it was easy to believe this one would be too difficult.
Dust trails. Sometimes Caleb said he would be 2 miles behind me to avoid my dust.
When we reached the wash, the road went smoothly down into it and gradually rose up the other side. Still, we are driving the trail, so we set off across the grass. The trail at that section follows a cow path for four miles, though part-way through it turns into a two-track.
Although we have driven hundreds of miles on this type of trail, it is hard to be tired of it. Each one has something new and interesting to see.
Water trough and pump out on the range.
We entered Eureka around 6:30 this evening and got one of the only rooms left in the Best Western Inn. Eureka is a beautiful tiny mining town, determined not to become a ghost town. The downtown—and there is nothing more to this town than the downtown—is beautifully restored or in the process of getting there. Jennifer and I reluctantly passed on the walking tour through dozens of historical sites, and we went to bed at a decent hour.
Tomorrow will be our last full day on the trail (for this year); I don’t know what kind of terrain there will be. It will be hot again, I’m sure. - EH
Yesterday we woke up because the sun was already heating up the inside of our tent. At 6:30 in the morning. NH curled down in a little ball to attempt going back to sleep in the shade, but to no avail. We just got up.
Green in the middle of the desert. These occurrences never ceased to amaze me. No water for miles and then a green spot.
It was warm enough that we didn’t want anything hot for breakfast, so we were quickly ready and set off. We finished driving around Great Basin National Park and turned north. The maps for the TAT around that area show a detour that can be taken because the trail for a few miles is too narrow. We didn’t notice the detour until we were long past it. And really, the trail wasn’t impassible. We turned to go up a mountain, and then the trail turned into more of a single track—but a very wide one. It was just narrow enough that we scraped branches continually along both sides of the vehicles. NH and I don’t drive with the air conditioning on because the Jeep tends to run a little hot (I guess that’s typical of Jeeps), and driving on such challenging terrain, and in such extremely hot weather, it comes too close to overheating for us to push it further by running the AC. So we roll with our windows open instead.
Naturally with the trees so close, we had a decision to make—roll up the windows and keep the pine needles out of the vehicle, or leave the windows down and have some hope of the temperature inside being bearable. I vacillated between the two, so that not only did I get miserably hot, but I also filled my side of the Jeep with needles, small branches, and general fauna. NH was quite decisive, and his side resembles a forest floor, as well.
After we came down the mountain, it was time for lunch. We stopped and ate, and then continued down a side road toward some town that starts with a “p,” I don’t remember what. This road was challenging as well, but what I remember most about it was the bull. Naturally, we have been coming through lots of open range and cattle ranches. We have passed many the cow, driven several out of the road, and almost hit a couple of calves. Yesterday afternoon, we passed one calf who was chewing mischievously on its mother’s tail and, seeing us, was either so shocked as to leave it gaping, or was attacked with pangs of guilt, because it dropped the tail and started behaving itself.
We began to drive up a hill, and in the road met another cow. Only it was a bull. And it didn’t want to admit defeat. It stood in the trail and challenged us. We inched closer. I rolled up my window, just in case. The bull eyed us ominously. We inched closer. It put its head down. We pulled forward ever so slightly. Finally, the bull realized that we were definitely the larger beast and so turned tail and ran out of the trail, presumably to go nurse its pride and hope none of the herd saw its defeat.
Standoff with a bull. This guy didn't want to move, but was persuaded as I inched closer to him each time he lowered his head.
After we reached—I’m going to say Preston, that sounds about right—Carl had to head home. Work could not do without him. We decided to press on in hopes of reaching Eureka, 120 miles away. If the 120 miles were anything like the last 100 miles we had come through, we wouldn’t make it before dark. We didn’t mind camping somewhere off the trail again, but NH needed internet to do homework, and we were all dusty enough to want showers, so we were hoping to reach the town.
Most of the 120 miles were relatively smooth dirt roads, and NH drove them as though they were paved racetrack. Looking behind us, we saw that Caleb was driving similarly, because he and Jennifer were keeping up very well. We careened around hills and down into flat desert until we were less than ten miles from Eureka. Then the trail told us to leave the road before it went through the wash, and to drive out onto the grassy flat. The instructions were adamant about not going into the wash. I assumed this was because the wash was impassible—we have driven through so many barely-passable washes that it was easy to believe this one would be too difficult.
Dust trails. Sometimes Caleb said he would be 2 miles behind me to avoid my dust.
When we reached the wash, the road went smoothly down into it and gradually rose up the other side. Still, we are driving the trail, so we set off across the grass. The trail at that section follows a cow path for four miles, though part-way through it turns into a two-track.
Although we have driven hundreds of miles on this type of trail, it is hard to be tired of it. Each one has something new and interesting to see.
Water trough and pump out on the range.
We entered Eureka around 6:30 this evening and got one of the only rooms left in the Best Western Inn. Eureka is a beautiful tiny mining town, determined not to become a ghost town. The downtown—and there is nothing more to this town than the downtown—is beautifully restored or in the process of getting there. Jennifer and I reluctantly passed on the walking tour through dozens of historical sites, and we went to bed at a decent hour.
Tomorrow will be our last full day on the trail (for this year); I don’t know what kind of terrain there will be. It will be hot again, I’m sure. - EH
Last edited:
NHenson
Observer
TAT III Day 7: Tuesday, July 13, 2010
We left Eureka, NV, and began to follow the trail out of town. Almost immediately, we ran into trouble. The trail, created several years ago, instructed us to skirt the boundaries of a large mine (the town’s major industry). Since the time of its creation, the trail has been overtaken by the mine, enveloped in its territory. We followed the trail only to find ourselves ********** up against an impenetrable fence. (By the by, I’m currently reading The Story of English, a fascinating book which I can recommend to anyone; in a history of the evolution from Middle English to a more modern form, the account is told of one Bishop Reginald Pecock who, in an effort to purge our language of the Latin incursion, suggested that we replace the word “impenetrable” with “ungothroughsome.” What a word!) We made a thorough exploration of all the dirt roads and two-tracks in the area, and though I campaigned hard for a complete desertion to the next identifiable waypoint—highway 50—NH and Caleb were game for blazing our way in the general direction of the trail, hoping to meet up with it sooner or later.
Mine expansion, off to the right, blocked our trail with a fence. We needed to find a way around.
We picked a barely-gothroughsome way (to borrow from the venerable Bishop Pecock) slowly across the saddle in a ridge, dodging trees and making tracks across the smallest of the many large rocks, until we met with the trail, or something very like it that went in the same direction. Only to be foiled again! Somehow we took a wrong turn several miles later and found ourselves driving a ridge parallel to the old highway, in the bottom of the ravine, which we were supposed to be driving. Our road ended at a point overlooking the old highway, many dozens of feet below us down a very steep hill. NH trotted down the hill to see if it was suitable for another trail-blazing adventure, but fortunately, better sense overtook him and general consensus was that we backtrack to take another turn. It worked, and we were soon back on the trail.
This small saddle seemed to be the best way around the mine. At least it looked that way on the topo map
Now, the next part of the story requires delicate telling, so as to avoid an extreme—that extreme would be to imagine that every bad thing that happened to us was a result of driving too fast. This would be completely untrue, failing to take into account things like just plain bad luck. What happened was this: we continued on our way toward Battle Mountain, NV, a small city where we would fill up on gas, ice, and other essentials for travel. As the roads in Nevada are wonted to do, the trail passed through beautiful green hilly sections, always running north to south, and then vast deserty expanses of sagebrush and dust. It was in one of those hilly sections that NH took a corner too fast. This was, I am afraid, solely the result of fast driving. Partway through the corner around a large hill, NH realized that the Jeep wasn’t going to make it. Faced with the decision of rolling the Jeep over the bank or driving it, he chose the latter, and just at the crux of the turn, we drove straight over the edge of the road, down the hill, over a tree and a bunch of other steep terrain that I was too startled to notice, into the deep meadow-grass at the bottom, and up the bank again to get back on the road. I suppose it is only right to say that luck did play a part in this little event—it could have been dangerous. The hill might have been steeper, we might have hit any kind of ditch or bump, and it might have been a lot longer. Fortunately, it was none of those things, and there was no harm done. Except to poor NH, who will have to put up with my backseat driving for the rest of his life whenever I think he might be taking a corner too fast.
Now, we left Battle Mountain with a good will, followed some power line roads out of town a ways, and then found some of the typical country roads in Nevada: dusty two-tracks over the washed-out dirt between sagebrush. The road was moderately smooth for reasonable stretches, and then it would hit a washout or ditch, visible just in time to slow down very quickly and bounce heavily over the rut. All seemed acceptable about this arrangement, if you don’t mind some serious deceleration once in a while.
Wonderful, but dusty, two tracks with deceptively small looking dips that would catch you off guard.
Then we hit the ditch. Son of a ditch, you might call it. It was very small, just a gradual dip in the road, nothing that looks at all harmful. We didn't see it until it was too late to slow down as much as we would have liked, but considering how small and tame it looked, we figured we’d be OK. Until that thing launched us like a shuttle into space. NH reckons we got three feet of air under the back tires. We did bounce, hitting the ground hard enough to make our teeth rattle.
It became immediately clear that this was a doozy. NH suspected the truth immediately—the bounce had dislodged the rooftop tent from its moorings. Two of the Yakima mounts supporting the tent broke, allowing the tent to come all the way down to the roof. This left a dent in the roof—actually three dents—and also completely destroyed the drip rail moldings to which the Yakima mounts were attached. Sad, sad day. We stopped, NH and Caleb removed the tent and rack, did their best to fix one drip rail molding, dispensed with the other, reattached the rack to the mounts (making the most of the two broken ones), and put the tent back on.
The outcome from launching the Jeep out of a barely noticeable, but effective, dip in the trail. The Yakima mounts peeled the gutter trim off and the whole rack came crashing down atop the roof. After some careful finessing of the drip rails, Caleb and I were able to re-mount the rack and get underway at a slower pace.
Just a sample of the dust from the trail. Before cleaning the rear windows, it was impossible to see through them.
This took some time, but we figured we might make it. Unfortunately, after another small bump dislodged the tent again—and dented the roof even more—we knew that the end had come. For this year, anyway. We took an emergency exit to Winnemucca, NV, camped in a big ol’ RV park, and said our so longs ‘til next year. (Hopefully we will see Caleb, Jen, Morris, & Carl on the trail next year) - Written by EH.
Our roof rack misfortunes required us to break in Winnemucca, NV. We are always a bit of an oddity when mixing in with all of the RVs.
View on Google Maps
This is where we stayed in Winnemucca; it is where we will pick up our journeys the following year, as well.
A quick overview of our travels from TAT III.
We left Eureka, NV, and began to follow the trail out of town. Almost immediately, we ran into trouble. The trail, created several years ago, instructed us to skirt the boundaries of a large mine (the town’s major industry). Since the time of its creation, the trail has been overtaken by the mine, enveloped in its territory. We followed the trail only to find ourselves ********** up against an impenetrable fence. (By the by, I’m currently reading The Story of English, a fascinating book which I can recommend to anyone; in a history of the evolution from Middle English to a more modern form, the account is told of one Bishop Reginald Pecock who, in an effort to purge our language of the Latin incursion, suggested that we replace the word “impenetrable” with “ungothroughsome.” What a word!) We made a thorough exploration of all the dirt roads and two-tracks in the area, and though I campaigned hard for a complete desertion to the next identifiable waypoint—highway 50—NH and Caleb were game for blazing our way in the general direction of the trail, hoping to meet up with it sooner or later.
Mine expansion, off to the right, blocked our trail with a fence. We needed to find a way around.
We picked a barely-gothroughsome way (to borrow from the venerable Bishop Pecock) slowly across the saddle in a ridge, dodging trees and making tracks across the smallest of the many large rocks, until we met with the trail, or something very like it that went in the same direction. Only to be foiled again! Somehow we took a wrong turn several miles later and found ourselves driving a ridge parallel to the old highway, in the bottom of the ravine, which we were supposed to be driving. Our road ended at a point overlooking the old highway, many dozens of feet below us down a very steep hill. NH trotted down the hill to see if it was suitable for another trail-blazing adventure, but fortunately, better sense overtook him and general consensus was that we backtrack to take another turn. It worked, and we were soon back on the trail.
This small saddle seemed to be the best way around the mine. At least it looked that way on the topo map
Now, the next part of the story requires delicate telling, so as to avoid an extreme—that extreme would be to imagine that every bad thing that happened to us was a result of driving too fast. This would be completely untrue, failing to take into account things like just plain bad luck. What happened was this: we continued on our way toward Battle Mountain, NV, a small city where we would fill up on gas, ice, and other essentials for travel. As the roads in Nevada are wonted to do, the trail passed through beautiful green hilly sections, always running north to south, and then vast deserty expanses of sagebrush and dust. It was in one of those hilly sections that NH took a corner too fast. This was, I am afraid, solely the result of fast driving. Partway through the corner around a large hill, NH realized that the Jeep wasn’t going to make it. Faced with the decision of rolling the Jeep over the bank or driving it, he chose the latter, and just at the crux of the turn, we drove straight over the edge of the road, down the hill, over a tree and a bunch of other steep terrain that I was too startled to notice, into the deep meadow-grass at the bottom, and up the bank again to get back on the road. I suppose it is only right to say that luck did play a part in this little event—it could have been dangerous. The hill might have been steeper, we might have hit any kind of ditch or bump, and it might have been a lot longer. Fortunately, it was none of those things, and there was no harm done. Except to poor NH, who will have to put up with my backseat driving for the rest of his life whenever I think he might be taking a corner too fast.
Now, we left Battle Mountain with a good will, followed some power line roads out of town a ways, and then found some of the typical country roads in Nevada: dusty two-tracks over the washed-out dirt between sagebrush. The road was moderately smooth for reasonable stretches, and then it would hit a washout or ditch, visible just in time to slow down very quickly and bounce heavily over the rut. All seemed acceptable about this arrangement, if you don’t mind some serious deceleration once in a while.
Wonderful, but dusty, two tracks with deceptively small looking dips that would catch you off guard.
Then we hit the ditch. Son of a ditch, you might call it. It was very small, just a gradual dip in the road, nothing that looks at all harmful. We didn't see it until it was too late to slow down as much as we would have liked, but considering how small and tame it looked, we figured we’d be OK. Until that thing launched us like a shuttle into space. NH reckons we got three feet of air under the back tires. We did bounce, hitting the ground hard enough to make our teeth rattle.
It became immediately clear that this was a doozy. NH suspected the truth immediately—the bounce had dislodged the rooftop tent from its moorings. Two of the Yakima mounts supporting the tent broke, allowing the tent to come all the way down to the roof. This left a dent in the roof—actually three dents—and also completely destroyed the drip rail moldings to which the Yakima mounts were attached. Sad, sad day. We stopped, NH and Caleb removed the tent and rack, did their best to fix one drip rail molding, dispensed with the other, reattached the rack to the mounts (making the most of the two broken ones), and put the tent back on.
The outcome from launching the Jeep out of a barely noticeable, but effective, dip in the trail. The Yakima mounts peeled the gutter trim off and the whole rack came crashing down atop the roof. After some careful finessing of the drip rails, Caleb and I were able to re-mount the rack and get underway at a slower pace.
Just a sample of the dust from the trail. Before cleaning the rear windows, it was impossible to see through them.
This took some time, but we figured we might make it. Unfortunately, after another small bump dislodged the tent again—and dented the roof even more—we knew that the end had come. For this year, anyway. We took an emergency exit to Winnemucca, NV, camped in a big ol’ RV park, and said our so longs ‘til next year. (Hopefully we will see Caleb, Jen, Morris, & Carl on the trail next year) - Written by EH.
Our roof rack misfortunes required us to break in Winnemucca, NV. We are always a bit of an oddity when mixing in with all of the RVs.
View on Google Maps
This is where we stayed in Winnemucca; it is where we will pick up our journeys the following year, as well.
A quick overview of our travels from TAT III.
Last edited:
UncleBilly
Observer
Glad you guys are ok except for damage to your gear. Goes too show how fast things can go wrong! Thx for sharing, I'll keep reading about your travels...
jscusmcvet
Explorer
Tumbleweed
Adventurer
Really enjoying this article. Spent alot of time through Nevada in some of the same spots.