Lander and Eureka together comprise the lonely, mostly vacant center of Nevada. It is a country of high sage-covered valleys (5,000-feet elevation and above) and magnificent mountain ranges, many reaching above 10,000 feet. Very few people live in these two counties. Lander county has about 6,000 people but most of them live up in Battle Mountain on Interstate-80, almost 100 miles north of where I would be. The southern stretches of both counties is held together by the US-50 highway, dubbed the "Loneliest Highway" in America (by Life magazine, I think, some time in the past). I'd driven it once before from Ely to Reno, in 1991 with my dad, then parts of it again in 2000, after I'd climbed Mt. Jefferson, the Nye County highpoint.

My flight from Phoenix to Reno went well, as the plane was only about 1/3 full. I picked up my rental truck and headed out via Interstate-80 and US-50 east through Fernley, Fallon and Austin toward the Toiyabe Range, where Bunker Hill lives. It was about a 4-hour drive to Austin (including a 30-minute wait for road construction). Austin is a neat little town, tucked into a valley on the Toiyabe Range's west side. The town is invisible until you literally turn a corner and see its "main" street, complete with old relic buildings and a few homes and businesses. Austin used to be the county seat of Lander County up until about 1979, when the seat was moved to Battle Mountain. Nevertheless, the old Lander County courthouse still stands along the main street, a bit in disrepair but still in use by the county sheriff's department. The highway itself continues up above Austin before cresting the range and starting down the east side. After a brief stop at the Forest Service Station in Austin, I made my way over the range to highway NV-376 and turned south for 14 miles to the town of Kingston, and up into the canyon toward the Kingston Guard Station, a Forest Service outpost. The road was dirt by this time. It was about 5 p.m. so I spent the remaining couple of hours driving up and down the road, checking out possible routes. There was still snow on the mountain so I was trying to see any one route might be better than the others. I ended up camping in a thicket of trees just off the road, just north of the Guard Station.

The next morning I drove up the road north about 4 miles to a main pass at about 8,660 feet elevation, and parked, intending to approach Bunker Hill from the north. I started in about 6:15 a.m. in very cool conditions. First order of business was to walk up a steep 4wd road about 670 feet to the top of a small knob at elevation 9,335 feet. A large snowdrift on the road blocked any vehicular approach. I saw plenty of deer milling about in the distance. From this knob I hiked down into a small saddle then up the main western flanks of the range, up steep tussocky-grass and rock slopes. The intent was to eventually hike level at about 10,100 feet and meet up with the man ridge to Bunker Hill about a mile off in the distance. But in my case, the slopes were still covered in much snow and ice. I decided to hike higher up, where there was less snow... but that meant it was much steeper and rockier. In any case I hiked almost to about the 10,800-foot elevation level, where I finally crossed the patchy snowfields. I was forced to use my crampons and kick steps. The snow was very icy and steep and a fall would have been possibly catastrophic. But I made it, although I was going much slower than planned. I finally cleared this traverse and down-hiked to the 10,060-foot saddle directly north of Bunker's summit.

From this saddle I could see much snow still shrouding Bunker's summit mass, but I could also spy cleared areas and a possible route to follow. I started up the steepening slopes. At about the 10,600-foot level the gradient became quite steep. It was mainly rocky scree, with no more tussocky grass to hold it all together. In some places the scree was very loose and skittish and I had to take each step very carefully so as not to start a torrent of small rocks down the slopes (possibly taking me with them!). It was clear to me that I was going up a section that would normally be avoided if the large snow drifts weren't there. On the other hand, the snow by this time was way too steep and mushy to allow for safe walking, even with crampons. So the rocks it was. My trekking poles were absolutely necessary and I'm glad I brought them along!

Eventually I made it above the steepest parts and finally could see the first of the three main bumps of Bunker Hill's summit. An antenna and solar-panel plant stood nearby on the northernmost bump, just above 11,400 feet. The true highpoint was about 500 feet of easy hiking south along a thin ridge that still contained much snow; I just stepped carefully and finally reached the cairn at the highpoint right at 10:30 a.m. The views were awesome: The southern Toiyabes loomed above the Kingston Canyon to my south, while Jefferson Peak in the Toquima Range stood out to the southeast. The Desatoya and Clan Alpine ranges were visible to the west, and miles and miles of smaller bumps and stark valley floors played out in all directions. I stayed at the top for about 15 minutes, then started down.

Going down was tricky at the steep rocky portion mentioned earlier; I went as slow going down as I did going up. I took it carefully and finally reached the main saddle north of the summit where I took a longer lunch break, rested and admired the views and the solitude. Instead of dealing with the snowy traverses I had to deal with at the start, I opted instead to hike down a parallel ridge between the Kingston Creek and Sawmill Canyon drainages. This ridge had little snow but lots of knee-high sage, but I made pretty good time and eventually wriggled my way down into Kingston Creek itself, where I followed a horse-path out to the main road. This put me about a mile south and about 700 vertical feet below my truck. Beat and tired and ready for a nap, I still had to trudge this final bit to get back to my truck, which I did at 2:30. I had been out on the route for over 8 hours, about 2 hours longer than I figured, and also calculated I added about 1,200 extra vertical feet of climbing to the trip (including the first part where I attempted to skirt the snowfields). In all, I hiked about 8 miles round trip with about 2,800 feet of net gain, almost 4,000 feet of gross gain.

From here, I rested a bit at my truck then drove out and back to US-50 to the town of Eureka in preparation for tomorrow's hike up Diamond Peak, Eureka County's highest. I succumbed to the temptation and took a cheap hotel instead of camping out again.