slgwv's photos with the keyword: dirt

Out the east side of Dixie Valley, Nevada, crossing the Clan Alpine Range. The pass is at the obvious low point to the center-right. The road was in good shape thru here, but had some serious washouts higher up--the high clearance and 4wd was useful! I also saw no other vehicles--my kinda road! It ultimately joins US 50 in the next valley.

Looking south. This flat, called Churchill Valley (from Civil-War era Ft. Churchill on the western side), is part of the bed of Pleistocene Lake Lahontan, an enormous Ice-Age lake that filled many of the valleys in western Nevada. Shorelines from ancient Lake Lahontan are locally prominent in the satellite view. The powerline is the Pacific DC Intertie, which connects the Bonneville power grid on the Columbia River to L.A. Wikipedia claims a maximum capacity for this line of 3.1 gigawatts, and it accounts for just less than half of the Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power's capacity. Hooten Wells is at the base of the hills in the distance and was a watering stop on the Pony Express. It now consists of a stock tank (right inset). The left inset shows this road a few miles back to the north, where it's dropping out of the hills (improbably named the Dead Camel Mountains) on that side. The name comes from feral camels, the wild offsping of some camels originally imported as an experiment in animal transportation in the 1850s. They didn't work out--horses _hated_ them--and were eventually released. The odd wild camel sighting allegedly continued into the early 20th century. Btw, the impetus for their importation was none other than Jefferson Davis, then US Secretary of War, but later much better known as the President of the Confederate States of America.

Meadow Lake Road, between (yes!) Meadow Lake and Jackson Meadows Reservoir. In some need of maintenance thru here... Sierra Nevada, California.

Ca. 1920. Now a Forest Service road that's no longer passable to full-sized vehicles, even 4x4s, due to a rockslide. Outside Carson City, Nevada, USA. The Lincoln Highway was one of the first coast-to-coast automobile routes in the US. In recent years there's been a push to put up historical markers along the route. Across Nevada it's now mostly modern US 50.

House Range, Utah, USA. On old US 50. Looking east.

Old US 50, House Range, western Utah, USA.

House Range, Utah, USA. On old US 50, looking back west. The sign is for a trilobite(!) quarry--the area is famous for its Middle Cambrian trilobite occurrences. In fact, the pass gave its name to a family of trilobites: the marjumiids.

House Range, Utah, USA. On old US 50.

House Range, Utah, USA. Looking east. This is the original alignment of US 50. Modern (and paved!) US 50 now coincides with US 6 between Delta, Utah, and Ely, Nevada, and the alignment runs thru Skull Rock Pass south of here. The realignment took place when US 6 was extended to Bishop, California.

Looking west from the intersection of the Tule Valley Road, Tule Valley, Utah, USA.

Extreme western Utah. Looking north-northwest from old US 50 in Tule Valley.