For my last post on my Great American Southwest tour, I would like to share my impression of traversing Nevada from south to north. My return trip from Tucson to Post Falls Idaho took three days with overnight stops in Las Vegas and Twin Falls so essentially the entire second day was spent in Nevada. I expected to be treated to endless views of sage brush and not much else. I was pleasantly surprised.
Almost as soon as I left Las Vegas, I also left the interstate and turned off on US-93. Las Vegas is in my opinion one of the last places I would ever like to visit in the United States and yes I don’t gamble. It was surprisingly difficult to find a hotel off of the highway and extremely expensive. As soon as I hit the two lane the scenery improved dramatically.
I wish I had time to stop and explore. Nevada is a big state and I needed to make time. There were a lot of signs pointing the way on side roads to small towns and state parks.
The towns I drove through were very nice and some had amazing historical buildings right along the highway. The few people I dealt with were extremely pleasant as well. Like in much of the United States there is a big difference in the attitudes between urban America and it’s hinterlands. I’ll take the latter every time.
It was a big country with big scenery. Much of the trip was in higher elevation areas with dwarf juniper and pine forest. There was a lot less real desert than Arizona and New Mexico. At the south end of the trip I drove through miles of Joshua tree forest but didn’t think to stop for a photo or two.
About a third of the way through, I crossed over a pass and enjoyed the distant views of Wheeler Peak, a 13,000 foot mountain in the middle of Great Basin National Park. It looked like the mother ship was floating above it.
Unfortunately this was as close as I got to the national park. I’m making a list for next summer and Great Basin suddenly is on my radar. Too bad it’s a two day drive for me to get there.
Great Basin National Park from the west looking east.
After the turn off for the national park, I headed west and hit clear blue skies again. It seemed like Nevada had one beautiful mountain range after another, all of which begged to be explored.
Some of the passes I drove over were above seven thousand feet above sea level. That’s higher than the mountain tops in my neck of the woods.
In the distance I saw the Ruby Mountains which are crowned by an awesome wilderness area and on the other side of which is the Lamoille Canyon Scenic Byway, another place that needs to be explored in the future.
And in the valleys I did get to see sage brush, lots of sage brush.
As I was on a time limit I didn’t get to explore or hike on my way through Nevada. To be honest I had no idea how beautiful the drive was before I made it. Sometimes when your expectations aren’t super high, you come across a place that exceeds them in every way. I would really like to make it back here next fall for a multiday adventure.
And so ended my six week long Great American Southwest trip.
