#4: [19-Sep-10]

#3: [30-Aug-03]

#1: [17-Mar-01]

11-Aug-2002 -- We were forewarned by the previous visitors that the correct access road was difficult to find. And it was. We too drove back and forth along NV 38 trying to find the access to a road we could see 50 yards away. I finally found a way to get off of NV 38 50 yards south of where the road should be, but I still couldn't see how to get through the fence. There was no obvious gate. Finally almost accidentally when I was turning around, I spotted the gate. Every other (alternating) section of the fence had been double posted for miles so the range gate looked like just another of the double posts. Then the fun began.

The road climbed steeply up the end of a knifelike ridge that was, for a short while, barely wide enough for the "road." I think Jan was a bit nervous about driving there. After a quarter of a mile or so, the ridge widened and the road just seemed to peter out at a bluff overlooking the valley below. Again I could see the path in the distance, but no obvious way to get there. I finally walked down to the path and mapped out in my mind where I would put a road to get from where Emma (my Explorer) was to the tracks below. I got back in and we drove cross country making our own road dodging rocks and trees for the 300 or 400 yards down the bluff. We continued relatively easily along the faint tracks to a point about 145 feet from the confluence.

Jan is standing in the "road" beside Emma in photo #4 near the confluence. The confluence itself was another of the sagebrush everywhere open desert locations. This one being in the White River Valley. Photo #1 shows the mountains to the west of the valley. Photo #2 shows the view up the valley to the north and photo #3 is looking east, the direction from which we came. Being open desert it was easy to get and hold all zeros on the GPSR (photo #5), although the Garmin EPE was just 20 feet. The return trip to NV 38 was easier since we had Emma's tracks to follow. I didn't discover until I got out to unlock the hubs and open the range gate back at the highway that I had driven the entire distance from the confluence to the highway with Emma's lift gate open. Fortunately I had a tarp over everything so nothing fell out and only the tarp was covered with desert dust. Talk about feeling stupid.