150218 – 4R Trek 269 – To Elephant Head Rock, Lava Beds Camp, and the Black Rock Desert via Seven Troughs and Lovelock.

Looking forward to this trek I woke up at about 5:00am. Reid and I met at 8:00 and set out towards Lovelock. At 9:00 we gassed up and then spent about ½ hour filling ourselves up on the Ranchers Special Breakfast. Once you’ve put down the eggs, bacon, ham, hash browns, biscuits and gravy and a few cups of coffee you’re ready for the rest of the day.

We headed west out of town, over the top of Trinity Pass, out across Sage Hen Valley, then on over the pass through the Seven Troughs at Vernon to Porter Springs. From there it was due north up Granite Springs Valley to a trail running over the top of the Five Troughs Range just north of Dead Horse Spring. This range is all granite. In fact the next range to the west is also all granite even though it goes by the inappropriate name of the Lava Beds.

The run this morning is full of wildlife for a change; we’ve come across several groups of donkeys, antelope, and lots of cattle plus a herd of about 30 horses running ahead of us as we climb to the ridge top. Once we’re on top and descending towards the narrow valley between the mountain ranges we catch a glimpse of the granite monoliths on top of the Lava Beds including the Elephant Head.

The tube steps below the sills on the 4Runner are catching hell. The brackets are scraping across the granite outcrops on the trail. Not much you can do when the step brackets are only 9 inches above the ground and the granite stand more than a foot high between the wheels.

Once on top the Lava Beds near the Elephant head we drive down a dead end trail that goes a couple miles down Trail Canyon. The country is just full of granite outcroppings. Once we’ve had our fill of that we turn back and make our way to the Elephant Head. We take a bit of a lunch break their and admire the scenery.

Leaving the Elephant Head we run north and west across the top of the range through the granite and check out the steep trail that descends to Eagle Springs and the Lava Beds Cowboy Camp. The descent looks safe so we go on down. Part way down there’s a bit of a wash out between granite boulders and I really beat up the tube step mounts.

A brief rest at the cowboy camp and we drive north along Lava Beds Creek Wash to the east of Pahsupp Mountain and come out on the south shore of the Black Rock near Cholona. From there we’re in 2 wheel drive running south west towards Gerlach. We make a brief stop at Trego to look at the warm springs pools and then it’s on to the junction south of Gerlach.

We do not stop in Gerlach; we turn south and take the highway back to Fernley via Winnemucca Lake, Nixon and Wadsworth. The entire trek today has been about 240 miles; about 80 of it in the dirt.