Day 5 - Hamilton to Cave Lake state park

The Heater in the van earned it's keep last night, that is for SURE! it was 18 degrees when I got up this morning. I tried to go for a short hike, but decided to save my outdoor time for somewhere a bit more interesting.

On top of being cold, it snowed a little bit last night, not a lot, and the gravel road that I was on was passable, so I decided that I would drive the 10 miles up the mountain to check out the ghost town of Hamilton Nevada. I did the whole drive in two-wheel drive mode, promising myself that if I had to switch to Four Wheel Drive, I would turn around and head back the way I came. Never even came close to having to do that, this van is treating us very, very well.

Hamilton was not as much of a ghost town as I was expecting, just a couple of torn-down old stone buildings and an abandoned steel building. Later, I would find out that before it became part of the public lands, it was owned by a guy who was crazy about old bottles, so he bulldozed all of the buildings looking for stuff hidden under them.

So after poking around Hamilton, and hiking up a road that I didn't want to take the van on, I left on a different road than I came in on, and headed for the Belmont Mill. The road was a little rougher than the one to Hamilton, but still passable. The mill was really cool, and I enjoyed crawling all over it. Apparently, it was stabilized by the Park Service in 2012 with new foundations in some spots and bracing and reinforcements.

Then it was back to highway 50 - the lonliest road in the united states and towards Ely Nevada. Upon arriving in Ely, I made a beeline to the Northern Nevada train museum. Wow, what a special place this is. It was part of the copper mining ecosystem, and it is a complete railroad from the steam era. The machine shop is open for walking into and is actively used to maintain and restore steam engines. I met the shop foreman and had a wonderful chat with him as he showed me all the machines and the work they are doing on the trains in the shop.

After getting my fill of the machine shop, and the museum (and another wonderful conversation with the director of the museum) I headed for a quick meal.

I had planned to make it to Cathedral Gorge State Park today, but that is another 90 miles. It would have been dark by the time I got there, so I asked Cameron, the guy serving me lunch, for a recommendation for somewhere closer. He suggested Cave Lake State Park, and it has not disappointed me. I managed to set up camp (which, in the Van, means backing in and turning off the motor) in the last sunny spot in the campground, just as the sun was setting behind the mountains.

Tomorrow the plan is to head towards Mesquite Nevada.