Deke Castleman continues his travelogue of the drive north-northwest on US 95 from Las Vegas to Reno.
Yesterday, we made it 210 miles from Vegas to just north of Tonopah, the halfway point on the long drive from southern to northern Nevada. Today, we finish the trip to Reno
It’s a long 100-mile haul from Tonopah to the next big burg, Hawthorne. Along the way, you pass the small towns of Mina and Luning, a couple of brothels, and perhaps the most majestic scenery.
Right in downtown Tonopah, US 95 meets up with US 6, takes a 90-degree turn to the west, and the two US highways keep company for 35 miles till Coaldale Junction (no services), where they split up again. US 6 branches off southwest to Bishop, Calif., and US 95 resumes its north-northwest heading. To the west, you start to get a fine view of some of the highest peaks in the Sierra Nevada, snowcapped most of the year. Boundary Peak at 13,143 is the highest point in Nevada (the mountain cuts across the state line); Mustang Peak, slightly north, is 10,316.
Hawthorne is a typical rural-Nevada town -- with one little difference: Stored here, in thousands of bunkers, warehouses, and entrepots, is a sizable percentage of the United States Army's entire supply of conventional armaments. It's a surreal sight straight out of Frank Herbert's Dune. The Hawthorne Army Ammunition Depot, which covers nearly 150,000 acres in the vicinity, is the largest ammunition storage facility in the world. Is Nevada a wild state or what?
Another anomaly of Hawthorne is the old Army base (to enter, tell the guard you want to take a look at the golf course). The Army is 25 years gone and the base is run by a private contractor, but the narrow roads lined with tall elm trees, single-story brick houses with front decks and two-story houses with glassed-in porches, playgrounds, an old theater building, and the nine-hole links -- everything spic-and-span -- look more like New England than the Nevada desert.
The rest of Hawthorne is similar to Tonopah in a municipal sense, except that its history is about minutions instead of mining. The Mineral County Courthouse and the county museum are here; the El Capitan Hotel-Casino (Hawthorne touts itself as a gateway to Yosemite) dates from 1940.
Just north of Hawthorne is the final anomaly, Walker Lake. This is a huge treeless desert lake, shimmering like a blue mirage for miles, that's 95% undeveloped (similar to Pyramid Lake north of Reno), nothing but the tiny village of Walker Lake (no services) and two treeless state campgrounds. Just past Twenty-Mile Beach is the north end of the lake where the Walker River sloughs into it; there, you enter the Walker River Paiute Reservation, the oldest (1859) and second largest res in the state. In 15 miles or so is Schurz, the reservation town. The Four Seasons Market, at the intersection of US 95 and Alternate 95, sells sundries, some tribal crafts, and of course fireworks and cheap cigarettes.
At the junction, US 95 heads due north 40 miles to the reclamations and military town of Fallon, but I prefer the Alt. US 95 route through Yerington and Silver Springs. Again, it's just for time purposes, as it takes twice as long to get through Fallon as it does Yerington.
For touring purposes, however, Fallon is a worth a look. It's a big town by Nevada standards, with more than 10,000 residents, and it's at the center of the state's largest agricultural region; the Derby Dam (diverting the Truckee River, which runs from Lake Tahoe through Reno, out to Fallon) was the U.S. Bureau of Reclamations' first dam (1903). Upwards of 60,000 acres are planted in alfalfa, onions, garlic, and the regionally famous Heart o' Gold cantaloupes. Fallon is also home to the Churchill County Courthouse and museum; the U.S. Naval Air Station (home of the Navy's famous Top Gun air-combat school, where hotshot aviators dogfight in F-14 Tomcats and F-18 Hornets); and three good-sized casinos.
Yeringt
