Armed with a tip from Uncle Lee and Kelly, we headed east across the wastes of Nevada with Lamoille Canyon in the Ruby Mountains of eastern NV as our destination. Wastes is too harsh a word, as it is simply desert with its own form of beauty.
We got all the way across to Elko, then turned south to find Lamoille. Garmin was not our friend, as it kept insisting we keep going on one road when the signs all said to turn on another. We ignored her, and came down into a stunningly beautiful valley in which lay the town of Lamoille. The canyon itself was across the valley and the road became a narrow, winding gem that snaked through sheer cliffs. It almost is, as it has been called, the Yosemite of Nevada.
We had a couple of moments when we thought we’d missed the campground somehow, as it never seemed to appear and we had traveled quite a few miles in. But we kept going and voila, there it was. As pretty as the drive in was, it was hard put to match the campsite setting.
From a slightly different angle, you can see a glacier patch on that center mountain. In Nevada. In September! The view out the back of our site wasn’t too shabby either.
We were walking around the camp when we met an older woman walking her dog. She asked where we were from. We said L.A. What part? We told her our small town name. Ah, she said, I lived there for many years and was in the first graduating class of the high school (about 1966, I think). I asked if she had “Mama G” as her English teacher. Her jaw dropped and she said “yes.” Well, says I, she’s still around and is still teaching honors English at age 91! What are the odds of this encounter? As the sun went down, it was setting in alignment with the length of the canyon, so the walls started glowing intensely. Whouda thunk something this dramatic was parked in Nevada? And we’d never heard of it until Lee and Kelly mentioned it. Thanks, guys.
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