Northern Nevada deserves more attention than it gets

Before I left Boise, Grandpa gave me a white envelope with my name, first and last both, written on it in all capitals. Back in the early 80s when I would take a bus up from San Diego to see him in L.A., he started giving me these envelopes of cash, a ten back then, a couple twenties in recent years. He never says a word about the contents, just hands me the envelope as if it’s something irritating that he needs to get shut of.

At dawn I headed back down to Mountain Home, then south across the Snake River and into the vast sagebrush. The high desert rolled away and away, to the brown Owyhee Mountains to the west, uninterrupted in all other directions. Yellow flowers of balsamroot stood low among the pale green and ubiquitous sage. Occasionally I spotted grazing bands of pronghorn antelope; once a coyote dashed across the two-lane highway. Ravens hopped away from ground squirrel roadkill as I passed by.

Down near the Nevada border, on the lands of the Shoshone-Paiute tribes, wetlands lined the road. Yellow-headed blackbirds perched on narrow green reeds, and through the open windows I could hear snatches of their songs. In a damp field a hundred white-faced ibis poked at the ground with their long, curved beaks; another group of the dark birds appeared overhead, looking to land. The road climbed into a jumble of hills and soon I came to Wildhorse Reservoir, where white pelicans and Clark’s grebes and double-breasted cormorants floated on the still water.

Beyond the reservoir I came upon a swarm of amber-colored grasshoppers crawling and hopping on and covering the warm roadway. The loud crackling sound of their carapaces popping beneath the wheels of the van was disturbingly pleasing. I passed over several swarms, some just a couple hundred yards long, one two miles. Later when I stopped I found that the van was splattered orange and green a foot or so up on either side, as if I’d driven through mud.

Late in the morning, I reached Elko, a substantial town which, like many other northern Nevada towns, feels quintessentially “western.” I don’t know exactly why, but I suspect it has something to do with the signs: maybe it’s the dry air, maybe it’s nostalgic foresight, but in Elko and Ely and Winnemucca many signs from the fifties and sixties survive. Large and metal and light-bulbed or neoned, they depict cowboys and miners and dancehall girls, advertising casinos and motels and restaurants. The Silver Dollar. The Buckboard Inn, The Stockman’s Hotel. Peg-leg Annie’s. Jew Jake’s.

I got gas and paid $4.09, a low price if I’d only known. It would rise and rise again as I proceeded south through the state. The day had grown hot and hazy and oppressive, and I was feeling tired and bored with myself. I drank a Coca-Cola and my mood improved.

From Elko, I drove into the Ruby Mountains, up Lamoille Canyon to a dead-end where rocky peaks rose to ten and eleven thousand feet; large patches of snow remained not only up high but all the way down to the road. The parking lot was busy with Sunday visitors, but few strayed far from the fast stream at the bottom of the canyon. I found a trailhead sign that read “Island Lake 2 miles” and decided to give it a try. The path switchbacked up out of the canyon, and soon I was crossing steep snowfields, digging my feet sideways into the soft snow and hoping not to slip. (Alix, this wasn’t really dangerous: losing my footing would have meant sliding down to rocks and maybe getting a few scrapes, but certainly not death.) A small wooden bridge crossed a fierce torrent of snow melt; small streams, a foot or two wide, popped up out of the snow all over the open slope, sometimes taking to the path for a stretch.

Eventually I reached a bench that held small Island Lake, still encased by ice except for an open sliver along one bank. On the opposite side a jagged peak loomed. I kept on upwards, trudging over the ridged, sun-softened snow—now uninterrupted except for an occasional boulder or pine tree—up into a bowl surrounded by high black-rock mountains.

Lower down I found a small open spot and sat down for a rest in the shade of two pines. The air smelled of the trees and of melting snow, and I felt happy. I was reading a few pages from Trollope’s The Eustace Diamonds when a dog appeared suddenly just a few feet away. For a moment I didn’t realize what exactly I was seeing—it was shaggy and wide and tailless and reminded me of those scary dog-like creatures in the film Willow. It trotted up, put its wet, muddy muzzle in my lap, then turned away when I didn’t immediately respond. A couple came up over a small ridge and yelled something at the dog.

Back down in Elko, I headed west and soon after south, on 278, a townless stretch of 150 miles, across wide valleys and up into hills covered in squat junipers. At dark I stopped at Garden Pass (elev. 6686) and parked in a wide pull-out. The end of game 5 of the NBA Finals was just listenable through the AM radio night static. I made a bed in the back, read for a bit, tried to sleep, but spent the night in an unreasonably jumpy state. Alix preferred campgrounds to the lonely, solo spot, such as Garden Pass, and she’s got something there. There’s also something to be said for company, and I was missing hers.