Foy
Resident Geologist
Following the teachings of a fellow native North Carolinian, the poet and philosopher Charlie Daniels, last night I "took a trip and never left the farm". No illegal substance was involved, however; I was just looking at some long traverses of remote parts of Nevada (which I acknowledge pretty much sums up the entire state). My Benchmark Nevada Atlas is a treasured bedside companion, allowing an old man like me to do some serious Wandering The West while saving a fortune on diesel fuel.
What caught my eye last night was the Pony Express Trail(PET), eastern Nevada half, roughly between the Utah border and Austin, NV. That segment runs generally between I-80 and US 50 and edges closer to US 50 as one goes west from UT. From a beginning point just inside Utah and some 50 miles south of Wendover, the Benchmark depicts the PET as a green dotted line which for virtually the whole distance I looked at was paralleled (in the sense of "same track")by red dotted or faint red single-line trails. The whole of my off-piste experience in Nevada to-date consists of driving I-80 from Park City, UT to Elko on July 8 of this year, and departing Elko back to Wells thence north on US 93 through Jackpot into Idaho near Twin Falls the next day. I did stop a lot and carefully noted the character of some of the trails off to the west of US 93 inasmuch as I very much pine for a traverse of the Jarbidge and Independence Mountains, and those admittedly anecdotal observations make me think the PET is for the most part a simple Western two-track with some sections being graded gravel BLM, county, or USFS roads.
From a starting point near the UT-NV line, I estimate around 120 miles to a paved NV highway north of Eureka (NV 278), and another 50 miles through a pass in the Toiyabe Range to US 50 in the immediate vicinity of Austin, NV. Pavement is crossed twice, once where the trail crosses US 93, close to absolutely nothing, and the other NV 278 within a few miles of Eureka. Adding the distance from Wendover to the starting point, it becomes about 170 miles off-pavement to near Eureka and increases to 220 miles by traversing the mountains north of Austin. My off-the-cuff assumption is resupply/fuel are available close to the trail only at Eureka.
The Benchmark shows the various PET stations along the way, and students of that 18 month-long nugget of Western US history will recall the stations were established about every 15-20 miles, depending on water supplies and other considerations. I have seen photos of some of the stations, which run from foundations/ruins to fully-restored structures.
With a simple search here (and remember the searcher is himself simple--a real digital illiterate), I see where our Leader DD has traversed some of the PET on the Utah side of the NV-UT border, but I found no trip reports or other mention of the PET in east-central Nevada. I counted 7 mountain ranges crossed by the PET between UT and Austin, with a couple being deep canyon intercepts but more being crossings through higher passes. Several of the passes are between 6,000 and +7,000' in elevation, and even the valley floors are generally between 5,000 and 6,000'.
So, I wonder is any of the WTW regulars, whose collective opinions and guidance I've come to hold in high esteem in the past 3 months, have traversed all or any part of the PET from around the UT border on towards the Austin area. If and when I'd do it, it would likely be in a 4WD long-bed Crew Cab pickup w/ a lightweight truck camper, in the best of WTW style, so I am of course curious as to anybody's experience with a full-size rig on that particular trail. I further wonder about midsummer weather out there, specifically to what extent, if any, the elevations moderate the extreme highs normally associated with Nevada in July, for example. Lastly, if anybody has information on water supplies, that'd be great intel. My old oil-burning truck can go a long, long way on 38 gallons of diesel, but me and the Missus like a hot water clean up, at least of the sponge bath variety, pretty much every day. Makes the cab of the truck much more pleasant. Oh yeah, I can certainly plot lat-lons of Nevada hot springs to determine which of the multitude are close to the PET, but guidance to larger well-known soaks would be spendid intel,too.
Sorry for the lengthy lead-in, but I figured if nobody's done it, perhaps I might inspire others to blaze the trail before I get a chance to get out there in 2013. Our previously-contemplated July 2012 trip to the Jarbidge area is now cancelled due to the newly-scheduled marriage of one of our sons and the deployment (to Afghanistan!) of the other, so our summer 2012 travel will be related to those events as opposed to Wandering the West.
Foy
What caught my eye last night was the Pony Express Trail(PET), eastern Nevada half, roughly between the Utah border and Austin, NV. That segment runs generally between I-80 and US 50 and edges closer to US 50 as one goes west from UT. From a beginning point just inside Utah and some 50 miles south of Wendover, the Benchmark depicts the PET as a green dotted line which for virtually the whole distance I looked at was paralleled (in the sense of "same track")by red dotted or faint red single-line trails. The whole of my off-piste experience in Nevada to-date consists of driving I-80 from Park City, UT to Elko on July 8 of this year, and departing Elko back to Wells thence north on US 93 through Jackpot into Idaho near Twin Falls the next day. I did stop a lot and carefully noted the character of some of the trails off to the west of US 93 inasmuch as I very much pine for a traverse of the Jarbidge and Independence Mountains, and those admittedly anecdotal observations make me think the PET is for the most part a simple Western two-track with some sections being graded gravel BLM, county, or USFS roads.
From a starting point near the UT-NV line, I estimate around 120 miles to a paved NV highway north of Eureka (NV 278), and another 50 miles through a pass in the Toiyabe Range to US 50 in the immediate vicinity of Austin, NV. Pavement is crossed twice, once where the trail crosses US 93, close to absolutely nothing, and the other NV 278 within a few miles of Eureka. Adding the distance from Wendover to the starting point, it becomes about 170 miles off-pavement to near Eureka and increases to 220 miles by traversing the mountains north of Austin. My off-the-cuff assumption is resupply/fuel are available close to the trail only at Eureka.
The Benchmark shows the various PET stations along the way, and students of that 18 month-long nugget of Western US history will recall the stations were established about every 15-20 miles, depending on water supplies and other considerations. I have seen photos of some of the stations, which run from foundations/ruins to fully-restored structures.
With a simple search here (and remember the searcher is himself simple--a real digital illiterate), I see where our Leader DD has traversed some of the PET on the Utah side of the NV-UT border, but I found no trip reports or other mention of the PET in east-central Nevada. I counted 7 mountain ranges crossed by the PET between UT and Austin, with a couple being deep canyon intercepts but more being crossings through higher passes. Several of the passes are between 6,000 and +7,000' in elevation, and even the valley floors are generally between 5,000 and 6,000'.
So, I wonder is any of the WTW regulars, whose collective opinions and guidance I've come to hold in high esteem in the past 3 months, have traversed all or any part of the PET from around the UT border on towards the Austin area. If and when I'd do it, it would likely be in a 4WD long-bed Crew Cab pickup w/ a lightweight truck camper, in the best of WTW style, so I am of course curious as to anybody's experience with a full-size rig on that particular trail. I further wonder about midsummer weather out there, specifically to what extent, if any, the elevations moderate the extreme highs normally associated with Nevada in July, for example. Lastly, if anybody has information on water supplies, that'd be great intel. My old oil-burning truck can go a long, long way on 38 gallons of diesel, but me and the Missus like a hot water clean up, at least of the sponge bath variety, pretty much every day. Makes the cab of the truck much more pleasant. Oh yeah, I can certainly plot lat-lons of Nevada hot springs to determine which of the multitude are close to the PET, but guidance to larger well-known soaks would be spendid intel,too.
Sorry for the lengthy lead-in, but I figured if nobody's done it, perhaps I might inspire others to blaze the trail before I get a chance to get out there in 2013. Our previously-contemplated July 2012 trip to the Jarbidge area is now cancelled due to the newly-scheduled marriage of one of our sons and the deployment (to Afghanistan!) of the other, so our summer 2012 travel will be related to those events as opposed to Wandering the West.
Foy
