When I originally laid out plans for a week-long hiking journey through Nevada, I hoped to bag Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park, then work my way westward through the interior of this vast state, but a large fire on Wheeler Peak's south slopes nixed any plans for that peak at the time. Instead I altered my route to visit Nye County's Mount Jefferson first, then head on toward the peaks surrounding Lake Tahoe. After leaving my home in Chandler I spent the day with my folks in Henderson, then made the 230-mile journey into the Toquima Mountains via Tonopah and Belmont. Nye County is a huge county - at over 18,000 square miles it's the second largest in the United States after California's San Bernardino County. Nye is also an oddly-shaped county - it looks suspiciously like a rock hammer, probably deliberately shaped so to honor the mining heritage of Nevada. The county seat is in Tonopah along US-95, but Tonopah itself sits right on the county line with Esmeralda County. It certainly isn't 'centrally' located as one might imagine. I like Tonopah. It's stuffed high on a hillside at where highways US-95 and US-6 meet, in the middle of nowhere. Its claim to fame, aside from the silver strike that founded it, is that is was home to the Stealth Bomber when it was being developed back in the 1970s and 1980s. It's also home (maybe not any more) to a bizarre hotel called the Clown Motel, a typical budget motel painted in every garish color of the spectrum. I wonder how the owners came to equate clowns and hotels to generate business.

The drive out of Tonopah into the Toquimas went a long way and passed through the ghost town of Belmont. A few people still live there; I even saw a bed-and-breakfast outfit. Belmont used to be the county seat of Nye County, and seemingly was better and more centrally placed than Tonopah. Many large building still stand in town as it's one of the better preserved ghost towns. It seems that Belmost sees its fair share of curious tourists. For me, Belmont was just a place to pass through. Pavement ended here but a good wide hardpack road continued north about 5 miles to where I went west into Meadow Canyon, then another 8 miles that put me in a wide valley below the high Jefferson summits massif. I chose to follow a slightly bad road on the left that took me another mile or so up to the ridge at "Jefferson Summit", so marked on the map. Shortly I passed a cattle grate then turned north onto a Jeep road. This road was sandy and had a high center; I scraped the bottom of my truck a couple times and sometimes balanced on the berms to get past some really high parts, but within a half-mile I had come upon a small stand of pinon on a small knoll that seemed to be a great place to park and camp for the evening. It was probably just about 4 p.m. when I arrived so I used the rest of the day to explore the area and enjoy the scenery. I had the whole place to myself! During the evening I could see the lights of the huge Round Mountain Mine off to the west. Otherwise it was still, dark, clear and the sky lit up by millions of stars. I slept in the bed of my truck and awoke the next morning very early to more of the Great Basin's stunningly dry and clear weather. From where I camped Jefferson's southern summit - the county highpoint - could be seen off to the north, clear as day. The mountain was mostly treeless and sage covered. This seemed to be a straightforward hike.

By 6 a.m. I was walking up the remainder of the jeep tracks, which split and ran parallel for awhile, separated by a north-south running fence that was in bad shape and mostly on its side. The tracks finally petered out after about a mile and roughly 600 feet of uphill gain to come to the base of a short rocky section. A good path ran through this section. Shortly, the path descended to a saddle (meeting the trail coming up from the lower camping area here), then gained up a moderate grade to come onto a broad sage-covered shelf at about 9,500 feet elevation at the head of Horsethief Canyon. The path essentially ends here. My options were to stay the course and meet the headwall of Horsethief Canyon a bit up the way, or charge up the steep slopes to my right and gain the elevation faster, which I chose to do. This bit tired me but the going was easy and in short order I had gained about 500 feet to come upon another broad shelf. I could spy large cairns up here, as well as the summit once again, growing ever so tantalizingly closer. Even without the cairns, the route finding was logical - just head toward the peak and hope something happens.

I walked this shelf toward a prominent 'pointy' peak, following the cairns as I saw them and often just using dead reckoning. Eventually I regained a well defined footpath that trended onto the west-facing sides of the ridge. Here, things got a bit steeper. The trail switchbacked a few times and eventually dropped me off onto a saddle just below the pointy peak. Mount Jefferson's South summit was plainly visible, a broad, flat peak ringed by some impressive cliffs. I was close enough to make out some electronic gear placed atop the peak. Regardless, I continued on my way, following the trail as it hugged the range high above the canyons below. One stretch traversed a section of slightly loose scree that presented the only real dangerous section of the hike - one slip here could have meant a long ride down hill. I just paid attention and shortly was past this bit, where I then upclimbed to another saddle, this one directly below the summit. A jumble of dark colored rocks meets the traveler here. I missed a couple cairns and went pretty much up these rocks where convenient, but quickly I found the proper path and followed it as it curled along the south and east faces of the summit. And, for the first time, I felt the full force of the wind! I stayed the course and at some point, where I was clearly just a few dozen feet below the top, I made my own way up the final bits of rock and achieved the summit at about 8:30 a.m., where I took refuge out of the wind behind the small buildings. I found the benchmark, signed in the register, looked out over everything and took a nice long break. The best views were to the west, where Arc Dome was visible in the Toiyabe Range. Not a cloud in the sky, and I felt like I was the only person on earth.

The summit is as big as a football field, rocky, flat and completely treeless, as was the entire hike. I peered north to the other summits of the Jefferson summit complex, but these were spread out a ways and I had no desire to visit them. I looked back south and could make out my camp area but my truck was small enough to completely blend in. The hike down went quick and mostly uneventfully, other than busting the strap that kept my hat on. But the wind abated as I descended and I basically retraced my steps, arriving back to my truck at 11 a.m., an overall 5 hour hike covering 8 miles and 3,100 feet of gain. A beautiful day on the range!

I drove back through Belmont but instead of going all the way back to Tonopah I took a dirt road west through the community of Manhattan - an old mining town that still has a few hangers-on living there. This put me on highway NV-376. I drove north through the Round Mountain mine and company town complex. Otherwise this was lonely, vacant Nevada interior. After a long drive north, passing Bunker Hill along the way, I worked my way west into Virginia City, where I had enough time late in the day to make short work of the Storey County highpoint, Mount Davidson.