Days 035-37 – 6/28-30/11 Berlin SP to Carvers

Distance > 42 Miles; Elevation Change > 8000 Feet
Lo Elevation = 5712; Hi Elevation = 9259

We finally got off the roads and into wilderness, along with low mileage days.  Piece of cake!  Right?

Our troubles started when I decided to take a shortcut on trail rather than stay on Forest Service roads.  The trail fizzled out, which I half expected.  We had to do some cross-county work that involved climbing above cliffs and back down again.  Tiring work, but we saved mileage and the rough going was somewhat anticipated.

What proved most unexpected was the part of our journey on the Toiyabe Crest National Recreation Trail, a part of the ADT prominently marked in red on the Forest Service map, as befitting of its “National” stature.  The TCNRT turns out to be a bit of totally false advertising, providing one of the worst trail experiences I have had.

Let’s start with the word “Crest,” which suggests following ridges.  Our entire trek on the TCNRT involved going up the Reese River canyon and down the South Twin River canyon.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with that.  In fact, I usually love going up and down river canyons, but this time was a little different.

I suppose there is nothing wrong with the word “Recreation,” but it would be more informative if they just called it a horse trail.  It must be.  They certainly would not design a hiking trail to cross the same river over 20 times (a conservative estimate) within just a few miles.  Granted, there was probably more snow melt going on than typical for late June, but half that amount of crossings is a bit much if you have hiking in mind.  Cindy and I just kept on our shoes, which means we wore waterlogged shoes for the bulk of our journey along the TCNRT.

Our day up the Reese River canyon was cold and cloudy.  Fortunately we set up camp before the hail storm.  Even so, as we went upriver the river our feet grew increasingly cold.  Going downriver on the South Twin meant ever larger crossings as we grew more fatigued throughout the day.  Fortunately, none of the crossings were in the category of dangerous.

ADT Reese River Crossing

A “National” Trail suggests one that draws some attention, but not this one.  The blow downs of aspen could be something that happened over the past year, but not the stifling overgrowth of willows and thorny wild rose by the river and sagebrush and chaparral in drier parts.  That presented an interesting dilemma.  Do I stay in shorts because of all the river crossings?  Or do I wear pants to prevent my legs from looking like I’ve had a tussle with rabid cats?  I wore pants one day, shorts the next, which meant in the end I’ve left both my sweat and blood on the TCNRT.

A little attention might have prevented sections of the trail from eroding off the river banks into oblivion.  I found it ironic that in one stretch of grassland the only way I could mark the trail was that the grass grew greener and fuller where the “trail” was located.  That gets to the last piece of false advertising.  I’m not sure I would call the TCNRT a trail, let alone a – gulp – “National” one.  There were many times the trail disappeared, including at some crucial moments where one was in danger of going up the wrong canyon.  In the end I did as much map and compass work on the TCNRT, the trail of national stature, as I did on the obscurely referenced trail that I expected to disappear ahead of time.

One interesting side note.  On our hike up the Reese River canyon I decided to make camp early, just below the cloud line.  I did not want to venture into the clouds and find myself having to rely on map and compass.  As a young pup I no doubt would have bulled ahead to stay on schedule, but camping early at 8400 feet turned out to be the right call.  By the time we set the tent up and made dinner the hail storm came, along with mountain thunder and lightning.  The next morning we woke up to ice coating our tent and frost on the sagebrush.  All on a Nevada morning in late June.

ADT Frost on the Sagebrush

If you get over the false advertising, the scenery was magnificent.  Of course there were mountains and canyons to gawk at, but also beauty on a smaller scale.

DT Little Beauty