Wednesday, June 14: Again, a pretty tiring day with not a ton of progress. I mean we started off with a gaff in the route, and the problems just continued throughout the rest of the day. 

All right, got up at 5:30 in the morn and working quietly on the computer as Judy and Dave slept for another hour. We finally got the ball rolling about 7:30, where we ate, loaded gear and got on the road for our trip to yesterdays western terminus in Dayton. This segment today, from Dayton across the foothills up to Virginia City, and then down to Steamboat would be in a westerly direction. Judy got us to the start and Dave and I began berminating on Six Mile Canyon Rd. Now somewhere on the right, I THOUGHT,  was supposed to be a water tower where we were told by the fireman Charlie, that we’d need to take a left and begin up the track to an old silver mine. 

So about 2 miles into the climb Dave spotted a tower way off to the left, which kind of caught me off guard, because I could swear Charlie had told me the tower was on the right along the road. This thing was several hundred meters to the left. Nonetheless we took that left and started riding towards the water tower. But when we got there it just didn’t like like a decreeable track up into the foothills. Told Dave I could swear that the tower was on the side of the road, so we backtracked and began riding berm again up Six Mile Canyon. About another 1.5 miles later, and further northwest I realized that the water tower below had to be the one Charlie was talking about. By that time we just decided, for expediency, to forget going back down and mucking around on a spiderweb of trails trying to find the right track, and just press on. 

Managed to just plug along almost the whole what up on gravel berm, criss crossing from one side to the other as the berm changed from good to bad stretches. Have to admit that I’m feeling better and better with these mt climbs. Today’s climb, though on berm felt very comfortable, if you can call climbing 6 miles up a mt with the last half mile at a 16% grade comfortable. As soon as I hit the Welcome to Virginia City corp. sign, that’s when we had zero gravel berm left, and it went to the 16% asphalt grade. Met Dave at the top and finished off my Gatorade. 

Have to say that Virginia City is a cool little tourist town up at 6K in the mts, just on to the east of Lake Tahoe. It used to be what was considered the richest place in the US because of all the silver mines. We got rolling on Rt 341, doing some an obligatory stretch of asphalt before we could again get on berm and continue up to the pass some five miles to the north. Most of the time we were good, and we rode against traffic, against the rock walls. The other side had zero berm and nothing but 3 feet of asphalt and then guardrail. 

Now there were a few kind of gnarly moments when the rock wall and the berm narrowed down to about 2-3 feet, and the road rounded a blind turn where traffic was in our faces - a little hair raising, but we just hugged the wall. After a gradual 5 mile climb up to the pass, we did a short descent down to gravel Toll Road. Took a quick food/drink break at the top of Toll, called Judy to make sure she know we were on our way down, and then we let er rip. 

My gosh! This pup started out pretty sweet. But then it just deteriorated into this full-on, beat the shit out of you ATC descent. We later found out that some of the sections were in the vicinity of 33-38% grades. I kid you not. This thing had rock slides, loose gravel and cobbles, and gullies that could send you into the end-O world if you went into them fast enough. This was one butt-puckering son of a gun. Dave was more “exuberant” than I, but still, we were both cautious in our own way. My hands and forearms were just pumped to the max at the bottom, and I told Judy that I had to wash my cycling shorts in a nearby stream when I got to the bottom - if you catch my drift!

From there we rode berm to the jcn. of Toll and 341, and then again took some off-road stuff to Steamboat Stream. Judy waited at the Maverick Station while we did some recon, trying to find this illusive Steamboat Ditch which is, or is not, a thru track all the way to Verdi, NV, where we need to get to so we can continue on the NoCAL tracks. That involved a ride up Mt Rose Hwy. to find this damned ditch with it’s adjoining track. We looked all over until we got in this development, turned on Wedge Dr. and by damn there it was. It was like finding the origin of the Nile. So then we decided we’d try to ride it back to Judy. That turned into a total mess, as the track ran out so we were riding through a tangle of bush, then we crossed the boulder strewn ditch via hike a bike, then we had to cut across this park where the ditch went under I-580. Gone! With our tails between our legs we headed on back to Judy. 

By this time temps was a solid 85 with a scorching sun. So we decided to do things backwards, and drive up to Verdi, find the illusive ditch and ride some of it back towards Reno. That jaunt took us 3 miles away from the CA border, and then we be-bopped around E. Verdi, Boomtown, Verdi, and all the hell over the place trying to find that damned ditch. Well, we finally found it, but everything around it was private property. Man, this was like one punch to the mouth after another. 

Dave stopped to talk to a few folks about bike trails and trails along the ditch, but when we got down to it no one could confirm or deny the thru nature of a track along the length of this thing up to Verdi. We finally left feeling pretty defeated. We need like 20-30 miles to make Verdi and CA, and it feels like a thousand. Drove back feeling just beat to heck, more tired from trying to solve this gravel or no gravel puzzle. Now if we had 3-4 days of recon riding, I’m sure we could get this thing figured out, but for expediencies sake, we do NOT have that long to putz around here. So we’re going to hit the maps and computers tonight and either get a gravel route or cheat, plain and simple. We have to keep moving here. I’m willing to let someone else solve the puzzle for the sake of finishing this journey. 

Got back and went to an all you can eat sushi place that was fantastic. Now this all you can eat sushi is big in NV. I’ve never heard of it anywhere else. I like it because I love sushi, and it’s not crap food. Dave and I did the sushi gig while Judy got this rock fish dish. So here we are back at the ranch. Dave is pouring over paper maps and computer maps right now and I’m going to post this and then get my butt rolling in the mapping dept. Adios