I had taken the route through Mountain Home in the opposite direction on my first ride up to Canada in 2009. On that trip I had nearly run over a rattlesnake and flirted with lots and lots of other trouble so I was not enthusiastic about taking that way once again. I had travelled the Wells route often as well but in the end decided that was my best choice and prepared to head due south. The direction was a bit ironic since the temperature had dropped dramatically overnight and it was actually quite chilly in the morning as I prepared to head south for Ketchum. Donn and Karen had left for their normal exercise day at the gym so I had the house to myself as a packed my bike up and donned the warmest clothing I had with me. After a few cups of strong coffee, I was ready to be off and the timing was perfect as my two buff friends had just returned. After the goodbyes, I was once more on the bike for what I hopped was an increasingly warming day. I thought about stopping for a breakfast burrito at Donn's favorite coffee place the Hailey Coffee Company, located in its eponymous village. The town of Hailey had made the national news just recently as the home town of a US Marine who had been released by the Taliban in Afghanistan after being held captive for a number of years. Thinking about the burrito also reminded me of my friend, Eugene Murray and our ride together around the US Southwest and Pacific Northwest. Eugene never really warmed to burritos for breakfast. Or for dinner for that matter. The memory put a smile on my face for the next few miles and I decided to continue through Hailey and put some distance in before making the first stop.
I had stopped at Craters several times before and it is well worth a more extended visit but on this trip the object is to get home. The landscape is what got me thinking of Craters. The ground even this far west of the Monument itself is very volcanic. Very barren. Lots and lots of cracked lava fields with only spiky grasses struggling to grow in the many cracks running through the rugged lava. Obviously not a place that would support a very diverse or vibrant biosphere. And, not surprisingly, I do not see any animals at all. Certainly no cattle ranching and no agriculture could be done in such a place, just mile after mile of broken, jagged rock. Not much here to attract settlers.
I wonder what the early pioneers thought as they tried to quickly bypass this strange landscape, looking for more fertile locations to settle. The lava flows look quite new but I know they cannot be since there is no active volcanic region anywhere nearby. I assume they have some connection with the currently active areas at Yellowstone National Park some hundreds of miles to the east. I do not know much about geology or plate techtonics but this must be a similar phenomenon to the one that formed the Hawaiian Islands. In that case a stationary "hot spot" in the earth's mantle periodically erupts lava through volcanos that pierce the lighter rock "crust" above to form the islands. The islands get older and increasing eroded as you move west, indicating that the crust is moving in that direction over a more stationary hot spot. If the same thing happened here over a Yellowstone "hot spot" then these lava flows must be thousands of years old. But they sure do not look it. As U am riding along, I decide that this is just another of the many situations that will not yield their secrets to my inductive skills.
As you might have been able to guess this inhospitable region appears to have been reserved for the American Indians. I have not passed any towns of homesites along the way but have seen numerous large and rather tacky billboards advertising the attractions of the "Shoshone Indian Ice Cave". My experience is that anything that is promoted in this manner such as "The World's Largest Ball of String" the the "Mysterious Three-Headed Cat" is likely not worth the time, or the probably significant admission fee, to make a stop worthwhile. So I didn't. However curiosity did force me to look it up on the Internet when I got home just to see what i had missed. Here is your link.
Shoshone Ice Cave Most of the parts of the West that have some problem or other are the parts that the mid-eighteenth century government decided to reserve for the use by American Native Peoples. The richer area were retained or opened to private, (individuals of European decent) use.
Just as the lave flows are starting to diminish, I finally come to the small town of Shoshone where I decide to grab some breakfast. I start by looking for the inevitable main street cafe. My experience is that most of these are reasonably good since the only way they can stay in business is to attract a steady stream of local customers since the locations are far from the heavy
Back on the bike, It has warmed up nicely and now as I head south I am wondering how well our county would survive a massive eruption of the Yellowstone SuperVolcano. Not well, that's for sure. Neither the Country or the planet since the effects would certainly be global. I seem to remember that the last time a SuperVolcano blew, it was in Indonesia some 70,000 years ago and caused a near human extinction with global human population dropping perhaps as low as a few thousand individuals.
Warning on Yellowstone SuperVolcano
Well whatever happens; according to the New Yorker Magazine, it is only about a one in 1,000 chance of it happening in this century, so I guess there are other more pressing things to worry about. New Yorker article on SuperVolcano
As I am crossing the bridge over the Snake River at Twin Falls, ID I think I really should stop for a picture. At this point the river has formed quite a deep canyon with nearly vertical walls and the citizens of town have built what looks to be a very nice golf course running along the river. Below is one of the Internet images of the Perrine Memorial Bridge at Twin Falls.
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| Snake River Bridge at Twin Falls, Idaho |
As i was thinking, I was also keeping an eye out for the village of Rogerson, ID where the cut-off to Jarbidge intersects. If you are heading to the little Nevada town, you turn off and head west for a few miles of pavement which quickly turns to gravel and winds for another 50 miles before you reach your destination and in my case, I will need to keep on going for another 50 miles beyond Jarbidge, before re-gaining the good road surface. I stop at the small Sinclair Oil station in Rogerson to consider the options. I know that there is only one very small place to stay in Jarbidge which has only a handful of rooms so I feel, if I start on this route, I will have to continue all the way on to Elko. That would mean covering the full 100 miles of gravel, more than twice the amount I handled on Day One. However, I really am interested in seeing this section of Nevada which is new to me and which has some history as well. So the decision is not an easy one.
The location's history is as the site of the last stagecoach robbery in the US that resulted in a fatality. Happened in 1916. Hard to accept that even during WWI when Europe was convulsing with mechanized violence, parts of the US were still being serviced via stagecoach. This road also made news more recently when a large storm in 1995 caused flooding in the Jarbidge canyon and washed out sections of the rough gravel road that ran alongside the Jarbidge River. Residents clamored for the damage to be repaired since the only other route out of town was a treacherous and often impassable in winter trail that ran in the opposite direction and ended in Elko, NV. Like most of the US west nearly all the land around the town is owned and managed by the Federal Government through a number of agencies, principally the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) the the US Forest Service and many others, sometimes with conflicting and overlapping jurisdictions. Since the damaged site itself was located in the Humboldt-Toiyobe National Forest it appeared to be a Federal affair. However, at first neither the Federal or State or County government would accept responsibility for the repair. Ultimately Elko County bowed to citizen pressure and agreed to undertake the job. At that point the Federal folks justified their reputation in the West of being both arrogant and ridiculous. The US Forest Service argued that even though they did not have the responsibility to repair the road they also could not allow anyone else to do so either. Frustrated residents took matters into their own hands and undertook to open the road themselves using their own picks and shovels and muscle power. The result was the usual tangled court battle with injunctions and stays by various judges and the entrance of a gaggle of uninvolved but active and well-funded environmental groups. One was the playfully named Great Old Fat Broads for Wilderness. In the end, the road was repaired without a real decision of the underlying responsibility issues. Old Fat Broads
Even though the route would be an interesting ride and I would like to see the Jarbidge townsite as well, I decide to keep this for another day. I am a bit tired and it is just more than I want to take on right now so I continue on the main road to the Nevada town of Wells and the Interstate 80 intersection.
A pretty average ride although the terrain to Wells is through gently rolling countywide with higher mountains in the distance on several sides. I was riding though Wells in 2008 shortly after a 6.0 earthquake shook the town and destroyed most of the older downtown section. Nothing much else has happened there since. I don't bother to stop this time except to gas up for the last 50 miles to my hotel in Elko. This goes by fairly quickly but the closer I get to Elko there is an increasing amount of light smoke and haze in the air and it is starting to bother my breathing. By the time I am actually in my room, all I am good for is just sitting, watching TV and waiting for morning.
The next morning is a bit better and while the air quality is noisome it is not devastating. This section of Interstate Highway has been covered by me on many occasions and is quite uninteresting. Perhaps because it is so bland, that a place just outside of Imlay, NV is worth mentioning. This place sits right alongside the highway and really illustrates the difference between the American East and West.
Most places in the East if your neighbor painted his house in garish colors and decorated it with bizarre and poorly executed statuary, you would have him declared insane and probably run out of the area, if not committed to an asylum. In the West however you would be more likely to work with your others neighbors to turn his place into a tourist attraction. All you have to do is drive enough in the US West and you will see signs for the World's Largest Cow, The Mystery Cavern, Biggest Haunted House, The Giant Sandhill Crane and many, many more. While I find Imlay's Thunder Mountain Park interesting; just not enough so that I feel the need to actually pull off the road. Thunder Mountain
Of much more interest is the roadside installation at the exit for Nightingale, Nevada. This is the the geothermal power plant whose expansion pipes run right alongside the highway. As you would expect there is not a lot of aboveground construction but the constant steam escaping from numerous locations around the plant indicate that it is under operation. After all the discussion about volcanos earlier, this plant stimulates me to begin thinking about geothermal potential in general. There are lots of geologically active areas in the US and with all the bad consequences we had been thinking about concerning Yellowstone and other hot spots it is interesting that those dangers might actually be turned into a energy advantage. I have driven by this plant many times but this time I really give it some thought. I wonder why geothermal is not a bigger part of our energy supply. It seems to me that with today's technology, there should be no reason why we couldn't get almost all our fixed energy needs from harnessing the earth's core heat. But we don't. I guess that it must be more and perhaps much more expensive to do geothermal than fossil fuel power generation. But with all the trouble, blood and treasure we have expended on foreign oil, there would seem to almost no price that we could not pay to fully take advantage of this resource. I thought perhaps it would take more capital than even the big oil guys corporations could comfortably risk but, if so, then the government could play a part like the Tennessee Valley Authority or the Alberta Oil Sands development in Canada. In any case, speculating about geothermal possibilities got me through to Reno. All in all a very successful and enjoyable trip.
A Vist to the Wonnell's 2014
I subsequently asked a neuclear chemist friend of mine to guess why geothermal was not more prevalent. He said he thought the engineering challenges of handling not only the very high heat at deptht might be a costly problem but that many substances that are found in those parts of the earth's mantle can be highly corrosive and that adds another level of challenge in terms of unusual or rare and expensive materials that might be required in the plant operation.+++
The location's history is as the site of the last stagecoach robbery in the US that resulted in a fatality. Happened in 1916. Hard to accept that even during WWI when Europe was convulsing with mechanized violence, parts of the US were still being serviced via stagecoach. This road also made news more recently when a large storm in 1995 caused flooding in the Jarbidge canyon and washed out sections of the rough gravel road that ran alongside the Jarbidge River. Residents clamored for the damage to be repaired since the only other route out of town was a treacherous and often impassable in winter trail that ran in the opposite direction and ended in Elko, NV. Like most of the US west nearly all the land around the town is owned and managed by the Federal Government through a number of agencies, principally the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) the the US Forest Service and many others, sometimes with conflicting and overlapping jurisdictions. Since the damaged site itself was located in the Humboldt-Toiyobe National Forest it appeared to be a Federal affair. However, at first neither the Federal or State or County government would accept responsibility for the repair. Ultimately Elko County bowed to citizen pressure and agreed to undertake the job. At that point the Federal folks justified their reputation in the West of being both arrogant and ridiculous. The US Forest Service argued that even though they did not have the responsibility to repair the road they also could not allow anyone else to do so either. Frustrated residents took matters into their own hands and undertook to open the road themselves using their own picks and shovels and muscle power. The result was the usual tangled court battle with injunctions and stays by various judges and the entrance of a gaggle of uninvolved but active and well-funded environmental groups. One was the playfully named Great Old Fat Broads for Wilderness. In the end, the road was repaired without a real decision of the underlying responsibility issues. Old Fat Broads
Even though the route would be an interesting ride and I would like to see the Jarbidge townsite as well, I decide to keep this for another day. I am a bit tired and it is just more than I want to take on right now so I continue on the main road to the Nevada town of Wells and the Interstate 80 intersection.
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| Downtown Wells, Nevada 2008 |
The next morning is a bit better and while the air quality is noisome it is not devastating. This section of Interstate Highway has been covered by me on many occasions and is quite uninteresting. Perhaps because it is so bland, that a place just outside of Imlay, NV is worth mentioning. This place sits right alongside the highway and really illustrates the difference between the American East and West.
 |
| Private home, Imlay, Nevada |
Of much more interest is the roadside installation at the exit for Nightingale, Nevada. This is the the geothermal power plant whose expansion pipes run right alongside the highway. As you would expect there is not a lot of aboveground construction but the constant steam escaping from numerous locations around the plant indicate that it is under operation. After all the discussion about volcanos earlier, this plant stimulates me to begin thinking about geothermal potential in general. There are lots of geologically active areas in the US and with all the bad consequences we had been thinking about concerning Yellowstone and other hot spots it is interesting that those dangers might actually be turned into a energy advantage. I have driven by this plant many times but this time I really give it some thought. I wonder why geothermal is not a bigger part of our energy supply. It seems to me that with today's technology, there should be no reason why we couldn't get almost all our fixed energy needs from harnessing the earth's core heat. But we don't. I guess that it must be more and perhaps much more expensive to do geothermal than fossil fuel power generation. But with all the trouble, blood and treasure we have expended on foreign oil, there would seem to almost no price that we could not pay to fully take advantage of this resource. I thought perhaps it would take more capital than even the big oil guys corporations could comfortably risk but, if so, then the government could play a part like the Tennessee Valley Authority or the Alberta Oil Sands development in Canada. In any case, speculating about geothermal possibilities got me through to Reno. All in all a very successful and enjoyable trip.
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| 2014 Visit with to the Wonnell's |
I subsequently asked a neuclear chemist friend of mine to guess why geothermal was not more prevalent. He said he thought the engineering challenges of handling not only the very high heat at deptht might be a costly problem but that many substances that are found in those parts of the earth's mantle can be highly corrosive and that adds another level of challenge in terms of unusual or rare and expensive materials that might be required in the plant operation.+++
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