Thursday June 19, 18.0mi/29.0km

Peak 9023 (973.4/8950ft) to Jacob’s Well Station (990.6/5960ft) (NV) +0.8mi spring

The wind had stopped overnight, and I woke up to find hundreds of mosquitoes waiting for me to exit my mesh fortress.

It’s strange that there’s so many mosquitoes around, there isn’t even any water here. I packed up camp and headed out at 6 am, I still had 10 more difficult miles in the Diamond Range before I would drop down to the valley below.

It was beautiful walking the ridgeline all morning, and often I was able to find some horse trails to link together and make hiking a little easier.

It was amazing seeing little patches of snow. I filled one of my empty bottles with the snow, and stuck it on the sunny side of my pack so I would have water in a few hours.

Looking ahead, I could see the next pass I would go over had another snow patch, but also some creatures moving around nearby.

As I got closer, I was astonished to see that there was a pack of horses walking on the snow!

They didn’t hear me until I was pretty close and then they all scared off and ran up the hillside.

So far the hiking today had been difficult but I was able to keep a steady pace, with the help of all the horse trails. The last 3 miles were exceptionally slow, due to the craggy terrain. My energy bars always have a timely message for me.

Enjoying the last of the horse trails, while surveying the upcoming terrain.

I spent awhile studying the upcoming ridgeline, and after concluding I couldn’t stay on top, I decided to try to hike along the back side.

So I crossed over the top where it was a little rocky…

…and started scrambling the back side where it was definitely rocky.

It took me an hour to go a mile, and it was pretty scrambly with a couple of class 3 sections where I was carefully planning my hand and foot placements. Looking back on the really slow rocky section:

It took me 3 hours to go 3 miles, and the scrambling was kind of fun, but I was relieved to be done with that part. I started dropping down the ridgeline to the pass below.

I bombed down the descent, losing 2,000 ft in just a couple of miles. When I got down to a dirt road, I was surprised to see a little historical sign. Apparently this road used to be part of the Pony Express route. Cool!

By now it was 1pm, and I would have stopped for lunch but I wanted to get to the water source in another mile. It had been 33 slow miles since I had seen flowing water. Corta spring was a little tricky to find, and it was small but I was able to get all my water refilled.

When I first got to the spring area, I thought it was dry. I had to follow the drainage almost a quarter mile upstream to find tiny pools of water. They’re actually located exactly where the USGS maps mark them, so any future hikers should have that map set downloaded. After enjoying a blissful hour of drinking lots of water at the spring, I continued on the Pony Express Road.

Looking ahead, I could see the Ruby Mountains, where I would be for the next few days.

I made it halfway across the valley before stopping to camp. There were plenty of signs reminding me I was on the Pony Express route, which was fun to imagine how that system worked.

The Diamond Mountains were beautiful, but quite difficult and I’m glad I have a few easier days coming up.