KNPB Home
|
||||||
      |
|
|
| The
Trip: At the mouth of Eagle Creek Canyon we arrive to meet Dave Schuller, the owner of Rocksport Indoor Climbing Center. Dave is an seasoned climber and climbing instructor, he’ll help guide us through some top-rope ascents. The rock we’ll be climbing is called 90 Foot Wall. The name makes it seems pretty clear, but oddly enough the wall itself is only 70-feet tall.
Rock Climbing is an absorbing sport. As you move up the wall, your focus is totally on finding hand and foot holds. As you concentrate on maintaining balance and making your next move, the rest of the world falls away. With Dave Schuller’s help we climb a few routes and with exhausted limbs and a high level of exhilaration we head back around the lake to Sand Harbor for our next adventure. It’s a simple drive from Emerald Bay to Sand Harbor. We just retrace the eight miles to Highway 50, follow it 17 miles to the junction of State Route 28, then take SR28 for nine more miles to Sand Harbor. Walt
Washington of Great
Basin Sports meets us at the Sand Harbor beach for some lake kayaking.
Walt is a prepared and experienced outfitter and provides us with all
the gear we’ll need for the outing. Walt gives us paddling points on our way to one of the lake’s interesting landmarks. Sitting on a secluded and rocky section of the shore is Thunderbird Lodge. The estate dates back to a time when members of wealthy San Francisco society built vacation homes on the lake. The prominent Nevada architect Frederick DeLongchamps designed it for George Whittel with a natural look intending to blend the house in with the surroundings. The Thunderbird Lodge is a collection of six historic buildings, from the lodge itself to the boathouse. The lodge is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and the estate is owned and operated by the Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society. Tours of the estate are available from May to September.
On the second day of the trip, we make the quick drive from Carson City to Dayton. We just follow Highway 50 east for eleven miles into town and the Dayton Historic Society Museum. Stoney Tennant, a 40-year resident of Dayton has agreed to show us around the historic community. Dayton, which has long argued with Genoa for the bragging rights of being Nevada’s first community, was the site of many Nevada firsts. It was the location of the first marriage and the first dance, which took place at Hall’s Station and drew a crowd of 159 people. There must have been a lot of wallflowers though — only nine of them were female. Nevada’s first cemetery is located nearby on a site that was also part of the emigrant trail. Dayton was an ideal location as a trading center because of its proximity to both the Carson River, which allowed the processing of ore. The nearby forest gave cord wood for heat and steam powered engines. Dayton’s population grew to twenty-five hundred in the early 1860s. By the turn of the century farms and ranches provided produce and grain for both the Comstock and Carson City. But by the 1950s there were only two hundred people here as the local economy faltered. Today, Dayton is experiencing a come-back in growth and population. Stoney has told us a lot about Dayton, but even with all we’ve seen and heard, there’s still more to explore. The museum offers a detailed walking tour marked with nearly 30 sites of interest. Our time here is up, so it’s back to the highway for us. From Dayton we return to Highway 50 and retrace four miles to the junction of State Route 341. A right turn takes us north for almost four more miles to Silver City. We meet Rich Moreno, the publisher of Nevada Magazine, who has written articles about both of the places we’ll visit — Silver City and Gold Hill.
Gold Hill is just a couple of miles further up the road.The train still runs between Gold Hill and Virginia City every day, so visitors can get a taste of what it was like in the old days. Although much of Gold Hill’s past is gone due to fire, neglect and relocation, there is enough here still for an entertaining afternoon of exploration. We’re glad Rich was here to share the end of our trip with us. Thanks to the advisors and contributors of Wild Nevada Program #208:
|
||
This
trip starts in South Lake Tahoe. We set out with an extremely scenic
drive west for about seven miles on Highway 50. At the junction of Highway
89, we take a right and continue on for eight more miles until we arrive
in Emerald Bay. 
There
are climbing routes of varying degrees of difficulty on different areas
of the rock. Beginning climbers as well as those with moderate experience
should find something to challenge them here. There are anchors stationed
at the top of the cliff. 
The
afternoon is waning as we head back to Sand Harbor. Once back, we’ll
return to Highway 50 and Carson City for the night. 
Silver
City never hit the heights of it’s neighbors Virginia City and
Gold Hill, so it remained a smaller community that topped out at about
twelve hundred people in the early eighteen sixties. Today the town
displays much of its history in some of the houses and other buildings
that remain. There is also a marker remembering