We wake up to a very chilly morning in
the middle of nothing. Our fridge, on the contrary, is not very cold,
even warmer than the temperature inside the motorhome. Not good!
The sun is rising slowly in a cloudless
sky, warming everything very fast. We are enjoying a delicious
breakfast featuring blueberry pancakes. It is very calm around us.
Some people are already on their boat fishing in the reservoir. All
around us are sagebrush fields, with some horses, may be wild,
roaming. In the back, rugged mountains are covering the horizon in
every direction. The area is rich in ghost towns, with the most
famous of them being Hamilton. Unfortunately, the dirt road to get to
the town remains is too rough for Bertha. But let us tell you more
about this town.
Late one night in July 1867, A. J.
Leathers was sleeping in his cabin high up on White Pine Mountain,
when he was awakened by some strange noises. He got up from his bunk
and found an Indian eating some leftover beans he had for dinner.
Leathers kicked the Indian out of the cabin. A couple of days later,
the Indian came back, this time with a piece of silver ore for
payment of the beans he had eaten. Leathers then convinced the Indian
to lead him to the spot where the ore was found.
Two years later, the nearby town of
Hamilton had a population of around 25,000 and boasted of having some
22 lawyers, 101 saloons, 59 general stores, churches, banks, a soda
factory, breweries, a stage station and a morning newspaper by the
name of the Daily Inland Empire along with many other businesses.
But the ore deposits proved shallow and
by 1870 the region was already in decline as many residents left as
quickly as they had come. After two disastrous fires in 1873 and
1885, the county seat was moved to Ely and pretty soon, nobody was
around anymore.
We leave in the middle of the morning
and drive toward Ely, the next town. At a higher elevation, the
landscape is less desolate, with sparse forests.
Ely is a sprawling community – with a
population of 4,255 in 2010 – at the intersection of US-6, US-50,
and US-93. Ely's mining boom came later than the other towns along US
50, with the discovery of copper in 1906. But what a great discovery
that led to the massive Kennecott-owned Liberty Pit copper mines,
Nevada’s largest and longest-lived mining venture, which produced
over a billion dollars worth of ore while employing nearly 10,000
people at its peak during the 1950s. The town survived with some gold
mining until recently, with the dramatic increase in demand for
copper in the last 10 years, making Ely a mining boomtown again.
We stop downtown to take some pictures.
That’s when Yellow randomly meets an old man originally from
Belgian, working in the gold mining industry. Nevada being the third
“country” in the world for gold production, he tells him that
there are lots of opportunities for gold prospection. Always good to
know! Later, we take advantage of the free wifi at McDonald’s again
and, after getting some gas, we leave Ely in the middle of the
afternoon.
The route east of Ely toward Great
Basin National Park is an official “scenic route,” rolling across
sagebrush plains and climbing over the Schell Creek and Snake
mountain ranges through dense groves of pine and juniper.
Arriving at Great Basin National Park,
we first stop at the visitor center. The park is notable for its
groves of ancient bristlecone pines, and for the Lehman Caves at the
base of 13,063-foot (3,982 m) Wheeler Peak. We drive up the second
highest point in Nevada to get to Wheeler Peak campground, where we
are going to spend the night, at an elevation of 10,000 ft. The road
is very steep, and we pass through every type of vegetation, from
desert to beautiful fall-colored forests at the campground. The
vistas of the peaks and over Great Basin are impressive.
We arrive at the campground at dusk and
have dinner, before spending part of the evening playing card games.
After watching an episode of our favorite TV show, we go to bed
before 10pm and sleep at the highest overnight point of our trip.
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