Day 26: Lithium Mines

Monday June 2, 26.4mi/42.5km

Cave Spring (667.4/6160ft) to Clayton Saddle (693.8/5130ft) (NV) -3.0 mi vehicle

This summer daylight seems to always wake me up at 5:45am, which means I’m hiking by 6:30. I poked around the area a little more, just to make sure I didn’t miss any water sources. All dry. I did find this neat mining shaft, which for some reason they call a cave.

It was a nice cool morning on a gradual uphill, and I only had a mile and a half of hiking until the Coyote spring water source.

Unfortunately when I got to that water source, it appeared that the metal tanks had been removed, and all that remained was a silty and muddy cow pond.

I thoroughly investigated the area and found some new looking piping buried under bulldozer tracks that led right to the pond. Someone must have reconfigured the water setup here, bummer. There was quite a bit of cow poop around, and the water had a weird ammonia smell so it’s probably at least 20% cow piss. I grabbed an emergency liter, but didn’t run it through my filter since that would probably kill the filter. It’s only 12 miles to town, most of them downhill, where there is good water. The rest of the roadwalk was uneventful except for this little guy was sunning himself in the middle of the road.

I easily finished the gradual little climb and took a nice long break on the pass before starting the descent. There was a cool breeze and some shady junipers that beckoned to be sat under.

Initially the descent was steep…

And then flattened out, while the small town of Silver peak came into view.

Silver peak is a tiny town, and home to the country’s only lithium mine. I assumed they would make good money mining a rare element, but the town looked like a disaster zone of shipping container homes, rotting RVs, and just generally junk lying around.

But I got a photo of the town’s famous directional sign.

I’m heading towards Alkali Hot Spring. By now it was about noon so I went to the town park and took a break in the shade of the pavilion.

It was a pretty nice spot, with picnic tables and benches and even outlets to charge my phone. There was a school group using the adjacent pool, so I had access to the bathrooms there and refilled my water bottles. One of the adults in charge of the school’s field trip was also the grillmaster, and asked me if I would please make room for all the kids when they got out of the pool to eat. I moved to a further picnic table and he gave me a nice double cheeseburger with bacon and jalapenos. Amazing.

Eventually the school group left to go home, and I had the shady pavilion to myself. I took a couple hours break and waited out the hot weather. I would have been tempted to use the pool, but it’s privately owned by the mining company and the school group locked it up once they left. On my way out I stopped by the fire station and got more water.

I started the 5 mile roadwalk through the lithium mine area, I was excited to see what all the fuss was about, as I could see the brightly colored evaporating pools all morning from above.

I got about 2 miles into the roadwalk and one of the mine’s security staff stopped to chat with me. He was quite friendly, but said pedestrians weren’t allowed to use the road. I had been forewarned by some hikers ahead of me this might happen, and I even had email confirmation from the Esmeralda County roads supervisor that this road was a county-owned road, and indeed open to pedestrians. We were chatting for long enough that his supervisor pulled up also, and after a brief polite discussion, I got a ride through the mine area. I was kinda bummed that I missed 3 miles of the trail, but I view the gap like the boat ferry on the PNT or Te Araroa. Necessary to get across. The rest of the afternoon I followed a powerline road, and was glad to be walking in the direction that I was, since behind me looked quite dark and stormy.