Searching For New Stuff In The Same Old Desert

As we've done for the last 5 years or so, we spent the Memorial Day week in northwestern Nevada. I was feeling a bit restless, wanting to explore new ground, but we found ourselves in the same old spot anyway. The allure of the desert is too great, and even though there's tons of desert to choose from, it's really hard to give up the little slice of heaven we've found.

It was a bit of a rough trip out there. Normally we'd leave town early on Wednesday but I've been racing sailboats on Wednesday nights, the Sweet Sixteen series out of the Oakland Yacht Club, and didn't want to miss a race. We've been doing really well and this night was no exception, as we brought the Jackal home in first, but it was a long race and I didn't get home til late...




We finally left town at 9:30pm. Apparently somewhere outside of Fernley we pulled over for a nap. Eric gassed up, slept for 2 hours, and then took off without waking me up. I didn't wake up til Eric started urgently asking me to look out the back window of the van and tell him if I see sparks. Yep, I see sparks. What the hell...? Ah, damn it...




The tire had disintegrated, showering my shiny Husqvarna TR650 Terra in shredded melty rubber, and we were rockin' down the runway on metal. We installed the spare and headed to Winnemucca for the night. FYI, WalMart in Winnemucca has trailer tires on wheels if you should ever need one while in the area.



Happy to get to our favorite campsite at 9am, and nice to find these lovely items waiting for me. Lucky in love, I am...





Any reservations I had about coming back to the same old place were quickly replaced with thoughts of gratitude, reverence and true awe...








Spent the afternoon loading the bikes with camping gear and perusing the maps. Spent the evening stargazing and soaking away the aches and pains of the workweek...



Jupiter and Mercury at sunset...





Our morning was full of promise and moist ground...




If you want to find water in the desert all you need to do is follow the animals...




North into Oregon...




There's water everywhere in the desert, it just takes a little bit of looking around to find it...




Map check in perfect solitude...




We're in the right place...Oregon Central Military Wagon Road, 1864...






Heading north...





Hey! Something new!



This place was a trip...a fortress in the middle of nowhere. Seriously...nothing for miles and miles and miles...and this place is built to withstand a serious assault. Party palace on the top...




Windows covered in 1" thick trench plate...





More to come.
Lots more...




WoodsChick

Yep!

And the tire was nothing compared to the aggravation that awaited us the next night...

What is this place protecting? The road we came in on can be seen in the background...




Empress of all I survey...




Seeing the pronghorn antelope let us know we were getting close to our destination for the evening...




And our destination was a quiet little corner of an antelope refuge...







After setting up camp we took a walk and a soak...











We returned to camp and noticed an old guy had pulled in sort of close to us. He kept taking his CT90 out for short rides and then returning. We were slightly dismayed to see someone else there, but it was just a guy out enjoying the desert by himself on his bike...pretty much what we were doing...so it was cool. We cooked dinner and settled in for a nice evening...




Within an hour we knew what the guy on the CT90 was doing on his little rides. He was looking for the three 15-passenger vans that were going to be joining him. We watched in horror as Southern Oregon University students, cases of Keystone beer, and camping equipment came spilling out of the 3 vans. And join him they did...right behind our orange tent.




Seriously...there were 6 tents mere steps from our own...here, in this vast and remote desert...




They drank and yelled and carried on all f'ing night. The next morning we counted 15 tents, including the 6 tucked into the trees right next to our own, and a Bronco that slept 3. We've spent a week out here before and not seen 15 people all week! Ugh... Well, I guess this counts as something new in the same old desert, eh?




We were up and out of our tent long before sun-up, though. It was still and quiet and cold...21º. We watched the full moon set as the sky got light...








We greeted the sun and watched the deer and the antelope play...










We fished the Keystone beer cans (grrrr....!) out of the water...




...and I angrily tossed them into the still-slumbering tent village from hell as we passed by on our way back to camp...





Had a tasty breakfast of chicken mole' and tortillas...




...and then packed up camp and prepared to leave. We decided it would be a good idea to warm up the boisterous Leo Vince'd Huskys for a good long while. You know, on account of it being so cold and all. Man, those Huskys are LOUD early in the morning when everyone is sleeping off a drunken late night. Gee, I felt really bad about that. No, really...

Haha! That movie was filmed in the eastern Sierra in a place called Alabama Hills. It's really neat there.

You're very welcome, Dave Thanks for checking it out. That area of Nevada and Oregon really is special, isn't it?

I've explored it quite a bit. Love it there! I've probably posted way more ride reports on that area than I should have

Hah! Yeah, those burros crack me up. They're so animated and full of character. I love seeing them!

We took our properly warmed-up Huskys and railed out towards the south in search of something we'd never seen before...

Green is always a lovely color in the desert...

And green in the desert usually means one thing, right?

It always pays to check it out, especially if it's not on the map...

Not exactly what I was looking for...

Hey, hey! Looks like this runs through here, too...

We headed up it a ways just to see the view...

While up there we found the track we were looking for. There it is, down on the right...

And it was a fantastic track...

Nice rocks...

They were even nicer up close...


Leaving the rocks behind...

I'd heard tell of a semi-abandoned glass house out here somewhere. Had even seen photos of it. Had no idea where it was, other than in this valley somewhere, and that it wasn't visible from the track I was on. We rode around in the heat for quite some time, opening and closing gates, traversing wet muddy non-roads in tall grasses, going through abandoned ranches...all the while thinking that a house...and a glass one, at that...should be pretty obvious out here in the land of no houses. It wasn't. We found it anyway, and it was up on a hill hidden from those down below...

Very artsy and cool...

Comes with a dance floor deck...

I was pretty damned happy to find this place...

The end of the driveway could use some landscaping...

The views were OK, I guess...

Wow that house is really cool. Any idea the back story or who owns it?

No idea. Wachs and Brad and those guys might know, though. It almost looks like someone is living there when you look into the house but the outside and other things would suggest it's just locked up for good. I wish I knew more about it...

I always love to see your reports, especially from that area. My great grandfather used to haul mail in the NV, OR, ID border region, and my Dad lives north of Winnemucca. I will have to ask if he knows any local history on the glass house and the fortress.

SOU is known as a party school, and apparently they travel....boo.

North of Winnemucca? Where? There's not much out there...that's why I like it

Wouldn't it be cool to sit down and have a conversation with an old-timer like your great grandfather? Once that stuff is gone it's gone forever.