Thursday Sep 21, 2023 - Elko NV to Angel Lake Campground

 

Deb here. Great stay at the Esquire Inn last night. Walked to the Coffee Cup for breakfast and got well-fueled for the day with delicious honey/whole wheat pancakes.

We then drove the short distance to the Ruby Mountains, only 30 minutes from Elko. Once we departed from the main road it was up a beautiful paved 12-mile dead end road. Wow, wow, wow, what stunning scenery! And yes, it really did feel as though we were in the Swiss Alps, just as the Nevadans had told us. We stopped at the parking area at the end of the road and decided to hike to the Dollar Lakes, about a 4+ mile round trip hike. I’d downloaded the hiking route on All Trails, which is always a very helpful thing, since most of these areas have zero cell service.

By the time we started it was close to 11 and sunny, although pretty cool and windy. The trail turned out to be spectacular, climbing steadily but with switchbacks and vistas all the way. This was indeed a trail that ranked highly on my effort to views scale. The trail is the start of the Ruby Crest Trail, a 38 mile backpacking route that passes by many alpine lakes. We reached the first Dollar Lake, and then walked on to the second, third, and fourth. We took a break at the fourth lake and thought we might stop there (as All Trails did), but we ran into a couple of hikers we’d talked with earlier who said it was worth hiking to Lamoille Lake, only about a quarter of a mile further. We walked on and ran into a 7 year old, his father, and grandfather with full backpacks. Turns out they’d spent the night camped at Lamoille Lake and encountered a super scary thunder and lightning storm on the mountain. The grandfather said in 40 years of backpacking he’d never had a night on a mountain that was that scary. Glad we made the decision to stay in town.

We hiked back down by the same route. There’s a forest service campground partway down the 12-mile road called Thomas Canyon, and we’d learned that there was a beautiful trail leading out of there. I thought we might camp there, but by the time we came down from Lamoille Lake the temperature had dropped and clouds were rolling in, so we decided to push on.

Back into Elko for a stop to use WiFi at our favorite free Wifi establishment, then onto Rt. 80 East. We’d learned from someone on the trail that there’s another gorgeous dead end paved road on the other side of the Ruby Mountains, with 2 forest service campgrounds, so we headed that way. 

Yet another paved and spectacular road into the wilderness, with a steep and twisty route and no guardrails. We passed the first campground, Angel Creek, about 8 miles up the road, but decided to push on to the Angel Lake campground, 12 miles up at the end of the road. We arrived there about 6 p.m. and walked up to see Angel Lake, an alpine lake in a beautiful glacial cirque, about 8,300 feet in elevation. The temperature kept dropping, and we hunkered down in our cozy van, made dinner, and read, listening to the rain and hoping the precipitation wouldn’t turn to snow!