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At Elgin, the Carp/ Elgin road started out as a
nicely graded gravel road, passable by even the least-capable
street bike. Within a few miles however, it became
apparent |
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The Carp/ Elgin road is a
well maintained gravel road in the vicinity of Elgin, Nevada |
that the small docile stream running next to the
road, recently had PMS and destroyed everything in the canyon,
including sections of this dirt road, and then had returned to the
sweet little docile stream that was there now.
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Being that this road also parallels the Union
Pacific Railroad for much of its length, it was very apparent of
how much clout the railroad still has. Anywhere the road
was near the tracks, the road had |
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The little sweet stream in
Rainbow Canyon can turn into a raging demonic torrent in a
matter of seconds. |
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already been repaired to pristine condition, whereas
sections away from the tracks were just a rough trail constructed
through the flood debris. After several
miles of narrow, winding canyon roadway, the canyon widens into a
large flood plain with the Carp/ Elgin Road on one side, and the
railroad on the other side. The lush green river channel
changes to sage and Joshua tree forests intermingled with cacti and
rattlesnakes. The road appeared to be destroyed in this area
as well, since gravel road segments could be seen on the hills
adjacent to the current roadway which passed through deep sand and
rough rocky sections in the flood plain.
I was especially interested in this area, as
during my limited research of this route I stumbled upon a website
that told about an A-12 spy plane that crashed in this area in 1967.
The A-12 was a cold war era, CIA titanium aircraft capable of speeds
up to mach 3.5. The A-12 was the more top secret predecessor
to the SR-71 Blackbird. Apparently one crashed here
during a training mission run out of Groom Lake. The full
story can be read
here.
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