Lonely, dusty and Epic

Rarely in this modern world are you somewhere so remote that you fail to see more than just a few people.  This was such the case during our Newfoundland mountain range expedition. 

I met up with Scott Howe, Chris Bell, Kurt Williams, and Richard Dyatt in Delle Utah on Thursday afternoon.  Our goal was to explore the Newfoundland mountain range, and head to the Lucin Sun tunnels in time for solstice and meet up with Michael Slade for dinner.  Then we would drive down the eastern edge of the pilot range and into the silver island mountains.

Once we gassed up and aired down, we were off.  It soon became apparent to me that, while not having the windows in my jeep was fun, the 3 inches of dust on the road would mean that I was going to be very dirty for the next 4 days.  We were able to make good time from Delle, and reached the Utah test range in quick time. 

There was some concern that the road may be closed if they were doing maneuvers, once we arrived the gates were open, with the strict stipulation that you “Do Not Leave the Road”.  After quickly passing through the test range, we came to Lakeside, which appears to be where the railroad gets much of its fill for the railroad bed.

We hopped onto the railroad right of way and headed to Hogup pump station.  These are the infamous pumps that a previous governor spent millions on only to have them very briefly used.  While there, we put some coins on the rails, and gathered some firewood for our campsite in the Newfies. 

We continued on to the Newfoundland range on the railroad grade the whole time not seeing a soul.  Once we turned off the grade we saw one “camp” although they may have only been there for the day.  We made our way around the east side of the range eventually heading up Dells canyon to what was a very interesting old mine and what turned out to be our camp for the first night.  We constantly commented on how rugged those early explorers and pioneers were to carve out a life in this hostile environment.  During the night we were graced with a light show from the testing range shooting some type of flair into the sky. We went to bed with Chris and Scott setting up on an old abandoned flat bed pickup dubbed “Hotel GMC”.

The next morning after a very quick breakfast and a look at the maps we were on our way south to hopefully circumnavigate the Newfies.  We took a quick stop at Keller spring, and then headed back onto the dusty road.  Kurt and Scott took the lead, and got to another gate for the Testing range.  This time our luck ran out.  The gate was closed.  Seeing as how we had F-16’s flying around all morning we thought it best to turn around and go around the other way.

After a quick ride back around the northern end and we were headed south again to Miners Basin.  There is an old rock house at Boston Terrace, there along with a few mines, it is well worth a visit if you have 4 wheel drive and a spare tire.

 We decided to forgo lunch because we were to meet Michael Slade for dinner at the Lucin sun tunnels and we still had a long way to go.  We headed back to the railroad grade and back to the Hogup Mountains.  We then headed north and caught the old Transcontinental railroad bed for some high speed fun.  You do have to do around the old railroad tressels so you have to be very alert and give yourself plenty of time to slow down.  We stopped briefly at the ghost town of Terrace, a railroad maintenance station, and then more dusty road to the ghost town of Lucin.  Lucin was a railroad stop for water, and it was piped in from the mountains.  Today the water still flows and is a welcome place to clean off dusty arms and legs.  Up until this time we had still only seen the one camp at the Newfies.

It is just a short jaunt to the sun tunnels from Lucin, so we headed over there to meet Mr. Slade and his family.  Once we got there we patched a tire on Chris’ rig that had been punctured with a spike, and relaxed in the shade of the tunnels since there is no trees anywhere around.  Soon all sorts of people started showing up for the Solstice.  I’d say there were close to a hundred people in all that showed up for the event.  Dinner that night was simply awesome with Chris bring the ingredients and Michael handling the dutch ovens.  The pork tenderloin and veggies really hit the spot.  We followed it up with great conversation and peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream that Kurt kept cold in his fridge.

The following morning some of the group woke up for sunrise, while others of us “slept in” until 7am.  As I was rolling up my tent this scorpion appeared right between me and my tent.  I guess he was looking for a warm place to relax. 

From the sun tunnels we parted ways with Michael and headed to Donner spring.  There is just an informational sign there but it is worth a read.  We headed into Wendover for gas and an educational experience at the Wendover air field where they trained the crew who flew the atomic bomb missions. They also filmed part of the movie Con-Air as well.

After gassing up and a quick lunch we said goodbye to Chris, and headed to the Bonneville salt flats for some high speed fun.  I think Kurt and Scott got up to 105 mph all loaded down with gear and everything.  I did a respectable 70 in the jeep.  The flats were wet, and now our rigs were covered in salt so back to the gas station to borrow a hose to wash off the salt. 

Now we were on our way to the Silver Island range for our last night.  We headed into the range, and onto crater island where we made camp on the mud flats near a few old tungsten mines.  Stories were shared, and the winds howled, but we survived the night. 

The next morning we dusted off our tents, and packed up to head back to Wendover for a quick lunch by the gas pumps and headed home.  If it hadn’t been for the solstice, it’s very possible that we would have seen a single person for the whole trip other than Wendover.

There is so much more to explore out there if only we would have had the time. Next time I guess.