Day 68 (July 21). Great Basin

From: Battle Mountain, NV

To: Eli, NV

Miles today: 238

Total miles: 14210

I spent the entire day riding through “The Great Basin.”  Plus a lot of yesterday, and more tomorrow.  The Great Basin is pretty big; here is a map.  It should not be confused with Great Basin National Park, which I intend to visit tomorrow; this is only a tiny albeit especially interesting fraction of the whole.

A basin, in the geological sense of the word, is a region in which rain that lands there does not eventually end up in an ocean, but rather stays within the region.  Not all of the rain that falls in the US west of the Continental Divide ends up in the Pacific.  What is interesting about the Great Basin, as opposed to (say) Death Valley, is that the entire region is at an elevation of 4 to 10 thousand feet. For those who dealt with calculus in college (or high school), this is your classic “local minimum.” Geologically, the existence of this basin is due as much to the lack of rainfall as to the topology.  If it rained a lot here, the water would fill the basin and overflow it, which would in turn cut channels down to one watershed or another.

Within this structure, the Great Basin has many mountain ranges running north-south, with flat plains in between.  Roads that run north-south, therefore, can stay level most of the way.  I took one such road, NV 305, from Battle Mountain to Austin, Nevada today.  It was a truly beautiful ride, one that reminded me of how lucky I am to be doing this. 

Nevada 305, headed south.  A beautiful ride. 

If you need to go east-west though the Great Basin, however, there is no strait path that avoids these ranges.  Austin, Nevada, is located where NV 305 intersects US Route 50.  I spent about half the trip doing switchbacks over some pass or another, and the other  straight and level heading toward the next range. Here is a topological view of the route that I took today from Austin to Ely, a distance of a bit under 150 miles.

Topographical view of US 50's route though part of Nevada.  No avoiding the ranges.

Despite the discussion about basins and dryness, I rode through thunderstorms all afternoon.  This was alright; the clouds were above the peaks, so my views weren’t blocked the way they were in Alaska, and it made for some dramatic images.  But I did not expect to need my rain gear in Nevada!  The high altitude – some of the passes were 7500 feet, and some of the peaks over 10,000 – insured that the rain was icy cold, sometimes with pea-sized hail.  It was pretty cool.

US 50 headed east.  Storms all afternoon. This is from the "valley."

US 50, near the pass of one of the ranges.  It is lusher up here because this is where the rain actually falls.

I pulled into the town of Eli (pronounced “EE-lee”) at around 4 pm.  Eli is another of these towns that is too essential to let die, but no agriculture and limited mining to support it.  It is on what used to be the main road through Nevada (US 50), but since the big Interstate I-80 went in some 90 miles to the north, this part of Route 50 has picked up the moniker “The Loneliest Highway in America.”  It is not THAT empty, but it has been another part of the bust side of “boom and bust” cycle that all these towns suffer through.  So, it tries to make up some of the difference with casinos.  I may have missed some, but I counted three gas stations and three casinos in Eli.  I walked around inside of one; a few gaming tables, a lot of the electronic computer games that have replaced the slot machines, and alcohol.  I walked out kind of depressed. 

Partial view of Main Street, Eli, Nevada.