We left work about 4 pm and after collecting the car, packing and dinner, we ended up in Sacramento for the night. The only photo I took was of Alister getting breakfast at the complimentry breakfast buffet.
We were out of Sacramento (Point B on map.) and joined the morning rush by 7:15. The reason we left the night before the rest of the group was because Alistar wanted to visit the "World's foremost outfitters"
We stopped for a break at a "Vista Point" overlooking Donner Lake, which is upstream of the big Lake Tahoe, and looking very pretty and misty. (Point C on map.)
We made it to Cabela's (Point D on map.) and Alister was like a little boy in a candy shop. He didn't know where to go first or what to look at. We spent about an hour there and Alister managed to escape with only one outfit, a t-shirt and a cap. All in camouflage of course.
We rendevous with Jim in Reno and followed him to Gerlach (Point E on map.). We stopped at Bruno's saloon to wait for some others and have a drink.
Bruno is about 90 and owns half the town. Apart from the saloon, he owns the restaurant next door, the motel down the road and the local petrol station and there isn't much more in Gerlach.
Once the others had caught up we drove away from Gerlach and onto the playa (pronounced ply-a). (Point F on map.) At this point, Google doesn't have any of the trails in it's database, so I've copied the Google maps and marked the places on them. Here is the large one showing the general area.
I've circled the campsite in the upper right. The road that we entered on is marked E in the lower left. The distance from the road to the campsite is about 50 km.
We stopped in the middle of the playa to have a look around.
There's not a lot there. This is facing north east, the campsite is on the left side.
Looking back at the way we came, you can see the vague track that we were following and the dust hanging in the air kicked up by the vehicle.
Amazingly we heard a car and this buggy came into view and stopped for a chat.
After another half hour we got to the campsite.
You can easily see the double hot springs and the creek flowing out into the playa. We came in on the road from the bottom and hooked left around the hot springs to the campsite. You might also just be able to make out the pit toilet about 45 degrees left of the hot springs, just above the bump in the vegetation line. There are two faint tracks leading to it.
The hot springs couldn't be more different from each other. The north west one is crystal clear and a lovely bluey green colour.
The south east one must be deeper, as it is a murky brown and has a lot more bubbles popping up.
They are both hot, about 80 degrees C.
There are several little vents bubbling away around the two big ones.
The sign for the springs is vandal proof.
The hot springs trickle down to the playa and have been diverted slightly to fill a small pool for bathing.
The only way to get the water cool enough to bath in is to leave it for several hours to cool. Jim is organising the larger pool in the background, it can fit about 30 !
The sunset was excellent.
This is a photo looking south, across the creek and the playa towards Gerlach.
We had a great night, there was beer.
Jim (in the white) and Brett bringing the keg out of the ice.
There were fireworks.
A laser light show.
Plenty of cornhole action.
And some fantastic moonlit photography.
And you may be wondering why it's called Black Rock desert when it is so obviously and blindly white. It's cause it's got black rocks !
More tomorrow !
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