Road Trip Across Nevada

 We went to Moab, Utah last weekend, but in order to get to Moab we first had to cross 400 miles of northern Nevada desert. This was not our first trip east across Nevada, we know the road pretty well, but lately we have started taking travel guides along with us to discover new things along the way.

Our first stop was the Carlin Angular Unconformity.  We have actually stopped here before, but it is always amazing to me that between the reddish sandstone layers in the shadow and the white limestone/sandstone formation in the sunlight roughly 50 million years in the geologic record is missing.

Our next stop was Lamoille Canyon just south of Elko.  Just a few miles from I-80 we came over the hill to see a beautiful panorama of the snow capped Ruby mountains and the green valley of Spring Creek.

It was spring in the valley, but still winter in Lamoille Canyon

Snow on the road stopped us from going to the top, but we were able to take a short nature walk where we saw spring welling out of the ground, you can kind of see water welling up in the middle of the pond. 

A couple of beaver dams captured the water to make a pond before it joined the stream headed down the canyon.

 

And we had great views of a hanging valley left by a side glacier

We tried to go to Angel Lake just south of Wells, but the road was still closed by snow, so we took a short side trip north of Wells to Thousand Springs Valley to see the route of the California Trail. I image it looks about the same as it did in the 1850s. This is right on the edge of the Winecup Gamble Ranch which currently covers roughlyone million acres. It is still a working cattle ranch. It was owned briefly by actor Jimmy Stewart.

So much to see just a few miles off the interstate.