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The Willow Creek Reservoir would be a fun place to camp. It is on the way to the Tuscarora Mine and there aren’t many people up there. I assume the willows are further upstream. Maybe way upstream.
Rides: KLR650, KX250
We got into Battle Mountain the night before too late to try to find a 17″ tube for Paul, and his 21″ tube in the rear wheel flatted twice more on today’s ride. After the second flat Paul installed my 18″ tube and that lasted through the rest of the trip. It was actually pretty hot in the middle of the day for changing tubes but Paul knocked them out in record time.
The second flat occurred after riding on NV 225 for a short distance. Just as Paul was wrapping up the repair a pickup truck pulled over. I think that was the only vehicle that passed by while we were stopped. We motioned that we didn’t need help but the driver popped out anyway. His name was Paul Conrad and he was a ranch mechanic from Owyhee. He hung out and talked motorcycles with us for 15 minutes. We didn’t run across a lot of people on this ride, but the ones that we did meet were all super friendly.
Rides: KLR650, KX250
and better.
That’s Dean up ahead leading the way to Jarbidge. To the right in the distance is the Matterhorn, the highest peak in the Jarbidge Mountains (10,843′).
Rides: KLR650, KX250
We got into Jarbidge just after dark and checked into the Outdoor Inn. A friendly couple originally from the Reno area, Jase and Ann, run the Outdoor Inn and Cafe. Jase is one heck of a cook – we all had his fried rice with teriyaki chicken dinner and it was excellent. The next morning Ann served us biscuits and gravy, which were great as well.
We had breakfast with an overlander from the Sacramento area, Dana Nichol. He is a state lobbyist for veteran’s rights and a very interesting character. There were quite a few people camping out in the Jarbidge Mountains as elk hunting season was just kicking off, but there weren’t many people in Jarbidge itself.
Here’s a pic of downtown Jarbidge:
Rides: KLR650, KX250
The Jarbidge River runs right behind the Outdoor Inn, which is nice background sound for a good night’s sleep. I guess the river could be moving pretty fast in early spring though.
Rides: KLR650, KX250
The Red Dog Saloon is across the street from the Outdoor Inn. A sign in the door said it would open in November, so we didn’t get to check it out.
Rides: KLR650, KX250
The Jarbidge Community Hall features nice construction. It was built in 1910 and recently restored. Jarbidge itself was founded in 1909 when gold was discovered by Dave Bourne. Bourne enhanced his discovery by telling an LA newspaper that there is “$27 million of gold ore in sight”. That brought 1,500 prospectors to Jarbidge. Not much gold was really found, but the town remains a cool place to visit for people who want to get off the grid for a while.
Rides: KLR650, KX250
Jarbidge is really buried in a canyon, which you get a sense of when leaving town southbound. The town is hidden back down in there.
Rides: KLR650, KX250
Dean was pretty baked after leading us into Jarbidge the night before, and decided to skip going out to Wendover and instead head back to Eureka. So we decided to get off the Battle Born North route and point our bikes toward Elko. The way out to Elko via the Jarbidge Mountains and Rough Hills provided great fall scenery:
Rides: KLR650, KX250
Once we got into Elko we had a Maverik lunch then hunted for some spare rear tubes.
After that we split up, as I still wanted to check out Stage 4 from Wendover to Eureka while Dean and Paul were going to go directly to Eureka from Elko.
It turns out that Dean and Paul had a heck of long ride that afternoon and evening. They didn’t have a reservation in Eureka for Monday night and there were no vacancies there or in Austin (lots of mining engineers were in the area). They ended up riding all the way back to Middlegate Station and spending the night there. At least they got a killer breakfast out of the deal.
I was lucky and had an easy cruise up 80 to Wendover to hang with my pal Wendover Will.
Rides: KLR650, KX250
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