Loneliest Road in America

[timandsusan]

I plan on driving US 50 from Ely to Carson City this fall. We have been to Ely and enjoyed the area. With my new 50 gallon diesel tank, I am not worried about the distance--about 220 miles. Any suggestions for places to visit or a place to stop about mid way?

[simonsrf]

Tim and Susan,
There is a reason they call it the loneliest highway. We love the views, but there isn't much out there unless you like the little old towns. They have lots of mining and old west history and character. We typically just drive through there and camp along the road somewhere. There normally is very little traffic. There are service stations, but fuel prices are high.

Use campgroundreviews.com if you are planning on staying in any of the little towns....RV Parks out there are expensive.

Hope this helps.

[bigmurf]

Just East of Austin up on the summit is a USFS campground called Bob Scott(?). It has a couple of pull thrus. We have also stayed on a pull over on US 50 just accross the road from the CG. There is no traffic at night. There is also a BLM site a few miles East of the summit.

Rv park in Austin did not look real great.

[Gkerlin]

About 25mi east of Fallon (100mi east of Carson City) is the Sand Mountain Rec Area. It's BLM dry camping but an interesting place. If its not loaded with Off-roaders it's dead quiet and about as good star gazing as one will find. There is a pony express station there. You camp at the base of the sand dunes which are a couple of miles long and are what is known as singing sand.

A pass is $40k and good for a week.

[sreigle]

We drove it from Carson City to where it merged with I-70. I rather enjoyed the road. Several mountain chains but nothing you can't handle. At the time we had a Ford V10 gas truck with just a 27 gallon tank and we had no problem finding filling stations. Diesel shouldn't be a problem, either.

Somewhere towards the Carson City end is the ruins of a pony express station and, next door, a wells fargo office. Not much left there now but historical markers and the foundations. But we enjoyed roaming around there.
-- on edit -- It's called the "Cold Creek Pony Express Station." Also, you may already know this... but Pat Nixon was from Ely, NV. --end edit--

What was most odd, though, is before we stopped we'd not seen another vehicle for probably half an hour or more. Yet, as I went to pull out of the pony express area to make a left onto US-50, we had to wait for vehicles coming. In both directions. After that it had to be at least another half hour before we saw another vehicle.

I know you're going the opposite direction but, if you ever have the chance, we also took US 50 clear across Colorado. That's a very nice drive.