TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS!

Monday morning arrived with a surprise. We all survived a night in Bruno’s Motel! Cynthia and Linda had to admit that it wasn’t as bad as they thought it might be, but it’s only fair to note that Cynthia didn’t see the large colonies of mold lurking in the shower.

After enjoying breakfast at Bruno’s, we were on the road again (this is when Cynthia and Linda would break into song). The plan today was to take a very circuitous and scenic route back to Reno. After traveling west out of Gerlach for a few miles we turned onto a gravel road and headed roughly south along the west side of the Smoke Creek Desert. Even though it has it’s own name, the Smoke Creek Desert is geographically connected to the more famous Black Rock Desert that is north and east of the Smoke Creek Desert.

Twenty miles down the dusty road was our first cache of the day. Once we found the right road, it was an easy and fun Jeep ride up a hill bristling with tufa. We weren’t surprised that the cache was on top of one of the tallest chunks of tufa and it was Mike’s job to get up there and find it.

For the next 30 miles we followed the old stagecoach route that linked the few widely scattered ranches located wherever there was water. Surprisingly, a few of these ranches still exist today but, sadly, most are gone or are being slowly consumed by the desert. Along the way Linda and Larry picked up a cache located on a bridge spanning Smoke Creek. It’s hard to imagine that all the water flowing under the bridge will soon disappear when it reaches the thirsty playa less than a mile from here.

Toward the southern end of the Smoke Creek Desert the road passes through Bonham Ranch, an old stage station. To the left of the road is Round Hole Springs, a large deep spring about 30 feet wide and to the right (behind the old ranch house) is an artesian well. As the water flows out of the ground and onto the playa it transforms the otherwise barren desert into an oasis of life and color.

Terraced Hills and Sand Pass separate the Smoke Creek Desert to the north from Pyramid Lake to the south. Ten thousand or so years ago they were part of one huge inland sea known as Lahontan. Today, Pyramid Lake is all that remains of this inland sea, a victim of global warming that occurred long before white men came to this continent.

Just south of Sand Pass we turned west onto Fish Springs Road, another dry dusty gravel road. Thirty miles later we grabbed a cache near The Widow Maker, a steep hill climb into the Fort Sage Mountains. The plan now was to take a dirt road north to Herlong and then west on pavement to Hwy 395. That was the plan but sometimes plans have a way of turning to dust and blowing away just like the road we took to Herlong. At the end of the road with pavement in sight we came to a locked gate and there was no way around it. Crap! And just to rub salt in our wound, the gate had an old rusty handmade sign indicating that beyond the sign was a gated community. Har Har, very funny.

Our only option was to turn around and head south several miles to Laver Crossing Road and Hwy 395. Then north on 395 to where we should have intersected 395. Only a 16-mile detour and we were already behind schedule and to make matters worse we ran into road construction and lost even more time. After much teeth gnashing we turned off the highway, picked up some food and, of course, a cache.

Five miles up Hwy 395 we left the road just as the traffic was stopping for another construction zone and took the Milford Grade road into a completely different world than the one we had been in all day. As the road ascended up into the Diamond Mountains the visions of vast dry lifeless playas were replaced with forests literally bursting with water and wildlife. Within a few short miles of each other two completely different worlds exist side-by-side. And water is what makes them different.

There were three caches up here. The first was an easy drive-up cache by a gorgeous lazy stream running through a verdant valley. Then came “Otis Overlook”, a cache at the end of a long Jeep trail overlooking Honey Lake and the world we just came from. I’ll let the pictures describe what we saw along the trail and at the overlook.











After our experiences with Otis we were anxious for another Jeep Trail Adventure to the next cache…until we saw what laughingly was labeled as a “Jeep Trail” on the map. After about 50 feet the “road” vanished into the grass. After some discussion we decided to go up the road and check it out, after all, the worst that could happen is that we would have to back down a few feet. So the intrepid cachers cinched up their seat belts and…discovered that there was something of a road, no..a path beyond the grass. As we followed the path up the hill we wound around trees and boulders and over large dirt berms. Eventually, to the astonishment of us all, we drove within 700 feet of the cache. From the “parking lot” it was an easy hike to the cache. On the way back down the road we took the time to take pictures of the Jeeps as they negotiated over the dirt berms.

By now we were out of time and had to get back to Reno so we bailed on the “plan” and descended down the Doyle Grade Road to…you guessed it…Doyle. From there we headed to Reno picking up a few caches along the way. Once in Reno, we stopped at Chili’s, swapped pictures and ate some food. After lunch we all headed west on I-80 to pick up one last cache before Linda and Larry took off for Roseville and we came home and collapsed with a grin on our faces.