TREK 360 - April 3 2018
180403 - Trek 360 - Coyote Canyon, East Lee Canyon, Wonder Mountain
Reid’s Dodge just wasn’t working this morning sowe took Jacob’s F-150 stretch cab 4x4 along with my 4Runner. The crew was Jacob, Sierra, Whitney, Reid and myself. The plan was to go up into Dixie Valley, take a left to Coyote Canyon, then double back and look for a “Jeep trail” to East Lee Canyon., Then head back west to Dixie valley Road, run back south and then head north-east up to Wonder Mountain.
Anyhow we got sort of a late start (about 10:30) and headed east from Fernley to Fallon. A brief stop to gas up the Ford and we continued east thru Fallon, past Sand Mountain, over Sand Springs Pass, across Labou Flat and the naval bombing range and then north up Dixie Valley Road. I missed the turn at first to Coyote Canyon and had to double back about a mile. I was distracted chatting with Jacob about the history, geology, earthquakes, etc in the area.
Coyote Canyon is a picturesque canyon with a little hunters cabin, lots of pines, a neat rock “gate” formed by the fault running along the base of the canyon. Last earthquake (actually three of them in about 24 hours) shifted Stillwater and Fairview Peak Ranges about 30 feet for about 100 miles in the 1950s. We explored a bit and then proceeded to look for a “jeep trail” that would take us south a bit to East Lee Canyon. By the way on the way across the flat we followed three antelope for probably 1/4 mile as they meandered just ahead of us.
I found the trail rather quickly. It was moderately challenging, Had to do most of it in first and second gear, low range, as it crossed a lot of ravines crossing the alluvial fan of Coyote Creek. After about three miles we came to the trail into East Lee Canyon. Instead of an alluvial fan the mouth of this canyon is a 1/4 mile wide flat bottomed wash bounded by gravel cliffs on both sides. We went along a trail on the south gravel cliff for a ways until it appeared that it might never join the trail in the wash bottom. We doubled back and followed the wash bottom trail. Evidently this trail goes on to the summit of the range about 12 miles in. We only went about four miles and turned back to Dixie Valley.
After joining the Dixie Valley Road agin we went south and turned off east and then north to Wonder Mountain. Wonder Mountain is the site of extensive gold and silver mines between the Louderback Mountains and the west branch of the Clan Alpine Mountains. We spent quite a bit of time wandering around the diggins and exploring the remains of the mill site.
After leaving Wonder we travelled around the east side of Chalk Mountain; silver, lead and zinc mines, We got back to highway 50 at about 4:30. Headed home from there, got back to Fernley at about 6:00pm. A very good day!
arty:
