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Nevada Highway 93 & Dirt Byways - 2004

This tour had been in the planning stages ever since my brother decided to enter the SCORE Las Vegas Primm 300 off-road race in Primm, Nevada.  I started to plan a cool dual-sport motorcycle route from Salt Lake City, Utah to Primm, Nevada, located on I-15 on the Nevada/ California boarder.  As with the planning of most tours, I sat down at Starbucks with a pile of maps and picked every obscure road I could find between Primm and Salt Lake City.  My limitations were that I had to reach Primm in one day and I didn't want to ride roads which I had ridden before (which is luckily becoming harder and harder to accomplish!).  I ended up linking several different roads and trails into a fairly straight shot between Salt Lake City and Primm.

I started riding about 8AM from Salt Lake City, south on I-15.  I left the interstate in south Salt Lake and road Utah Highway 68 to link up with US Highway 50.  These roads are very familiar to me, but they are at least two-lane roads with more twists and better scenery than the interstate.  In Delta, Utah I stopped to refuel for the long ride across the remote southeast Nevada desert.  I met an older gray-haired gentleman on a Yamaha sport bike with a skateboard and gear strapped to the back.  My first thought was that I hope I am is active as this guy when I am his age - riding a 1000-cc sport bike and skateboarding.  Turns out his grandson, who lives in Sacramento, California,  left his skateboard with him during his last visit and this guy was riding Highway 50 across Nevada to return it to him.  I could tell this guy was a serious rider due the fact that serious riders look for any excuse to ride.  We agreed that his decision was wise and taking the skateboard back to his grandson on a motorcycle was much better than the $5 postage it would have required to send the skateboard back in the mail.

After giving the guy some route suggestions to get to Sacramento, I departed the gas station on Highway 50 to Nevada.  I

 had just burned a new minidisk with some great songs, so I cranked the volume as I rode across the sage covered dry-lake bottoms and desert mountain passes of the House and Confusion ranges.  About an hour and a half later, I was riding past 13,068-Ft Wheeler Peak, just across the Nevada-Utah State line.  A small dusting of snow capped its summit and temperatures were in the comfortable 80s.  After descending from Sacramento Summit in the Snake Range, I turned off Highway 50 on Nevada HWY 39, which is also known as South Spring Valley Road.  This is a very nondescript turnoff with nothing around but a couple of run-down single-wides.

After turning off the highway, I pulled out my maps and setup my GPS.  Even with all the planning I had done for this trip, I could not find any two maps that agreed on what roads or trails crossed the section of desert between Highway 50 and Pioche (Pee-'ōch), Nevada.  The common route through this area is Highway 93, but being an uncommon guy, I wanted something a little more interesting and preferred to ride on dirt.  Still uncertain of what lied ahead, I headed south on a narrow dirt road, leaving the remoteness of Highway 50  and heading towards even greater solitude.

Fall Colors on the Playa.  Wheeler Peak in the Background.

The dirt road paralleled the Snake Range, and the west face of Mt. Wheeler and its flanks towered above me.  The mountains were dotted with patches of bright yellow and red as the aspens and shrubs in the area were starting to don their fall colors.  The desert floor was full of vibrate yellow blossoms and remained relatively green due the wet summer we have been experiencing.  Consistent with the map, the small dirt road intersected pavement at Highway 897, and I continued south towards Minerva, Nevada.

A short distance later, I arrived at the ghost town of Minerva, Nevada. 

This is where the road turns to dirt and disappears from several maps.  The topo map-base in my GPS showed several roads in the area, as did the new Nevada atlas I purchased for this trip, so I continued on into the middle of nowhere.  The roads where hard-packed gravel and relatively smooth, supporting speeds of 50 to 60 mph on my R1150GS.  Luckily most of the major intersections were marked with BLM signs, which eliminated some of the guess work between my

Atlanta, NV Turnoff

GPS and the atlas maps.  After about 20 miles and a couple turnoffs, I ended up on a dirt road heading towards Atlanta, Nevada.  This road started in the middle of a playa, and seemed to be relatively hard-packed, that is until I flew over a rise in the road and found myself in the middle of a wet section of alkali mud.  Alkali mud is like concrete when dry, but add a few drops of moisture to it and it turns slicker than ice.  As you can image, riding into this stuff at 50 mph on a 600 pound bike is not a good idea, but I did it anyway (due to a lack of options).  Luckily everything ended up okay, and I learned my lesson to check my speed over the subsequent rises.

After about 10 miles of periodic mud, the road finally climbed out of the playa and ran along the east side of the Fortification Mountain Range.  I road past canyons containing massive monoliths of white stone and

Sandstone Amphitheatre

 amphitheatres of weathered sandstone.  The road left the sage covered desert floor and started to weave through juniper forests.  This  area would be awesome to explore on foot, but I only had time to take a few pictures.

Mining Remnants in Atlanta, NV

 A few miles later, the road took a sharp bend around a massive tailings pile.  Once on top, I realized that the tailings  were from an open-pit mine.  To the west stood an old mill and several old cable operated excavators.  This area is what is referred to as Atlanta, Nevada and the mine is the Atlanta Mine.  South of the mill, a small community of single-wide trailers was tucked against the hillside.  Judging by the close proximity of Silver Park, Nevada, I assume that this mine and mill were silver-mining related.

After climbing over Atlanta Summit (7,356 Feet), the road gradually began to straighten as it dropped from the mountains down onto the surrounding playa; eventually linking up with Highway 93.  The next town south on Highway 93 was Pioche, Nevada.  I took the "business" loop through downtown.  Pioche is a quaint little mining town with some historic buildings, a couple cafes, and a lot of old mines and mining equipment.  Several of the "new" homes are built directly on tailing piles.  I would expect that there are a lot of two-headed cats and three-armed people in this community due to the soil contamination from the mines, but I did not see any on my short ride through town.  At the edge of town, there is an intact aerial tramway that was used to move ore from Gold Hill to the mill formerly located in Pioche.  After spending about 10-minutes in Pioche, I continued on to Caliente, Nevada.  A short ways out of town, Highway 93 passes Cathedral Valley, which doesn't look like much from the road, but is a pretty cool place to stop and check out.

As I rode into Caliente, the thunderstorms that had been looming on the horizon finally let loose.  I refueled and hung out under the gas station canopy waiting for a break in the weather.  I pulled out the maps to make a decision of whether to stay on Highway 93, or head for some more dirt south of Caliente.  The storms had me a little worried, but I opted for the more adventurous route anyway, and I'm glad I did.

At the southern edge of Caliente, I left Highway 93 and rode Nevada Highway 317 through Rainbow Canyon towards Elgin, Nevada.  This route is actually more direct than staying on Highway 93 since 93 makes a large jog west at Caliente before heading south again.  Needless to say, my worries about the weather

Rainbow Canyon, South of Caliente, NV

 grew as the road dipped through a stream in several spots with flashflood warning signs scattered about.  The beauty of Rainbow Canyon made me forget about the torrential rain I was riding through and the possibility of being washed downstream to Mexico.   Rainbow Canyon is one place I will definitely return.  The lush canyon contains several different types and colors of massive rock formations (hence the name "Rainbow" Canyon).  I found it hard to keep my eyes on the road as I looked around with an open jaw.  Kershaw-Ryan State Park is located in the canyon, although the rain and time prevented me from exploring this side canyon, but if it is anything like the rest of Rainbow Canyon, it would be well worth a visit.

Traffic Jam in Rainbow Canyon

The road through the canyon was obviously engineered by a motorcycle rider.  Silky smooth asphalt with sweeping bends, no traffic (with the exception of an occasional long-horned steer), and incredible views.  Unless you have a dual-sport, the canyon would have to be ridden as an out and back.  I linked the canyon with Kane Springs Road which runs between the ghost town of Elgin, Nevada and Highway 93, just south of Alamo, Nevada.  Before leaving the canyon, I stopped in Elgin to see a beautifully restored one-room school house.  There is no way to do this canyon justice in pictures alone.  Rainbow Canyon could easily be a destination in itself as opposed to just a side trip.

The asphalt of Rainbow Canyon ends at Kane Springs Road.  There are several signs that warn of loose gravel, washouts, and flashfloods on Kane Springs Road.  The road itself is a semi-graded gravel and sand road that heads straight southwest roughly 40 miles to Highway 93.   This place is remote, even more so than the other roads on this tour.  The road goes through a wide and

Rainbow Canyon, NV

 shallow desert valley with periodic Joshua Tree forests.  For the most part, I was able to maintain speeds of around 50 mph, although loose gravel and sand forced me to slow to around 20 mph in several sections.

Kane Springs Road

At Highway 93, I was greeted with a dust storm preceding a bank of ominous dark clouds to the southwest.  Luckily, I was heading south, into the wind on 93.  The weather held during my ride on to I-15 southbound and through Las Vegas.  About 20 miles south of Las Vegas, the storms let loose.  Luckily I was staying in Primm, Nevada for the next three days, giving my gear time to dry.

The race the following day was great as my brother took second in his class.  After two nights of no sleep, drinking, and setting up and tearing down the pit, I was exhausted and decided to ride I-15 back to Salt Lake as opposed to continuing my adventures on the back roads and trails of Nevada.  As long as I'm able to ride, there will always be new adventures, so  cutting a ride short for the sake of safety is always worth it in my book. 

My Bro after a Class-3 2nd Place in the Las Vegas Primm 300.

I definitely have plans to return to this remote section of Nevada, and would highly recommend it to anyone with a dual-sport bike, a GPS, and some good maps.  Highway 50 to 93 would also be an excellent ride for a street bike, although you may miss some of the beauty of the backcountry.

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