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DAY 12 – Thursday, March 25
START: Ely, NV
END: Orangevale, CA
MILEAGE: 483 miles

HIGHLIGHTS: Loneliest Road In America, Hamilton ghost town, blizzard

In 1987, Life magazine ran an article referring to Nevada’s stretch of U.S. Route 50 as “The Loneliest Road in America.”  The article said that the 287-mile highway across Nevada’s sparsely populated high desert had no points of interest, and warned its readers not to attempt the drive unless they had honed their survival skills.  Rather than complain about how wrong and mean-spirited the article was, the Nevada Commission on Tourism, as well as the residents and merchants in the widely spaced towns along Route 50, did the American thing and capitalized on the negative publicity. 

Knowing there was an entire population of travelers who were eager to escape the crowded interstates, they embraced the derogatory remark with road signs declaring, “Hwy 50: The Loneliest Road In America.”  Instead of scaring people away, the Route 50 boosters knew the ominous title would attract road trippers eager for a little bit of adventure.  The tourism department even made up Highway 50 “Survival Kits” for motorists, full of maps and brochures, to be dispensed by participating stores and businesses.  What started off as a word of caution became the hottest marketing campaign this part of Nevada could have hoped for.   

Checking into the Motel 6 the night before, I had mentioned to the clerk that we were “doing the whole loneliest road thing.”  He thankfully ignored my slip of the tongue (never asking who the other part of “we” was for this guy who had asked for a single occupancy room) and instead, handed me my Survival Kit.  In addition to all the tourist guides, there was also a piece of paper inside with the names of the five “major” towns along the lonely section of Route 50.  We were encouraged to stop and buy something in each town, where the participating vendor would then “cancel” that town on our passport with an “I SURVIVED” stamp.  If we collected stamps from each town, the Nevada Commission on Tourism would send us an official Highway 50 Survivor’s certificate, bumper sticker and lapel pin. 

We were packed up, gassed up, oatmealed up, and even got our first “I SURVIVED” stamp by nine o’clock.  From Ely, the next major town was Eureka, over seventy miles away.  But before that, we planned on visiting the somewhat less populated town of Hamilton.    

As far as ghost towns go, Hamilton is the mother load.  What started off as a small settlement of around thirty people became a magnet for miners and fortune seekers after silver was discovered in 1867.  Two years later, Hamilton had more than 25,000 residents, along with churches, hotels, banks, breweries, general stores, a courthouse, a newspaper and over a hundred saloons.  The boom lasted less than ten years before all the silver had been mined and the big companies moved out.  Fires destroyed enough of the town to force most everybody else out by 1885, although a few stragglers stuck around into the 1920’s before vacating the town for good.  In their wake, they left enough ruins to make even the most seasoned ghost town seeker salivate.  The remains of old mills, hotels, a reservoir, and even a Wells Fargo building are still standing back in the mountains about eleven miles off of Route 50.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any of it. 

We tried.  Lord knows we tried. 

We circled back and forth several times on Route 50 before spotting the Hamilton historical marker.  From there we drove south on a bumpy dirt road with steep grades and sharp narrow bends – tricky, but nothing the Mazda couldn’t handle.  Then, about four miles from the old mining town, we came to an impassable barrier: a deep patch of mud that covered the road for about twenty feet.  Ever the optimist, I dropped the Mazda into low gear and tried to muscle through it.  We got in as far as the length of the car before the wheels started spinning in place and we could go no further. 

I sighed only once before shifting into reverse.  I was worried for a second that the wheels would continue to spin and give us no traction, but by pressing gently on the gas I was able to slowly coax the car backwards.  Unfortunately, for every foot we moved backwards, we were also sliding about six inches to the side – right toward a steep drop-off at the edge of the road. 

I immediately told Lauren to get out of the car.  Partly for her safety, but mostly I needed her to stand back and tell me exactly how close I was to the edge.  If we couldn’t back out of this safely, I wasn’t sure what we’d do.  We had no cell service out here and it was a long walk back to the nearest town.  Little by little, I backed the car up.  Even though Lauren kept telling me I still had several feet between me and the edge, I got out several times to verify exactly how much space I was working with.  After about five minutes we managed to back the car safely out of the mud and clear the drop-off with a good couple inches to spare. 

During the process, our shoes had become absolutely disgusting.  Near freezing mud and rocks were stuck to the bottom of our sneakers and wouldn’t let go.  Kicking and scraping them against the car did nothing to clean them off.  We had to physically break the mud off with our hands and then try to wash our hands with snow.  As our fingers froze and became progressively number, we decided to change into hiking boots and put the muddies into a plastic bag to clean later. 

While we were changing, I looked back down the road and jumped, startled to see a silver pick-up truck with two men inside coming around the bend.  My initial reaction was to let my imagination get the better of me.  “That’s it for us.  We’re dead.”

The Mazda was sitting in the middle of the road, blocking the way, so I quickly composed myself and walked over to the pick-up to tell them we had gotten stuck and needed to turn around.  The driver, a man in his late forties or early fifties with a mustache and baseball cap, laughed (though not meanly) and pulled his truck as far off the road and up the embankment as he could.  I performed a twenty-point K-turn (never coming closer than five feet to the edge), and got the Mazda pointing back down the mountain. 

When I walked back to the pick-up to tell the two men we were all set, the driver asked if we were headed up to Hamilton too.  When I told him that had been the plan, he asked if we wanted to hitch a ride with them.  The safe and sensible part of me should have said, “No, that’s okay, I appreciate it,” but that other side of me, the suicidally adventurous side, jumped in first.

I turned to Lauren, shrugged my shoulders and said, “You wanna?”

Her eyes went wide with the man’s unexpected invitation and my even more unexpected acceptance, but she shrugged back and said, “Um… okay.”  

While we gathered up cameras and sweatshirts, the two men cleared out the back seat of their Ford F-150.  I locked the Mazda’s doors, though I’m still not sure why.  A diligent thief would certainly have been able to break the windows and rob us at his leisure while we were four miles away in Hamilton.  Back at the pick-up, we all made introductions.  Gary and Travis were a father and son team from California who were road tripping the western states for a week while Travis, the son, was on spring break.  Travis was gracious enough to recognize Lauren’s “condition” and give her the front seat and I hopped in back with him.  After everybody had buckled up, we were off, the F-150’s four-wheel-drive and high clearance running over the mud that had bogged us down like it was asphalt. 

We bumped along for about a mile, the road alternating between bigger ruts and thicker mud.  I was glad I hadn’t been able to force the Mazda through that first mud patch because we definitely wouldn’t have made it much farther.  Even the pick-up was having trouble with some of this slop.  Gary wielded his Ford like a pro and got us through it all, but eventually we came to a point where even the pick-up couldn’t continue.  A recent avalanche had buried the road under four feet of snow. 

Not to be deterred, Gary spotted a pair of old tire tracks leading off road and up the mountain.  Dropping into low gear, he gunned the engine and we started climbing, rocking back and forth over bumps and ruts the size of medicine balls.  How we didn’t tip over sideways or backwards is still beyond my comprehension.  We held on tight, and Travis and I gave a couple of token Yee-haw’s to encourage Gary.  Before long, all the effort was for naught when a large trench blocked our forward progress.  The mountain was too steep and rocky to drive up and around it, and the road below us was still covered in snow. 

We all got out of the truck to look around and pick our next point of attack.  It was hard to tell just how far the ghost town was from here, so Travis suggested we walk to the top of the ridge to see what we could see from there.  I looked up at the steep climb and then at Lauren with her eight-months-pregnant belly and asked if she wanted me to hang back with her.  I thought I had hid the boyish excitement in my voice and the longing on my face, but Lauren smiled at me knowingly and said, “Just go.  I’m okay.”  I kissed her then took off with Travis at a moderate trot.  Gary continued behind us at a much slower pace while Lauren was content to stay put and pee in privacy. 

Travis and I trudged upward on top of the hard frozen snow.  Here and there we broke through the upper crust and sank in up to our knees.  We were close to ten thousand feet at this point and I could already taste the blood vessels in the back of my throat opening up, screaming for oxygen.  Even Travis, a volunteer fire fighter, was sucking wind before we were halfway up the ridge.  We stopped several times to catch our breath and look out at the amazing panoramic view.  From this high up we could see perhaps fifty miles across a wide empty valley to the snowcapped peaks on the other side.  There wasn’t a single sign of human life anywhere in sight.

After ten minutes of walking and jogging, we made it to the top of the ridge, and were greeted with a view of… more mountains.  We could make out the road farther below as it wound its way around and then over the next mountain, no longer snowed under.  It was at least another mile walk from where we were standing to the top of the next ridge.  From there, who knew how much farther it would be to Hamilton.  Travis and I, the young and vital ones, might have been able to make it there in a couple hours – if we didn’t pass out from elevation sickness first.  But there was no way the elder Gary or the pregnant Lauren were going to agree to that trek.  So finally, after all that effort, we gave up the fight and headed back down the mountain to break the news.

Everyone was disappointed of course, but quite chipper nonetheless.  It had been an adventure in the truest sense, complete with foreign territory, rugged terrain and mysterious strangers with tales from afar.  Okay, so it was just a small group of Americans in a pick-up truck in Nevada, but still, we felt like Lewis and freakin’ Clark.  This was what this road trip was all about.

Back at the Mazda we all said our goodbyes and Gary and Travis followed us back to the Loneliest Road where we parted ways.  They headed back toward Ely while we continued west. 

DAY 12 - CONTINUED