Saturday May 31, 18.5mi/29.8km

Benton Town Park (625.1/5380ft) (CA) to Trail Canyon Lake (639.3/8050ft) (NV) +4.3mi alternate

I was awake really early and packed up my tent by 6 am, since I wasn’t certain I was allowed to camp where I was. I walked back into the park and hung out at one of the tables for a couple hours, eating first breakfast and reading my book. Once the cafe opened at 8am, I went and had second breakfast.

The post office opened at 8:30, which was perfect timing and I went and picked up my replacement air mattress.

My current air mattress has the “bulge of death” which means the internal seams are becoming delaminated. The company sent me a free replacement. Actually, they mistakenly sent me two free replacements. I definitely didn’t want to carry two air mattresses, so I mailed one away. I enjoyed talking to Sasy, the postal clerk, she was almost 80 years old, very chatty and knew all the town gossip. By now it was 9am, and time to leave town and start hiking. As I was leaving town, I noticed an actual working payphone!

It kinda makes sense since there’s no cell reception in the whole valley. I had a 3-hour roadwalk along US highway 6, which was pretty quiet except for the occasional truck. And also the herds of wild horses that were roaming around!

After 2 hours on the road, I had a small celebratory moment for entering Nevada.

Eventually I left the highway and turned onto a dirt road that led up into the mountains. The turn-off was marked by a famous defunct brothel, “JR”.

There were more wild horses roaming around this area.

The weather was a little warm so I was thankful when some clouds moved in and provided some shade. Shortly after, I entered Queen Canyon, with even more shade from the trees.

I saw tons of paintbrush and it was curious that it was growing in clumps here, usually it grows pretty scattered.

On the upper end of Queen Canyon, I came across some curious old buildings, I assume related to the defunct mining operation.

I took a nice long break, snacking and exploring one of the buildings. The other building had an old rotten wooden floor, so I definitely stayed out of that one. I had another hour of hiking to finish the climb up to the pass, it was surprising to look back down Queen Canyon and see how far I had already climbed.

I was nearing the top of the climb…

When I got to the pass, the clouds I was so thankful for earlier had turned into thunderclouds.

The view up ahead looked only slightly less threatening.

I quickly descended down the other side, or at least tried to, as the old road was steep and full of very loose little rocks.

After a mile, the descent eased up and I was traveling through a nice pinion-juniper forest.

Pretty soon I came to Trail Canyon Lake, one of the few water sources in this section. It was shocking to see so much water in a generally dry landscape.

I had drank a ton of water on the 4,000-ft climb, so I refilled my bottles and camped a short distance later.

I found a nice spot in some trees that was protected from both wind and rain, as the thunderclouds had now become very rumbly and sprinkly. New state, new weather?