Driving Across Nevada

Donald Rogers
Oct. 19, 2015

Driving Across Nevada

Driving across Nevada is good practice for life.

Three years ago I-5 was blocked at Wells, NV, and we were forced to turn back to Wendover on a rainy night, then turned south for about 100 miles,  turned back northwest through Secret Pass to intersect I-5 at Halleck. We got home about four hours late.

Two years ago we were stopped 25 miles north of Las Vegas by a flash flood across Hwy 95. We turned around, went forty miles back the way we came, turned west on Hwy 160 through Pahrump, NV, and came around Mt Charleston on the south side on Blue Diamond Rd. We got in about two hours late.

Today we were stopped at Beatty, NV, and told all roads through Lathrop Wells were blocked by deep water and there was no alternate route in Nevada for at least a day. I asked about Death Valley, but he couldn’t tell me what was happening there except all of southern California and Nevada have been deluged with major thunderstorms and flooding for two days.

So it looked like a good day to see Death Valley to me. I consulted with some of the other stranded drivers and we decided to go for it. I had a full tank of gas, enough food and drink for a week and we were looking for adventure anyway.

We had a beautiful trip through Death Valley. It was only 91º at 3:00 PM in the afternoon at Furnace Creek, and we only had to ford shallow water half a dozen times on State Line Road just south of Death Valley Junction. We got in to our room about three hours late this time.

Life seldom goes exactly the way we planned it, but the detours can be more fun than we expected.