From the Black Rock to High Points, 2019 Had Diverse Highlights!

From the Calico Mountains to the Black Rock Range

I jumped into 2019 with grand plans of writing a bikepacking guide to the Black Rock High Rock Emigrant Trail National Conservation Area. With this focus I made 11 trips, primarily to Gerlach, to research routes to recommend the best riding experience. By no means did I cover it all. I am happy with the routes I covered. Fortunately this project didn’t keep me from exploring other parts of the state.

Crossing streams and enjoying flowers in the Desatoya Range

In the middle of Nevada the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest manages portions of the Desatoya, Shoshone, and Toiyabe Ranges. These mountains are only 2-3 hours by car from Reno and so became another focus of my attention in 2019.

A lazy paddle across Walker Lake navigating by features of the Wassuk Range

Looking back on popular posts of 2018 the novelty of bike and packraft, “bikeraft”, trips as well as gravel road riding motivated me to find more suitable routes. My fourth of July trip to Walker Lake was an outstanding adventure.

Looking South from Star Peak, 9,836′, Humboldt Range

My quest to beat the heat became far more creative, and effective in 2019. Mountain tops are often used for radio communication which require service roads. Nevada has so many opportunities to find roads above 9,000’ my summer riding just got better. I found an on-line list of high roads, pursued the ones closest to me, then added a few of my own.

The most popular posts of 2019 were:

Stone hut at Cambridge site, regroup, Walker River Basin

Pushing through the Mahogany Forest, Peavine Mountain

Checking out camping possibilities at Pulpit Rock, Black Rock Desert

I participated in Adventure Cycling’s Bike Travel Weekend and Bike Your Park Day events. For Bike Travel Weekend we followed the Applegate Emigrant Trail from Rye Patch Reservoir to the Black Rock Desert. For Bike Your Park Day we did an overnight in Walker River State Park, Nevada’s newest state park. I plan on continuing these events in 2020.

Looking ahead to 2020, my focus will be on riding on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Indian Reservation. With its close proximity to Reno/Sparks it deserves far more recognition than it gets. A guide to this area is my ultimate goal.

The Walker River Basin and Walker River State Recreation Area are close to the Reno/Carson City cycling populations. Another focus for 2020/21 will be route development in this area. My goal for this would be a much wider recreation base for these land managers.

I did attend and present at the Eastern Sierra Trail Coalition’s annual meeting in conjunction with Nevada Department of Transportation annual bike and pedestrian meeting. The meeting was dubbed Trails, Transportation, and Tourism. It was an amazing 3 day meeting bringing together the area’s most influential people on the topic. I felt the topic of trail building was elevated to a status it deserved. This is an organization I plan to continue with.

I recently started posting routes with Ride with GPS. I think they offer the best platform for sharing specific route information.

If there is anything you would like to see different in this blog I appreciate your feedback.