Carson City to Ely on US 50.
A long day and a long drive. A lonely one too.
US 50 stretches from West Sacramento, California, in the west, to Ocean City, Maryland, on the east coast. 3,007 miles. In Blue Highways (a great read and one of the best of the road trip genre) author William Least Heat-Moon wrote about US 50 and thought it the best national road across the US for the unhurried. It’s been called the “backbone of America”.
The portion of US 50 through Nevada – 380 long miles from Carson City to Baker – is known as “The Loneliest Road in America” and mostly follows the path of its predecessor, the Lincoln Highway. This is pretty desolate terrain. Really desolate.
By way of comparison, all the way from San Francisco to Los Angeles is also 380 miles; Munich to Berlin is about 365 miles; Paris to Bordeaux is about 360 miles; and Boston through New York to Philadelphia is only 310 miles. I could go on. It’s a long drive with one crucial difference besides the nothingness – the almost complete absence of traffic. German friends and family, there’s no Stau on this road. I took it almost all the way and survived 320 miles of it (getting off 50 at Ely where I cut north to continue on the route of the Lincoln after an overnight).
Some say it is one of the most compelling long distance drives in the country. If the goal is to escape from strip malls, Burger Kings (and other fast food places), Dollar Stores and all the other roadside detritus along all too many roads these days, this is the one. No Walmarts on this route. I read that the closest Walmart to my destination, Ely, is in Elko 190 miles away, one way.
The Top Gear team drove it for a show in 2008. I drove it, too…here’s a map from the State of Nevada site (with distances):
I like to include people in these posts. The ones I meet and speak with. Not this post. There weren’t too many people about. Other than when I tanked up in Eureka, I don’t think I spoke with anyone. That excludes talking to myself, of course. Indeed, there was a stunning absence of people.
It’s long stretches of high mountain desert, and then over the mountain summits between them. Then back to the valleys and basins. Sand, mountains and sky. The occasional mining town. Austin Summit at 7,484 feet (2,281 m), east of Austin in the Toiyabe Range, was the highest summit. There were several others over 7,000 feet (2,134 m). Up and down…
I was caught in some snow when I drove over Spooner Summit on my way to Carson City from Lake Tahoe earlier in the day, but fortunately it was only occasional rain on the Loneliest Road and no snow over the mountain passes.
It’s mostly a vast emptiness. Miles and miles and miles of it.
Dayton. Stagecoach. Silver Springs. Fallon. Middlegate. Austin. Stillwater. Eureka…
Dayton (population 8,694) and Fallon (population 8,606) are really the only places of any meaningful size on the whole drive on 50 to the Utah border. Each is almost a metropolis. Many of these places are former mining towns. They are quiet. Very quiet. Some are little more than ghost towns.
In a photo in this set there’s one of the massive number of slag heaps that were left by the miners in some of these towns (and elsewhere).
Ely, with a population of 4,255, is another gotham, as is Stagecoach (1,874). Otherwise these are tiny little dots in the vastness of the high desert. Eureka, population 610. Austin, 192. Middlegate, 12…
Don’t plan on too much cellular service on this drive. Don’t get low on fuel either – it’s a road where it’s important to make sure the tank is full when starting out, and then be sure to top it up at one of the very few stations along the way. A breakdown is a huge problem, as I understand it. Particularly in the summer heat. Supposedly, Nevada even issues a “survival guide” to the road.
Here and there one sees the Lincoln Highway commemorated. This was its route. Imagine taking that route in a 1920s Model T.
I finally arrived in Ely in the evening 320 miles later and got these night shots at the end of the set. I was ready for a driving break. And a drink.
More Ely pics from the next day next post.
