Newsgroups: rec.backcountry

Ruby Mountains Trip Report
October '92

I heard about them years ago, someone's passing comment, and they got on
the list. The Ruby Mountains in Nevada. It's time to grab my buddy Red 
River Ralph ("Your hair's too long, son") and go. Maybe find some new hot 
springs to boot. Maybe my beater van can make one more trip. Ignore the 
clutch vibrations, the oil consumption problem. Gradual degradation modes, 
nothing catastrophic. Never let your vehicle know you're worried--they can 
sense fear. 

Drive. To Winnemucca and a flying pig sandwich (tasty, try one). Map search 
(USGS 1:100,000) for the faint blue springs symbols, and the magical word,
"hot". Quite a few actually; circle and save for the trip back. Back to the
van (now straddling a coolant puddle) and on to Elko. Red River Ralph shouts,
says he just saw a meteor, quick and bright green. In the daytime? Or was it a 
flare? But from where? Sure looked like a meteor. Is this likely, during the
day? (Someone?) 

Exit I-80 at Elko (brake pedal getting mushy). Time to take in some local
flavor. Land of dual spares in the bed of your Ford truck ("Built to Look 
Tough"). American iron. Bumper sticker:

Two terms
One in office
One in prison

Enough. We head for what appears on the map to be the remote hamlet of 
Lamoille at the base of the Rubys. I'm shocked to find the 20 miles 
between Elko and Lamoille is a bona fide Nevada suburban ghetto. Everywhere 
are cute ranch-styles on two acres of prime sagebrush, with nary a for-sale
sign in sight. New school going up. Gold boom times. Cyanide heap-leach has
breathed new life into the industry. Serious construction going on--gonna 
be some good pickens for bottom dwellers come the next bust. Maybe a good 
place for a second home. 

Lamoille (pronounced LaMoil; pretend the word "oil" has an "M" in front),
on the beautiful and very jagged west front of the Rubys, is buried deep in
a 400 yard wide swath of cottonwoods. We drive up into Lamoille Canyon and
stop at a geological information stand, but some people are spreading their
uncle's ashes about, and request we leave. Fine. Ten more miles to the 
trailhead, backpack two miles to Lamoille Lake, pass out at 7PM into the
peaceful evening (gets dark to damn early these days). Off in the
distance, Ralph snores.

Up at 6AM. 15 degrees F. Smokey red sunrise. Caffeine and pop tarts.
The broken granite mountains positively glow in the dawnlight. White pines,
tawny slopes. Let's day hike to a peak! OK says Ralph, although exercise is 
not really his lifestyle (Ralph is a Jeep potato). So we pound 7 miles out
and 7 miles back just to summit Wines Peak (10,900 ft, 3300 m) for an OK but 
not excellent view. On the way back we see lots of leaping brook trout in the
lakes (winterkill/stocked each year) and a bird--Chukar? Sage Hen? Prairie
Grouse? One of those. Anyway, not an overwhelming abundance of wildlife. 

Long day hike, may have overextended outselves. Lots of up and down. Mind
wanders, bizarre thoughts. I resolve to name my next dog "Spoke". Ralph 
is dragging badly as we get back in camp after dark. I fix dinner and do
all the work while he rubs his calves and complains. Prairie Grouch. Pass 
out at 8PM.

Day three, up and out. Back at van by 9AM and drive down canyon (transmission 
starts popping out of third gear). Aspens are about 70% gone, the rest green,
yellow, occasional orange. Lamoille canyon is spectacular and I highly 
recommend it. Good glacial action and jagged walls/peaks. Classic 
broken-dam terminal moraine. Almost unNevadalike. But time to leave,
head back home, back west, looking for hot springs along the way. 

Hours later, we're on a two-track in a side canyon. BLM land. Map says hot
springs are near, but it's hard too see past the P-J forest and cow dung.
A truck blocks our path, a rancher eyes us suspiciously (those California 
plates). Hot springs near here? "Private" is his one word response, as he
tries to get a rise out of my front tire with his electric cattle prod 
(nerve endings shot years ago). OKthanks. We turn around.

Well hell. Lets try for these other ones at the edge of the Grass Valley
playa (dry lake bed). Two hours later we spring open a fiddle-tight portagee
gate, drive thru, close gate, and cruise onto the wide-open white playa.
It's hard to be discrete when you're generating a 600 yard dust plume 
("Great Basin doorbell"). Fairly impressive dust cloud inside the van too.
Compass, odometer, and dead reckoning bring us to "Little Hot Springs" at
the west edge of the playa, a soggy mound of warm water, grass, and 
(you guessed it) cow dung. Scratch another.

We finish day three with a drive straight for our favorite well-known 
mid-state hot springs to sip Chateau St. Jean champagne (yuppie scum) and
watch the full moon rise at sunset.

Breakfast in Austin ("Cows Galore in '94"). A town with a hard edge; 
relationships take on a serious nature here, good or bad. So it seems.
Is it this harsh land that has this affect on people? Or is it why they're 
here? Endless questions, academic debate. Time to drive home, be satisfied
with establishing a new chunk of Nevada in our mental maps.



Andy Teetzel           |  andyt@sr.hp.com           | I'm being a little       
Hewlett-Packard        |                            |  facetious here...
Microwave Tech. Div.   |  -Disclaimer, standard,    |   
Santa Rosa, CA         |   one each                 | 
                       |                            |

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