160616 – Trek 309 – Fairview Peak, Highland Mine and Smith Creek Valley.
Left before 7:30 and headed east through Fallon; over Sand Springs Pass; over Drumm Summit and turned south up to the saddle south of Fairview Peak. The saddle is about 6500 feet elevation; the top of the peak is at 8303 feet elevation. I had thought about driving to the top before but was usually stopped by snow. The road to the top is quite steep and composed of very loose talus and is maybe two miles long. This time it looks doable. By the way: quite a few antelope around.
Immediately the road is puckery. It climbs at about 25% and you are kicking out lots of rocks. The A-trac gets involved quite a bit. At about 7500 feet I spot a utility trucks inching its way down. I stop and begin backing down the mountain. Perhaps 50 yards down I find a wide spot at a switchback and turn around and head back down. When I get back down to the saddle I pull out of the way hoping he’ll stop for a minute. No luck he just goes on by. By now I’ve had enough adrenaline pumping so decide not to try again.
I head back down to the main road and head east again past Middlegate and Eastgate. At the Buffalo Canyon turn I head south again. The Buffalo Canyon evidently had a good rain a few days ago. There are a lot of washouts to cross. The road generally crosses Buffalo Creek many times to the summit at about 6800 feet.
From the summit I turn to the north-west and check out a couple of old mines and cabins. For the next dozen miles I’m spending a lot of time searching for the correct track. The tracks are quite overgrown form non use. Eventually I reach the ranches along highway 722 (Lander County). From there I take 722 and 50 back to Fernley. The days trek has been a bit over 200 miles with perhaps 30 in low range.
Antelope family
Fairview saddle
Smith Creek Valley - the trails get a bit hard to locate.
