Nevada: Arc Dome - The trip that wasn't - July 2019
I got stuck in the mud about 2 miles short of the trailhead and after three futile hours of trying to dig out concluded I was going to need a tow truck. Being in the middle of nowhere -- 60 miles off "The Loneliest Road in America", up a 4WD road, and far from a cell phone signal -- I used my inReach SOS to get help. I hit that button at about 7:45 PM Friday. The car was free 19 hours later. But by then I was personally and automotively covered with enough dirt that I opted just to retreat home. The pictures are from shortly after the extraction. I'll not describe all the events except to say I came out with the highest respect for several parties: the inReach device itself; the GEOS folks who were at the other end of the satellite communication link; Emily from the Forest Service who was the first responder in the wee small hours of Saturday morning; and Travis from Woody's Towing in Hawthorne who did the dirty work and made it happen Saturday when, for a while, it looked like no one could come until Monday. (I, of course, also came out with some concerns about my own judgement.) The Toiyabe Range a pretty place. I hope to get back to do the planned hike ... under better circumstances.
The wrecker that pulled me out of the mud, with Travis from Woody's Towing in Hawthorne.
The rut that got me. I didn't get a shot with the car in situ.
That mud is soft and deep. At one point I stepped into a very wet spot and sunk to my knee. The car sunk in farther than this picture might suggest. What can I say? It didn't look *that* bad ... but I sure should have gotten out to check.
A third view of the rut. Before calling for help I tried to gain traction by putting pieces of dead sagebrush under the wheels. As this shows, I stuffed a lot of wood down there. It didn't help. Nor did any of the other things I tried.
After calling for help and describing the situation to the GEOS folks, I just had to wait. I set up my tent about 100' off the road in that flat. I didn't sleep. Emily arrived about 2:30 AM and evacuated me to Austin where I could coordinate the wrecker. (She had already made some calls.) Travis picked me up there around 1 PM the next afternoon.
Heading out now. This was taken about a mile along. My car spent the night in the first draw just below, a ways back. (The road was fine until I entered that draw.) A very pretty juniper, sagebrush, and pinyon pine landscape.
The view looking a little to the right of the last. This was taken a few hundred feet farther along the road by a cattle guard. Columbine Campground is just in front (and below) that highest bump on the center right. My sticky spot was in the draw directly downhill, but from this angle, off-picture to the left.
Just a little farther on, maybe 800' north of the cattle guard, a third view back, this one looking even a bit farther right.
And from that same spot, a view the other way. No road issues here. That's Reese River Valley in the distance. State Route 21 runs through it. But the names may mislead: the Reese River is just a creek and SR21 is not paved.
One last view of the Toiyabe Range, this one from the west side of the Reese River Valley. I'm on SR 844 (unpaved, of course), about a mile SE of SR21. The highest point is Arc Dome.
