Carson to Wellington Backcountry Byway

[craig333]

Okay, its technically the Fort Churchill to Wellington Backcountry byway but since I skipped the Fort Churchill part Carson is more accurate.

Had a three day weekend except for the Dental appointment friday morning and I really needed to get out. Where to go? Not enough time to do Great Basin and if its a only a weekend might as well stay close and save my funds for bigger trip later. Noticed the byway and thought maybe I'd do that. Headed out and headed up the Mormon Emigrant trail. I knew it wasn't open to 88 (and glad now, would have been much harder to find the route going the other way) but I thought I could make it to the Silver Fork road and then over to 50. Found a nice spot to camp near the top of the Strawberry Creek Road (all paved roads, dirt roads still aren't open). Some snow for the dog to play in. Why the Silver Fork is gated at Kyburz but the Strawberry road isn't kind of boggles me but I'm glad. Enough snow on the road to keep out most people.





Next day I decided to head to Genoa since I've never been there (my dad says I have but I must have been pretty young. Had a beer at the oldest bar in Nevada.

Then it was over to the BLM office and decide whether to river portion or the Pine Nut Mountains portion. The BLM office isn't open on Saturdays Hmmm, do the river part and I won't get lost or go have an adventure. All I have for maps is my Benchmark Nevada Road and Recreation Atlas. I need to send a nasty gram to the Carson BLM. It seems they don't believe in signage. Nowhere is a sign saying its a byway and very little signage at all. Only three signs on the whole trip denoting destination and mileage and a few 009 carsonite signs. Weather is looking threatening but I head off anyway.

 

[craig333]

Head into Brunswick Canyon, not very scenic but a good rock base. 15-20 mph stuff, easy 2wd road. These power lines came to bother me greatly.

The next two thirds of the road were more dirt and would get iffy in the rain. I made it over Sunrise Pass even though I didn't know it at the time, its not marked. The view gets much better on the eastern side of the Pine Nut Mountains (ps, never saw a pine nut).

I'm not sure I'm still on the right road, theres numerous spurs everywhere and at night its likely you'd miss a turn. Finally come to the turn off to Eldorado Canyon. Yay, it has a sign, I'm on the right road. Keep going and find a nice camp (maybe whats marked on the map as sunrise camp?) but I'm still not sure I haven't missed a turn. I passed under the power lines again. My map shows power lines to the north but if thats where I am I'm way lost.

I head down the road a bit, if I'm where I should be I should find the intersection to Como/Churchill canyon. On the way I pass some nice old folks who give me bad directions. Find the intersection though.

Back to camp. Dog has fun chasing rabbits. Seems to really like the high desert. As we walk on the other side of the road I see a lot of really old stumps and branches. Tons of old cowpies. Finally dawns on me they clear cut a couple miles worth. I assume it was cattle grazing, not much other value there.
I did get to see a pretty nice sunrise prior to the cloud cover moving in.

Heading into the valley.

The county road was much smoother.


Artesia Lake or pond reminds me of Owens Valley. I wonder if we'll see a similar environmental problem when they fully dry it up. Oddly I didn't take a pic of it. On the way to Wellington I passed of lot of very nice newer houses. Not a depressed area like you see in some parts of Nevada. Up and over Monitor pass. If all you saw was this pic you'd hardly know just how severe our drought is. Carson Iceberg Wilderness still has enough snow for a nice photo.

Came back 88 to 50 and fought the Sunday traffic. Work will be a little more tolerable tomorrow now.

 

[craig333]

Couple other things. Saw this interesting cloud formation a few miles from Woodfords.

I did get a pic of Artesia Lake. Missed it the first round.

First morning I had the bbq on high burning crap off. Heard an owl. Hey, I want an owl pic. Grab the camera. Owl hides. Do find these interesting scratches on a tree.

Get back to camp and I smell plastic. Lighter sitting a foot away from the bbq is partly melted. I don't know what would have happened if it'd gone off. Maybe nothing much, maybe not. Don't plan to find out.

Really weird thing about this campsite. About midnight the wind starts howling. Lasts an hour then starts. Repeats all night long. Probably wasn't that consistent but it woke me up. Never seen wind that stopped and started like before anywhere.

 

[Basin Deranged]

Thanks for the report! The Pine Nut Mountains have always been a blank spot on the map for me. Now they are on my list.

I think the cloud formation is a lenticular cloud which often form over the Sierra crest.

 

[takesiteasy]

Sounds like a good weekend. Good reminder about leaving fire unattended. Same lesson at home with the stove too. Thanks for the report!

 

[Dughlas Stiubhart]

Thanks for the report and photos, Craig. I've been to Artesia lake a number of times but not by your route--looks interesting. Have you ever been to Weed Heights just to the east?

Ditto on the lenticular clouds. We also have them here over the Rockies.

 

[ski3pin]

Craig, looks like you and the pup had a good time. Pyramid Peak sure looks sad insofar as snow coverage. Silver Peak looks like it could be doable - oops, I'm talking about skiing. Next time we are in the area around Wellington, on our list is in the Pine Grove Hills just to the east of the Pine Nuts. Accessible from the east are canyons that hold the old towns of Pine Grove and Rockland. We have a friend who always wanted to go up there back in the seventies. He never made it. His story is enough to pique our interest. Happy exploring.

High winds streaming over the Sierra with this front passing to the north streamlined the clouds into those saucer shaped lenticulars. We were buckin' a head wind on our way home yesterday.

The horizontal lines on the juniper bark are pretty common near the base.

Junipers are the climax species in many arid mountain ranges. Land management agencies are undertaking widespread removal to mimic what happens in a fire (much like the forest health thinning and prescribed burn projects on the west slope) to build diversity back into the ecosystem.

 

[highz]

Thanks for sharing your trip. I had to look up the Pine Nut Mts. Looks like a great area to explore. I enjoyed the lenticular clouds shot, too.

 

[N'kwala]

Looks great.


Re the melting lighter: Once when I was driving a VW Vanagon, I didn't realise I had a plastic lighter sitting against the heater in the back. And yes, it went "Bang!" Nothing else bad happened. What was good was I'd just crossed the US-Canada border and I think something going bang at the Border might have been a problem.

 

[Smokecreek1]

Nice TR, enjoyed bit as I think your dog did!

Smoke

 

[craig333]

Oh no, the dog had a horrible time. You can see that in this pic. Obviously can't wait to go home!

I don't know about removing the Junipers. Doesn't leave much left. There was a fire on the mountainside just past Artesia Lake. The mudflow made it all the way across the road. I should have taken a shot of that.

Those Junipers sure make nice firewood. I just wanted a small short fire. Just picked up a few small sticks laying around. When the wind picked I look outside. Nice glow coming from the campfire. Dump a bucket of water on it. In the morning there was still a nice bed of coals. Took a bit of work to finally douse it properly.

I should also add, I had cell coverage on and off most of the time.

 

[craig333]

Well maybe I need to rethink the Pinyon/Juniper issue.

http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nv/field_offices/carson_city_field/range_projects/Pine_Nut_Land_Health_Project.Par.49242.File.dat/PNLH%20quarterly%20update%20June%202014.pdf

 

[Smokecreek1]

The problem with junipers is they use allot of water and the area underneath them tends to be allot more barren than other trees! Junipers , while they make good fire wood, tend to sort of work with non-native species, to take over the native natural habitat and create hot fire zones. That is why after a fire, you see rehab crews come in fast to replant with native species, because given a chance, cheat grass and other introduced species will out compete the native species for the limited water and create this non-native mosaic landscape we have now covering most of the west. Cheat grass likes fire and burns real hot and takes over everything and from what I remember, only during a few shorts weeks during the spring can be eaten by anything, the rest of the time they create that dead zone we see today. Sorry about that rant there, to many years of dealing with Junipers, fires and rehabbing things, and that BLM notice sort of kicked off my "learning and talking points " and I went sort of automatic ! Yep, we won the cold war, but the Russians won the range war ! What ever Craig, your wild beastie sure looked happy !

Smoke