Drive to a Bristol tea party (down 93 in White Pine and Lincoln Counties)

After adventures in Ely and Great Basin National Park, we drove home via 93. This highway runs from the Mexican border nearly to Canada. So our route was only a scrap of it - but we've now done most of the Nevada section of it. Which is a start.

Any road around the middle to south of the state of Nevada takes you through Basin and Range country, where the valleys run roughly north/south between those thrilling stripy ranges. Millions of years ago, the crust was stretched thin (lots of vulcanism) and twisted sideways (lots of broken and up-tilted macro chunks of crust.) (Whenever I read about these huge geological processes I just imagine what would happen to piecrust or to sand at the beach, seems to help me visualise it. I expect I need professional help of some kind ...) Since then, erosion has shown us a thousand fascinating ways that stone can weather.

This section of 93 is in the true Great Basin desert. No Joshua trees, not much creosote, but rippling seas of grey-green sagebrush, hip-high or taller, and yellow blond grasses. 'Cedar' (juniper, actually), pine, and aspen cloak the lower slopes of the ranges. Our route starts at a higher elevation, and though crossing several ranges, overall trends downhill.

The valley out of Ely is high and wet enough to have actual water in its waterways even this late in the summer, with lovely sweeping views and long straight highway down not quite the middle, but west of the middle. There's ranching, so there are houses and corrals, water tanks, fencing, and cattle (albeit more sparse than Kiwis are used to, less feed on dryer ground.) Along here are also turnoffs to two state parks: Cave Lake and Ward Charcoal Ovens. We stop at the latter to see the five domed ovens, nearly thirty feet high, and still solid after a century of disuse. There are hiking trails, and there's camping nearby. We walk up to a lime kiln and catch a baby horned toad basking on a rock beside. The park is silent except for our steps, deserted except for elk tracks and a lizard or two. It is a quiet country here - we are not far from the loneliest highway.

Wind farm north of Baking Powder Flat

Crossing the hills by way of Connor's Pass, we traverse layers of rock and bands of vegetation, coming over the summit to a breathtaking view of the valley and Wheeler Peak rising beyond. When we get to Major's Place and the junction of 50/6 & 93, we can see the big wind farm to the north.

Golden light with clouds just starting to gather

Our way takes us south through Baking Powder Flat and other picturesquely named places that are often easier picked out on the map than out the window. We pass Dutch John's Well and Pony Spring, The Cedars (yeah actually just trees, not some folly of a country estate) and Mule Shoe road. It's a beautiful golden afternoon, whether in spite of or because of the storm clouds pacing us a little further down the valley.

Looking east from Bristol Pass,
towards thunderclouds in the next valley

The largest of these makes a stately progress under a northerly wind, trailing cool wet fingers of rain below it towards the ground, sometimes touching, often evaporated by the hot ground before it can make landfall. We get a few spots on the windscreen but nothing very serious.

We turn off to the west not far north of Pioche. We're due a change of driver and a cup of tea. The Bristol road is said to be 4WD but it's been leveled recently and is as smooth a dirt road as you'll find anywhere. We stop on the western flank of the pass and brew up, accompanied only by twelve million ants of bewildering variety and laudable persistence.

Looking roughly west from Bristol Pass

The sun is bathing the western slope in an intense heat, though there are occasional breaths of cool breeze from the heights. The valley ahead of us is wrapped in a mist of dust. There's a dirt road through to the 318, and another that twists round the base of the hill before climbing to a ghost town and a silver mine - Bristol Wells, and the Bristol mine, mentioned in earlier dispatches. There's Silver King Mountain in the blue distance.



And, dammit, we have promises to keep. So we head the car back towards 93, and Pioche, and home.