Hiking the Spectacular Santa Rosas

I had long heard that the Santa Rosa Mountains north of Winnemucca were stunningly beautiful and seldom visited. I’d heard that the range had some great hikes through lush wilderness areas where you don't trip over other people while you're there.

After finally getting there a few years ago, I found that it was true.

The Santa Rosa-Paradise Peak Wilderness area encompasses about 31,000 acres along the crest of the Santa Rosa Range, which is only about 30 miles north of Winnemucca.

The range has been described as a “forgotten island of wilderness” by nature writer Michael C. White. It boasts one of the largest waterfalls in Nevada at Falls Canyon as well as several majestic peaks that are more than 9,000 feet high (Santa Rosa Peak, 9,701-feet; Paradise Peak, 9,443-feet; and Singas Peak, 9,415-feet).

While there are about a half dozen major trails leading into the wilderness area, one of the most accessible routes is the Singas Creek Trail on the eastern side of the range (Paradise Valley side).

To reach the Singas Creek trailhead, drive about 22 miles north of Winnemucca on U.S. 95, then turn right on State Route 290 (the road to Paradise Valley). Continue for about 17 miles to the signed turnoff for Singas Creek Road.

Turn left on Singas Creek Road (the Ranch 3C owned by Dave and Tom Cassinelli is adjacent) and follow the dirt road for about six miles and park at a wide turnaround. A high clearance vehicle is required.

You start by climbing a small hill and winding through the sagebrush on a narrow trail. About 100 feet or so from your starting point, you’ll pass a wilderness area sign.

The trail follows an old roadbed and passes through shady groves of aspens and clumps of sagebrush and wildflowers.

The path grows steeper as you climb higher into the range. Soon, you reach a small, seasonal stream that gurgles from the hillside and spills across the trail. The sound is relaxing and the setting is quite peaceful.

You continue through the often-dense vegetation. If you look behind, you can catch views of Paradise Valley, named, according to local stories, when a prospector named W.B. Huff arrived there in the 1860s and, impressed by the region’s beauty, exclaimed, “What a paradise!”

The Santa Rosas were apparently among the earliest mountains in Northern Nevada to be explored. Trapper Peter Skene Odgen led an expedition into the range in 1829 while searching for any rivers that might contain beaver colonies.

If you continue climbing on the trail to higher elevations, you pass out of the aspen forests and traverse less vegetated slopes. The trail drops down into a depression created by Moray Creek, crosses several more small season streams before beginning the up and down climb to the Summit Trail (about a half-mile from the starting point) that runs along the crest of the range.

The nice thing about the Singas Creek Trail is that you can hike as much as you want. If you continue on the Summit Trail, you can cross over the range and exit at a trailhead on the west side at Buffalo Canyon, although that’s an all-day or even overnight hike.

Other fairly easy hiking trails found in the Santa Rosa range include:

• North Hanson Creek – This is the only other major trail accessed from the east side of the range. The trail head can be found by following the same directions as those to Singas Creek Road, except instead of turning onto that road continue north into Paradise Valley. Take a left at the main intersection in town and continue 1.5 miles to the end of the road. Turn left on a dirt road and go a half-mile, then turn right on a dirt road and follow the fence line. Continue into the foothills until you reach a fork in the road. Cross a creek to the west and drive to a parking area. Then, starting hiking.

• Falls Canyon – This trail, like a handful of others that are much longer and/or more difficult (such as Rebel Creek, McConnell Creek, Horse Canyon, and Buffalo Canyon) is found along the western side of the Range, off U.S. 95. To reach the trail, drive 38 miles north of Winnemucca on U.S. 95, then turn right at the sign for Horse Canyon Road. Continue 3.5 miles to a parking area. The waterfall here is pretty impressive and located only about a half-mile from the parking area via a fairly easy trail that parallels a creek.

Good sources of information about the Santa Rosa-Paradise Peak Wilderness are “Nevada Wilderness Areas and Great Basin National Park, A Hiking and Backpacking Guide,” by Michael C. White and “The Hiker’s Guide to Nevada,” by Bruce Grubbs.

What Really Is Nevada's Loneliest Road?

Years ago, Life Magazine made U.S. 50 in Nevada famous. In the late 1980s, Life called U.S. 50 in Nevada the “loneliest road in America” and indicated that travelers needed survival skills to make the trip.

The towns along the route quickly capitalized on the description and, working with the Nevada Commission on Tourism, developed a tongue-in-cheek “Highway 50 Survival Kit” (still available from the Commission on Tourism) as well as t-shirts, bumper-stickers, highway signage and other souvenirs.

The promotion was an immediate success. At last count, more than 60,000 survival kits have been distributed. Additionally, there have been travel books and numerous magazine and newspaper articles about taking a trip on the loneliest road in America.

But is U.S. 50 really the loneliest road in America? According to a recent Nevada Department of Transportation’s road count book, U.S. 50 is far from the loneliest road. In fact, at its loneliest spot, near Austin, the road is traveled by an average of 640 vehicles per day.

The following are ten paved state highways in Nevada that experience far less wear and tear than U.S. 50:

1. State Route 121 from U.S. 50 to Dixie Valley: This is the real thing—the loneliest road in the state. According to NDOT’s records, a mere 10 cars travel this 27-mile stretch of road on a daily basis.

And you have to wonder—where the heck are they all going?

2. State Route 320, the Caselton Loop: This 12-mile section of pavement is driven by 45 cars per day—all catching a glimpse of the ruins of the early 20th century mining town of Caselton, located seven miles east of Pioche.

3. State Route 722 from Eastgate to Austin: This lightly-traversed 58-mile long highway, which used to be part of U.S. 50, also sees about 45 vehicles per day, which is too bad because the ride over Carroll Summit is quite lovely.

4. State Route 844 from Gabbs to Ione: This 16-mile ribbon of asphalt, which turns to dirt for the last third, sees about 50 vehicles per day. Despite the fact that this is the main road to Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park there just aren’t too many traffic jams out here.

5. State Route 379 from U.S. 6 to Duckwater: This 20-mile road leading to the Duckwater Indian Reservation, noted for its geothermal catfish farm, handles 75 cars daily, or about one vehicle every 19.2 minutes.

6. State Route 317 from Caliente to Elgin: This drive through magnificent Rainbow Canyon is scenic but uncrowded. NDOT finds only about 100 cars take this beautiful journey each day.

7. State Route 140 from Denio to the Oregon Border: This remote, 44-mile road accommodates 120 autos per day and lots of cattle. Along the way it skirts Virgin Valley, home of the exotic black fire opal—the official state precious stone—and passes the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge.

8. State Route 377 from State Route 376 to Manhattan: No surprise here since State Route 376, the road between Tonopah and Austin, is one of the state’s most remote highways and Manhattan is a faded mining town that has more ghosts than people. Only 120 vehicles travel this road each day. The trip, however, is worth it because Manhattan boasts a handful of picturesque buildings including a quaint wooden church on the hill above the town.

9. State Route 375 from Warm Springs to Rachel: Since Rachel is the self-proclaimed UFO capital of the world, it’s clear from the traffic counts that extraterrestrials far outnumber earthlings. Daily traffic on this 62-mile stretch includes only 125 human vehicles—and an unknown number of alien crafts.

10. State Route 264 from Coaldale to Oasis, California: A paltry 190 vehicles travel each day on the 40-mile, two-lane byway that passes through Dyer and Fish Lake Valley. A highlight is the view of Boundary Peak, to the west, which at 13,140 feet is the tallest point in Nevada.

Go check out some of these roads—you can make them less lonely.

The Belittled and Beloved Sagebrush

Anyone who has wandered much in Nevada easy recognizes the state’s official flower—a shrub known as Artemisia tridentata, or sagebrush.

The scruffy green-gray bush thrives just about everywhere in the Silver State—one web site claims it covers as much as 40 percent of the state. It is so prevalent that one of Nevada’s nicknames is the Sagebrush State and two sprigs of this aromatic plant appear on the state flag.

But that doesn’t mean it’s always been loved. The Donner Party and other pioneering travelers were forced to hack through miles of sagebrush and greasewood terrain on their ourneys across the state and writer Mark Twain wrote disparaging remarks about the noble plant on several occasions.

In 1861, he wrote to his mother, Jane, that upon arriving in Carson City he observed that “in (this) infernal soil nothing but that fag-end of vegetable creation, "sage-brush," ventures to grow...When crushed, sage-brush emits an odor which isn't exactly magnolia and equally isn't exactly polecat--but it is a sort of compromise between the two.”

Twain, who lived in Nevada from 1861 to 1865, also wrote, “Sage-brush is a very fair fuel, but as a vegetable it is a distinguished failure. Nothing can abide the taste of it but the jackass and his illegitimate child the mule.”

Other writers have looked more fondly on the plant. Marjorie Moore Brown, who arrived in Tonopah in 1904 after her husband opened a law firm in the community, wrote upon arriving that she “stood for awhile looking at the landscape—line upon life of running color, tan, henna, lavendar, brown. But no green. Not a tree. Not a shrub. A faint odor floated by me reminiscent of Christmas, a spicy something I afterward recognized as sage.”

And famed Nevada author Robert Laxalt wrote that he once received a letter from his daughter that contained a surprise: “Hidden between the pages was a single sprig of Nevada sagebrush. Before I could protect myself, the memories were summoned up and washed over me in a flood.”

According to the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, there are at least a dozen different species of sagebrush found in the state including the Basin big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata). This particular shrub is silvery-gray in color with yellow flowers and can grow as tall as 10 feet, although most are in the 1-to-3 foot range.

The plant, a member of the wormwood family, is notable for its strong pungent odor, which is particularly acute when wet or when the dried plant is crushed. Some scientists believe the sagebrush’s distinctive fragrance is a natural defense to keep animals from wanting to graze on its branches and leaves.

In fact, most livestock don’t care for sagebrush; pronghorn antelope seem to be the only larger animal that doesn’t mind nibbling on its leaves.

None of this is to suggest that the bush doesn’t have its uses. Native Americans reportedly used sagebrush to halt internal bleeding (usually following childbirth or injury or trauma as a result of fights) and it had value as a topical dressing to treat infections. The plant was also used by Native Nevada tribes to weave mats.

Additionally, Twain noted that “sage-tea made from it tastes like the sage-tea which all boys are so well acquainted with.”

The humorist added that a sagebrush fire “will keep all night, with very little replenishing; and it makes a very sociable camp-fire, and one around which the most impossible reminiscences sound plausible, instructive, and profoundly entertaining.”

Faint praise but praise nonetheless.

Cowtown of Elko Began as a Railroad Stop

When most people think of Elko, they usually associate it with either ranching or mining because it is the home of the annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering and near some of the world’s largest gold mines.

But if you look closely at the town’s history, you find that its roots had more to do with transportation than with ranching or mining.

The first non-Native American to visit the Elko area was explorer Peter Skene Ogden, who traveled through the region during a beaver-hunting expedition in 1828.

About a decade and a half later, wagon trains began passing through and camping near the future town site on the route that would become known as the Emigrant Trail.

The actual community of Elko wasn’t established until late 1868, when the Central Pacific Railroad was building its transcontinental rail line through Nevada.

The railroad selected the site as a railhead and freight terminus because of its proximity to several mining camps, including Lone Mountain and Tuscarora.

Additionally, Central Pacific Railroad officials named the settlement “Elko” by Central Pacific, allegedly because Charles Crocker, the railroad’s superintendent, had a penchant for taking animal names and adding an “o.” The story, however, may be apocryphal.

By early 1869, tents had been erected on lots sold by the railroad and the town began to blossom. In March of that year, the Nevada State Legislature designated Elko as the seat for a new county of the same name, which virtually assured the town’s success.

The town’s first courthouse, a fine two-story red brick structure in the Greek Revival style, was erected on the main street (called Idaho Street) in December 1869.

By 1870, Elko had grown to 2,000 people and boasted a newspaper (the Elko Independent) as well as more substantial homes of wood and brick.

In 1874, Elko was designated the site of the first University of Nevada and a substantial brick college was built later that year. The town’s remoteness, however, limited its appeal and the university was moved to Reno in 1885.

The town continued to prosper as a transportation center during the late 19th and early 20th century. Additionally, during this time ranching became an integral part of the local economy with the development of large cattle and sheep outfits.

By the 1890s, the latter had attracted a large number of Basque sheepherders. To cater to these newcomers, Basque boarding houses cropped up in the town.

Later, these establishments opened their dining rooms to the public and today Elko has several fine Basque restaurants.

During the early part of the 20th century, Elko remained an important railroad stop for Western Pacific and Southern Pacific trains. Additionally, in 1920, Elko was selected as one of the stops for the first transcontinental airmail service.

Another first occurred in Elko in 1941 when Newton Crumley, owner of the Commercial Hotel, booked entertainer Ted Lewis and his orchestra for eight days. It was the first time a Nevada hotel-casino offered entertainment and foreshadowed the popularity of today’s casino headliners.

In more recent years, Elko has gained fame as the site of the annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering, sponsored by the Elko-based Western Folklife Center. In late January, the event attracts more than 8,000 people.

In the past decade, substantial gold discoveries in the region have doubled Elko’s size (an estimated 20,000 people live there today) and transformed the former cowtown into a mining boomtown.

The recent changes, however, haven’t wiped out the town’s historic beginnings. Wandering the streets, it’s still possible to find plenty of reminders of the past.

For example, several homes on Court Street (one block from Idaho) date back to the town’s earliest days. The Dewar House at 745 Court was built in late 1869, soon after the town was established.

Down the street are other interesting historic buildings, including: the Bradley House (643 Court), built in 1904 by John R. Bradley, son of Lewis Bradley, Nevada’s second governor; the Map House (4th and Court) built in 1869 and the oldest home in Elko; and the imposing Pythian Castle Hall (421 Court), built in 1927 for a fraternal order.

Additionally, the Elko County offices (6th and Court) are located in former Elko County High School building, constructed in 1895, which is said to have been the first public high school in the state.

The Elko County Courthouse on Idaho Street was built in 1911 to replace the original, which had grown too small. With its Neo-classic style design, including four prominent Tuscan-style columns supporting a large portico, it is one of the most impressive halls of justice in the state.

Elko’s business district still has several historic commercial structures including the venerable Commercial Hotel, which dates back to 1899, the Pioneer Hotel building (now home of the Western Folklife Center), built in 1912 and the Henderson Bank (4th and Railroad), built in 1929.

Of special note is the J.M. Capriola’s western shop (Commercial and 5th), which houses one of the state’s oldest and most famous saddle shops, the G.S. Garcia shop.

An excellent source of historical information about Elko is the Northeastern Nevada Museum, 1515 Idaho Street, Elko. The museum is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. For information call 775-738-3418.

Nevada's Manhattan

Nevada's Manhattan is no Big Apple. In fact, you can barely call it a town since it can only claim a few dozen permanent residents and its only businesses are a couple of old saloons.

But that doesn't mean the old mining town doesn't have plenty of offer. It's brimming with history and at least a few colorful anecdotes.

During the past century, more than $10 million in gold and silver was mined in Manhattan, which is located about 45 miles north of Tonopah via State Route 376 and 377.

According to ghost town historian Shawn Hall (author of several excellent Nevada ghost town books including, “Preserving the Glory Days: Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of Nye County, Nevada”), George Nicholl discovered silver in the Manhattan area in 1866.

Within a short time, more than four dozen claims were staked in the area, including the Mohawk and Black Hawk mines. The district’s mines were played out within a few years and by 1869 the area was abandoned.

Between 1877 and 1904, the district was periodically re-worked. In 1905, cowboy John Humphrey, who worked at a ranch in the nearby Big Smoky Valley, found a valuable outcropping of ore that sparked a new boom.

Within a year, the town of Manhattan had sprouted into existence with about 1,000 residents. The community soon had saloons, hotels, banks and other businesses. A post office opened on Christmas Day in 1905.

As with many early 20th century Nevada mining camps, the San Francisco earthquake in 1906 severely affected investment in Manhattan and signaled the start of the end of the town’s second boom.

The population plummeted from a high of about 4,000 people to a few hundred, who scrambled to survive. The discovery of large gold deposits in 1909, however, again revived the town.

Manhattan managed to prosper into the 1920s, when the ore began to fail and fires destroyed much of the downtown. In 1939, a 3000-ton gold dredge was built below the town in the Manhattan Gulch (site of the original silver discovery). The operation, which included a large pond created from water piped from nearby Peavine Creek, flourished until 1947, when the dredge was removed.

In 1979, a massive open pit heap-leeching mine began operating in the area.
Today, visitors will find that despite neglect and the destruction of much of its original mining district by more recent open-pit mining, Manhattan still has a handful of historic buildings and sites worth seeing.

Perhaps the best of Manhattan’s hearty survivors is the picturesque frontier-style wooden Manhattan Catholic Church, sitting on a hillside overlooking the town.

Built in 1874 in nearby Belmont, the classic old west church was abandoned by 1901 and moved to Manhattan in 1908. In recent years, the old church has been restored and maintained by local residents and it remains a popular place for rural weddings.

A drive down the town’s main street is a chance to see a few intact, ancient buildings and homes, some dilapidated ruins, lots of abandoned vehicles and equipment and the two saloons.

The roofless Nye and Ormsby Bank Building is work a look. Inside its stone walls you can still find the original vault with its thick doors intact—no money, unfortunately—and the remnants of rickety wooden floors.

At the entrance of town, you can still find about a half dozen decaying, wooden headframes perched on the hillsides. The Manhattan Cemetery, about a half-mile west of the town, is also worth exploring.

For more information about Manhattan contact the Tonopah Chamber of Commerce, 775-482-3859.

Give Geocaching a Try

“Go a quarter mile east now, Dad,” my daughter ordered. “Take a right. No, go left.”

“Which is it? Right or left?” I asked, glancing at Julia as she stared intently at the screen of the cell phone-sized device in her hand.

“Left. I meant left. Sorry.”

Left took us into the parking lot of a landscaping company. Water bubbled from rock fountains on display.

“Is this the place?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” she said. “It’s about a half mile to the north.”

North was a large, sagebrush-covered hill. We were going to do some climbing in Reno’s Huffaker Hills to find the geocache known as “Indiana Jones and the Fortress of Doom.”

Julia and I were embarking on our first geocaching expedition. Recently, I had purchased a GPS (global positioning system) unit. This electronic device receives signals from satellites and locates geographic coordinates (usually to within six to 10 feet).

In recent years, the sport of geocaching—a kind of high-tech treasure hunt—has cropped up. For those not yet addicted to this sport it works like this: Geocachers hide a metal or plastic receptacle (known as a cache) filled with pens, pins, pliers, and other inexpensive trinkets.

The cache hider gives it a funny name and posts the coordinates for its location on the official geocaching web site, www.geocaching.com, or www.nevadageocaching.com. Cache hunters punch those coordinates into their GPS units and follow the electronic prompts to the site.

Geocaching traces its roots to May 1, 2000, when the federal government relaxed regulations regarding public use of global positioning satellites, which only the military could use previously. Within days, the first cache was hidden near Portland, Oregon, and a new sport was born.

Although geocachers are casual by nature, there is an etiquette that all players follow. If you take something from the cache, you replace it with an item. There is also a logbook inside each cache to record the date of your find and other observations.

No one, of course, goes geocaching for the trinkets. The thrill is in the hunt;
wandering around, following prompts from the GPS, and discovering a half-hidden coffee can filled with nearly-worthless treasures.

When my daughter and I decided to take that first geocache outing in Huffaker Hills, we checked the Web site for caches within a mile of our Reno home.

A dozen sites popped up on the screen. The cache names were intriguing—“I Can See Where I Used to Live From Here,” “The Riddler’s Lair,” and “Indiana Jones Fortress of Doom.”

May daughter thought the “Indiana Jones” cache had the coolest name, so we decided to make that our first hunt.

On the Web site we found a description of the Fortress of Doom, the GPS coordinates, secret codes, and photographs. Geocachers had made breathless comments like: “I got up early and found your cache at 6:15 before the snakes were up. Left a luggage lock & key set in exchange for the electronic football game . . . Cache on!! Abe.”

After we had parked in the landscapers’ parking lot,, we stood at the base of the hill. The GPS indicated that, yes, the Fortress of Doom was straight up, so we began to climb through the sagebrush. The terrain became rockier, dustier, and steeper.

The GPS pointed us up the hill. I wondered if this had been such a good idea. My daughter complained that the rocks hurt her feet, and I saw nothing that resembled the photos on the Web site.

When we stopped to catch our breath, I spotted a wall of dark rocks in a semicircle near the top. It had to be the Fortress of Doom.

With renewed energy, we scampered over the rocks to the stone walls. The GPS told us we were within five feet of the coordinates—but where was the cache?

We searched inside the crude rock walls. We climbed down a series of boulders and scanned the hillside. The view was spectacular, with the south Truckee Meadows spread out below and Mount Rose to the west.

My daughter sighed. After all our hard work, she feared we wouldn’t find the cache. I turned to reassure her and noticed a metal container in the rock wall behind her head.

It was the cache. We pulled out the box and opened it. Inside we found several pens, toy cars, luggage locks, and other gee-gaws. She took the luggage locks and replaced it with a clip-on clock that we had brought with us. I entered our names in the log.

Mission accomplished.

Web sites—The best geocaching Web sites are www.geocaching.com and www.nevadageocaching.com. The former has an excellent section for beginners.

Shoshone's Cave Condos

It wasn’t easy building a place to live in the mining town of Shoshone.

Founded in 1910 by Death Valley prospector, Ralph “Dad” Fairbanks, the area had little in the way of building materials.

So residents got creative—they built homes into the stone walls of nearby Dublin Gulch.

The small stone cubicles—which resemble latter-day pueblo dwellings—included square window holes and even shelves carved in the walls.

The homes are just another example of the unusual building materials used in Nevada's mining camps. Because of the scarcity of brick and wood, prospectors were forced to use unusual materials such as empty bottles, metal scraps, cardboard, canvas, sod and, in the case of Shoshone, sandstone.

Wandering through Shoshone's rock condos is interesting. Inside, the homes are surprisingly roomy and cool. Most have stovepipe holes cut into the ceilings, showing that stoves were common. A few still have the rusted remains of bed frames.

One of the apartments was built on two levels, kind of a two-story stone townhouse. Cut steps lead from the lower level to the upper floor.

The miners weren't much for cleanliness. The center of the gulch is littered with the rusted remains of cans and other assorted garbage. Rather than develop a garbage area away from their homes, the miners used to toss their trash out the front door into the sagebrush and locals have kept the site in its original condition.

The stone quarters were used as housing for miners (and, later, vagabonds) until the 1970s. Several famous folks have been rumored to have stayed in them, including miner “Shorty” Harris, who founded the mining town of Rhyolite, Nevada.

A quarter-mile from the miner's housing development is a frontier cemetery with the remains of a handful of Shoshone pioneers.

The actual town of Shoshone is located 33 miles west of Pahrump via Nevada State Route 372 and California State Route 178. The miners' stone homes sit west of the main part of the town.

The rest of Shoshone, which sits near the southern edge of Death Valley National Park, consists of some half dozen buildings, including a motel, convenience store, restaurant, real estate office and a local museum.

The latter offers a glimpse into the community's past. Originally built in 1906 in another mining town called Greenwater, the building was moved in 1922 to Shoshone by Charles “Charlie” Brown, “Dad” Fairbanks’ son-in-law.

Over the years the whitewashed wooden building served as a garage, gas station and general store before being converted into a museum. Inside, about a dozen exhibits and displays describe the history of Shoshone and the local mining industry.

Adjacent to the museum is an adobe building that was once a boarding house for the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad, which had a station in the town in the early part of the 20th century. The railroad, in fact, was the reason the town was originally settled.

Charles Brown and his wife, Stella, eventually bought the town from her father and are largely responsible for its development. The town remains owned by members of the family.

Brown, who served as a California State Senator for more than 24 years, died in 1962. He is buried in the local cemetery.

For a nice Website photo tour of Shoshone, go to http://digital-desert.com/shoshone-ca/ or for more information, visit www.deathvalleychamber.org.