America's Loneliest Highway

Thursday, 28th March 2013

Map---Cherokee, CA to Ely, NV: 462 miles

We begin our trip by crossing over Lake Oroville, looking reassuringly full this terribly dry year---not that this has any affect on our well. Yet Mother Nature insists on celebrating early, putting Spring on all at once---a blast of bright gold green oak leaves, a generous dose of fragrant silver bush lupine, swaths of pale lavender iris---a sprinkling of orange poppies.  The Sacramento Valley appears below and to the west as we climb Yankee Hill, a mosaic of shadows under passing clouds---a rice elevator catching the sun and shining like a white monument a thirty miles distance.  Beyond, the Coast Range tumbles towards the southwest, ahead of the cold front, growing clearer at a hundred miles and beyond.

Clematis, left and redbud above the Feather River

At Jarbo Gap we drop into the namesake of this highway---the Feather River Canyon.  The wildflowers are usually prime on these rugged south facing walls, but the drought has blooms socializing in hasty disarray, the white plumes of ceanothous waving midst the pink redbud.  Clematis drapes over all, yet the show has just begun if April showers arrive.

The Feather River Highway opened in 1937 as the All Year Route over the Sierras.  The railroad had preceded in 1910, trading avalanches for rock slides and floods. However, the beauty and recreational opportunities of the route could not be denied and resorts from modest to grand sprang up at most every siding.  The opening of the highway gave these places new life, as well as new attractions specifically built for highway traffic.  It was once a very popular vacation destination, but changing tastes in recreation and relaxation made them all more or less obsolete.  Quaint little cabins nestle in lush oak woodlands at Tobin, while a Craftsman lodge stands sentinel above the pines on a granite outcropping at Paxton.  At the latter, dogs deter and warn the renters of any intrusion.

An exception of this fate lies east of the canyon and Quincy---in an area already well-known for expensive vacation homes and attending recreations.  The Feather River Inn was built in 1914 in a quasi Bavarian-Craftsman style and like all the others had fallen into shabbiness, if not abandonment.  However, due to the monied locals, investors saw the potential in restoration---which has turned into a long process due to the general economy and attention required to bring back a lodge akin to those at Crater Lake or Yellowstone.  The end is in sight, however, and the golf course has been restored and reopened---surely the best way to start drawing interest again.

Restoration of the Feather River Inn

Beyond Portola the landscape turns to high desert rimmed by snowy peaks.  The highway crests at 5,221 feet at Beckworth Pass, the lowest pass over the Sierras.  Almost two thousand feet lower than Donner Pass, it's easy see why this was the 'All Year Route'---and why the route was taken over for a time in the 1950s by the US highway system as US 40A, the alternate of US 40 over Donner Pass. 

We arrived in Reno at noon, just in time to see the crowds moving along the gritty sidewalks towards the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Room.  We always frequent the classiest parts of town, you know.  Our interest was not in a meal but St. Vinnie's thrift store, where we usually find something of interest.  This time Roland found a noisy brass dinner triangle for $3, which ought to be handy in getting his attention while he's out on 'the back four' at our Rancho Notorious.

A billboard for Golden Gate Gas at $3.59 a gallon drew us off I-80 between Sparks and Fernley.  I forced as much gasoline as I could into our dowager Patsy Prius, knowing that would be the cheapest we'd see for the next 500 miles or so.  She managed 47.7 MPG---very respectable for some 150 miles of modest climbing.

The saline flats on US 50A between Fernley and Fallon is a good place to take a nap, which I did---in the passenger seat, of course.  And one must stop at the Dairy Queen in Fallon because there isn't another for the aforementioned 500 miles.  Our shared Blizzard of the Day was Tropical: Banana, coconut and pecans.  You'll notice a pattern to this in the coming days...

And so now we commence on the titular highway, America's Loneliest.  Don't you believe it.  If you want Nevada lonely, try US 6 between Tonopah and Ely: 168 miles of nothing except one tiny gas station that might be open.  "America's Loneliest Highway", US 50, has two towns and two gas station/cafe/motels in 257 miles.  There is always enough traffic to feel less than alone, although occasionally it strangely disappears for some dozen miles at a time.

The Loneliest Road in America was named by Life magazine in July 1986. Meant as an insult, Nevada and the towns along the route have been capitalizing on it ever since---with oxymoronic results, of course.  But when one's eyes wander from the pavement this is truly a vast, empty land---a land where modernity drops away and history vibrates: The Pony Express, the Lincoln Highway.  More people lived here a hundred and fifty years ago than today, which says both a little and a lot.  For the folks passing us at 75 MPH, it says little except for they can't get through it fast enough.  At our prescribed 60 MPH, time is swallowed up in this immense panorama---vacillating between inertia and hoof dust---flat tires and rumble seats. 

At Middlegate Station, one of the eat here and get gas places, there is a decision to be made.  The city ahead, Austin, thought it worthwhile to erect a huge billboard to direct you to the right on the old Lincoln Highway, now celebrating its hundredth anniversary.   This route, now Nevada 722, is only 1.2 miles longer than the modern highway, but an entirely different driving experience as it curls over alpine Carroll Summit and then along a lush creek side landscape before reentering the desert.  Along the way one passes the quaint stone ranch house at Eastgate.  I suppose the refreshing scenery would make for happier tourists once they reach Austin, and having traveled on it before I agree it should be done---but both routes offer history.

Lincoln Highway Association
 

Looking east from Mt. Airy Summit---North Toyiabe Peak

We stay on the newer alignment US 50, like most everyone else does.  This follows the Pony Express (1860-61) route, passing adobe remains of their stations along the way.  The change in the landscape in this direction is negligible: The desert greens slightly, particularly around Cold Springs Station---another gas 'n' eat place as well as a Pony Express stop.  The locale has an interesting vibe in the afternoon light, as if it's a natural place to stop and rest in spite of the tundra-like landscape.  More adobe ruins are found to the west of Mount Airy, but it's likely these date to just after the days of the Pony Express.


Austin is a quaint little town perched on the steep sides of Pony Canyon.  For all its ghostly shabbiness there are surprises, such as a good salad with avocado at the historic International Cafe & Bar.  Its population hovers around 340, a far cry from 10,000 during the summer of silver in 1863.

US 50 makes a steep, serpentine climb out of Austin and then descends into another broad valley---this one called Smoky.  There are only four more passes to climb and descend and as many valleys to cross before we reach Ely. Mother Nature pulls a veil of verga over her face and one's focus adjusts to the foreground, where a lone white wild stallion poses in the sagebrush.  Miles on there's a whole heard of wild horses, or antelope mooning you with their white rears.

Roberts Creek Mountain at 60 MPH---out the driver's side window and north of US 50

Eureka is a larger town with more interesting architecture, but the locals seem far scruffier.  A whole herd of them is rushing across Main Street and into the Opera House, as if Sarah Bernhardt just came into town for a surprise performance.  I espied a cute Victorian cottage down a side street, which starts us on a circular tour of the residential neighborhoods.  At close range the cottage is abandoned and sinking into the ground, which seems the fate of most of the older homes.  This one is spending its golden years in a slump of a funk, having to stare at the ugly tan trailer across the street.

Looking west across Long Valley on US 50

The verga lifts at Huntington Valley and Roberts Creek Mountain shines to the north.  Pancake Summit, then Little Antelope Summit.  The sun lowers behind a bank of black clouds and headlights play in the distance across Long Valley.  One last summit, Robinson, and it's the highest at 7,588 feet.  Patsy starts to roar and her synergy monitor shows her in a state of purple angina.  I release her from cruise control and let her little gasoline motor hum along at 50 MPH.

We crest and descend at close to coasting, passing through the ghost town of Lane City and its abandoned concrete block school standing in the blue dusk.  The Loneliest Highway curves and the government grant light standards of Ely appear, coming close together a mile on down Altman Street.  They cast a bright coral glow, and the green and red neon signs add a busy, nostalgic note to otherwise empty streets.  Here and there a crowd appears---at the starkly Deco Central Theater, at the Silver State Cafe---but the size of the city belies the fact that it contains only 4,250 residents.  The mid-2000s boom in copper is off, and once again a cottage can be bought for $25,000.

For all her strain and electric coasting, Patsy averaged 53.3 MPG from Clark (east of Sparks) to Ely.