Roving Nevada Oct 2019 Day 5

Thursday Oct 10, 2019

I slept off and on during the night mainly 'cause my feet wouldn't warm up until around 2300, the wind kept shaking my motel for the night. Every once and a while I would peer from the mouth of my orange cocoon and I could see the moon or the stars in the dark sky.
    I knew it was cold though as I kept having to turn over to get one side of me warm against my Exped mattress.
     Finally daylight broke over the Eastern Mtns and I was awake. I didn't want to get up it was TOO COLD! Then I had to poo......
     I warmed up clean clothes in my cocoon with me and pulled my down Marmot puffy jacket out of my backpack. Quickly I put on the down then swapped underwear and clean sox. I slipped my frozen Levi's on and put my sweatpants over them and stepped into my sorrel slippers. Next I put my sweatshirt over my down, I glanced at the thermometer. 19°F it was 0724

Taking the shovel and my toilet kit I went to the loo and did my poo.
    Getting back to camp, started to rustle up some grub and coffee. I figured I would use my propane single burner Snow Peak stove. I got everything ready, oatmeal and raisins, coffee ground and in the filter. The water was cold--- it had ice crystals in it. It heated up and the crystals melted, the little bubbles formed on the bottom and sides when the Coleman propane bottle stopped.
      I tried another one and it must have been frozen too, neither worked and the water wasn't hot enough to use.
    I picked out my Snow Peak fuel can and it lit and brought the water to a boil! YAY! I poured some in my oatmeal then the coffee filter.
FUCK!  My insulated container with the filter on top fell over! Grounds and coffee spilled all over my 2 burner Coleman white gas stove and my 1650 Pelican case. And there it FROZE,................................ I checked it was 21°F.............

   It was frozen, I could not clean it up. I tried, then disgusted I sat and ate my cooling oatmeal before it too froze.
    My Kelly Kettle was set up so I filled it with water and ground more coffee then fixed it up. Luckily the wind was light this morning. This time I used my Stansport kettle to brew coffee in prior to transferring it to my insulated container to which I added a pack of hot cocoa from Safeway in Hawthorne.
     After a break to recuperate from my morning trauma I began breaking camp and with no hurry I was done, the coffee debacle cleaned up and I was on the road. It was 0950
    My dripping water nozzle made icicles.

I did some metal detecting and found scraps of wire and ;

Some of the roads you see from space are not so easy to see on one's you want to drive on down here.
     I followed my map and space images to a couple of deadends and then set off for FSR44428 and to try to find Golden Spring.
   It is a lovely double track to the springs and I was totally blown away with the "Golden" quality that abounds, I was able to drive right out to the lip of the spring.

Looking back away from the spring;

I checked it out it was full of cat tails! Then checked the map to see how to get back to 428 and head over Golden Summit.
     Nice drive nothing really at the summit, then it is all downhill to Road 21 onto which I turned right.
   It is a big wide road and I followed it to around the turn for Secret Basin. There are 3 left turns but which one? I almost stopped at the first, it has a florescent red pile of rocks at the entrance, but my gps said to go farther. The next had a bend right at the start and my maps said it went straight so I kept going and door #3 looked like my turn! It was 1230
     I was hungry and drove to the foothills and had a bagel. It looked on the gps that I had chosen wisely, Grasshopper, the road continued into the mountains.

    Following the dusty track I was in 2hi and a few small surprises but nothing needing 4x4 let alone low range.

After a few miles I came to a Y in the road and hedging my bets went left.

Another correct choice as the road led me up a valley with tall overgrown sage and Rabbit Brush on both sides. Eventually I shifted to 4x4 4hi to go through a bad spot and 4lo to go slow through a brushy area. The view opened up and I saw an old cabin that the road led directly to. There is an out building and stone fences for a corral?

I think the out building was a tack room;

I walked past the cabin looking for a turnaround spot and found a long unused campsite. The fire ring has weed growing in it. I went back to the 109 and drove it to my next campsite. It was 1430

  The Rover was unpacked, I set up camp, dug out the firepit, gathered wood, dug a cat hole, then sat back to write.

I walked to what I thought was the end of the road as it disappeared into a stream with no "other side" to come out on. Here is a pic of some of the greenery on the way back to camp;

GPS says I'm at 6489' and I've done 135 miles from Hawthorne. It is now 1530

I waited and watched the orb of 'ol Sol go behind a hill at around 1700. I cooked my dinner and started a campfire, I lasted an hour, it was too cold on my un-heated side.

   The nearly full moon came up.

After the fire was safely out I climbed into the Caterpillar Yellow 109, shucked my Levi's and down jacket slid on my sweat pants,  rolled up in the cocoon expecting another cold night! It was 2000

Here is raw video from the day, I had lots of trouble editing it.

Evidently, I missed taking the left turn about a mile back that would have taken me to my searched for destination Secret Basin, instead I wound up at this beautiful spot on Cottonwood Creek.  I saw the turn but failed to recognize that I needed to take it. Oh well, next time....

38°35'22.2"N 117°23'43.2"W

To day 6; https://poppageno.blogspot.com/2019/10/roving-nevada-oct-2019-day-6.html