Loneliest Road in America Road Trip: 3 Days Driving Highway 50 Through Nevada

[Music] in 1986 life magazine said that highway 50 through northern nevada was the loneliest road in america they advertised against traveling the route and said that if you had to travel it make sure you knew how to use your survival gear since then highway 50 has become a tourist attraction with many wanderers wanting to drive america's loneliest road my dad and i were two of them and we set out on a highway 50 road trip in the fall of 2020. it was a fantastic trip through a beautiful part of nevada with lots of pony express history cowboy history ghost towns and other amazing natural attractions to see like great basin national park this video showcases our three days driving along the route and be sure to let me know if you've done it or if you have any suggestions that we missed in the comments one note before setting out on your trip i definitely recommend going to travel nevada's website and requesting a stamp book they'll send it to you in the mail and it's a great souvenir to take with you while you're on the route if you get over five stamps you can send it in for an i survived highway 50 souvenir anyways on to what we explored on our three days on highway 50. hey everyone josh from throughmylens.com i'm here with my dad who you may remember from the route 66 video today we're starting another road trip along highway 50 nevada's loneliest road our road trip began with our arrival to carson city to do a few stops before heading out the next morning carson city is the capital of nevada and an important city in the development of the state it sits right near the california nevada border and it has two museums that are definitely worth checking out on your road trip this is our first stop in carson city at the nevada state railroad museum the first is the nevada state railroad museum which features dozens of trains in pristine condition and discusses the impact of the railroad on carson city and nevada itself there are a couple one-of-a-kind train cars here that are only found in this museum and nowhere else plus they had a great exhibit on the completion of the trans-continental railroad as well after exploring the main museum be sure to go out to the depot where they're actively working on restoring trains and you can even go in a few of them if you like trains it's definitely something you're going to want to stop and check out before leaving on highway 50. from there we headed about five minutes north through downtown carson city over the nevada state museum this museum is especially impressive because it's housed inside what was formerly the carson city mint the route we're following was a pony express route so there's a lot of these markers i believe along the route i think there's also a lot of these uh lincoln highway markers as well and now we're headed into the nevada state museum this museum features exhibits on nevada's native american heritage as well as an underground mine that you can still explore check it out there was a bigfoot of the great basin the highlight for me was the underground mining exhibit which was interactive and had lots of different windows peeking into what mine workers would have done as you were exploring the underground area pups is leaving the uh mayan exhibit because he's too claustrophobic [Music] definitely a little tight in here upstairs there's a fossilized colombian mammoth and a few other exhibits on nevada state history dang this beaver it's got like blood on his teeth watch out when we're on highway 50 for the human eating beaver lastly if you go on the right day you can still see the old press in action and they will actually press coins that you can purchase there if you want a souvenir this was awesome to see as i'd never seen a historic press running like this [Music] we made it back to our hotel after spending the afternoon in carson city tomorrow is the official start of our highway 50 road trip we started the day early since we had a lot of driving ahead of us and made a quick stop at comma coffee for coffee and breakfast which is a great spot in carson city from there we officially started our drive east on highway 50 leaving carson city towards the town of dayton while there's not much to see in dayton there is a sign that shows that it is where the first gold was discovered in the state so when we're driving highway 50 we're actually following the old pony express route so there's a lot of pony express history on this drive as well the pony express was a mail delivery service that ran from 1860 to 1861. it was only in service for one year and was then replaced by the telegraph but it's still an iconic part of the western expansion of the united states along this route you'll notice that we stopped at lots of pony express history sites and nevada historical markers this is the site where the first recorded dance happened in 1853 while in dayton you can drive up to the dayton water tower for a great overlook of the city and a historic cemetery [Music] the dayton cemetery was founded in 1851 and is one of the oldest continuously maintained cemeteries in the state of nevada i didn't spend much time here but i imagine for some this is a pretty cool stop [Music] from dayton we backtracked a little bit because i wanted to go to virginia city one of the best preserved old cities on highway 50. virginia city is about 15 minutes off highway 50 but it's worth the short detour as it's a really fun city to explore the first thing you'll notice as you drive into virginia city is the famous schoolhouse from the 1800s the schoolhouse was built in 1875 it has 14 classrooms two study halls and it accommodated a thousand students that's how you can tell how big this area was at one point in time there is a museum here as well but it's only open during the summer so we can't go inside today that's highway 50 out in the distance out there we're up in the mountains up in virginia city virginia city went through a huge boom in the late 1850s with the discovery of the comstock load a huge silver ore deposit under the city it was one of the first significant silver deposits found in the united states and people from all over the country traveled out to try to find their fortune mark twain was even a reporter in the city at one point in time and the entire city feels like a living history museum one thing you have to do while you're there is visit the silver queen hotel which is a hotel that's over 130 years old inside the saloon there's what's known as the silver queen which is a 15 foot tall painting that has over 3 000 silver coins in it of course you can also just walk around soak in the history and visit one of the famous saloons you're the only person in virginia city on the way out of the city we saw a museum called the way it was and stopped in to check it out the museum is small but it has a lot of great artifacts and antiques from virginia city's history hey pops i don't think you're gonna fit in uh that's surrey this is an exact scale model of the underground workings of all the tunnels in virginia city that's crazy the main thing i learned here is that the city is basically hollow and i wouldn't want to be here if there was an earthquake virginia city nevada riding the mine cart this is pretty crazy the earliest pipes that they had were made of wood wrapped with wire [Music] the roasting house is a great place for coffee plus they have a cool outdoor seating area to drink your coffee the nice view what do you think about uh virginia city i love virginia city this would be every cowboy's dream to come and visit here are you a cowboy i'm a wannabe cowboy the drive back to highway 50 from virginia city was windy and beautiful we found fall colors on our nevada drive gorgeous fall colors i love it we found our first roadside stop of the highway 50 trip it's a cactus building which i guess was uh for this old cactus market right here [Music] fortunately the oasis restaurant that the cactus was connected to is past its prime but you can imagine it must have brought a bunch of visitors back in the day [Music] thank you kind of adventurer pop says that the cactus building looks like a freaking octopus i don't want to criticize how does that not look like a cactus after debating whether it was a cactus or octopus for longer than i care to admit we were back on the road and headed to our next stop fort churchill state historic park which is also about 10 minutes south of highway 50. we've made it to the remains of fort churchill which is out in the distance there's all sorts of old buildings from the fort that was built in the 1860s the fort was built in 1860 and it provided protection for immigrants and pony express riders as they traveled west it was used for nine years and then it was abandoned in 1869 you can walk a short trail through the fort grounds and see the adobe construction from the buildings that still remain in place pops is reliving his nevada cowboy life right now it really feels like the old west down here it really does you think you could survive in the old west i would like to think i could but i'm not sure i could this area is also part of the california trail which was a wagon and foot trail that took over 200 000 people west in the mid-1800s as my dad and i were leaving we saw a picnic area with fall colors so we had to pull off we found this cool picnic area that leads to the carson creek carson river but look at all this fall color it's incredible right now [Music] that's not much of a river it feels more like a creek to me [Music] probably just the time of year we don't get much fall color in southern california so we took the time to soak it in whenever we saw it on this road trip what do you think pups absolutely beautiful fall colors it's hard to want to leave this spot but we got a long drive ahead of us so got to continue on [Music] from fort churchill is back to highway 50 and on towards the city of fallon fallon is probably the biggest town on highway 50 and it has everything from grocery stores to restaurants so be sure to stop if you need something the city was founded in 1908 and be sure to drive through their well-preserved downtown area we're in the town of fallon and we made it to the churchill county museum which is supposedly the best little museum on the loneliest road in america we were told by multiple people to stop at this museum while driving highway 50 and i can easily say that it does a great job of preserving the area's history and having fun and interactive exhibits to experience one of my favorite things was the collection of photographs they had in the old building but there's lots of other stuff and you could easily spend a few hours exploring this is the original shoe tree that used to be on highway 50. we're going to see a new one today but here's some of the shoes that they took from that tree check it out corona cooties can you stamp them out i'm sick of this corona virus oh you're doing your part do your part to stamp out covet 19. there's also another 4 000 square feet of space in the museum's west annex building which had some of the coolest exhibits this is called the annex part of the museum it's actually the best part because there's all sorts of cool old cars and stuff about the telegraph and the pony express all back here that is a 1909 steamroller that's really cool this is a 1919 page touring car what was the page touring car for touring there's the fallon public school bus so they have a bunch of jokes on the ground for children pops is gonna tell us one you're probably wondering why do melons always have big welling weddings because they can't alert after exploring the rest of the museum's exhibits we got our passport stamped and then headed on at the museum we learned that this shoe tree is still alive and well so we're gonna stop in one of these thrift stores grab some shoes to add to it we got some shoes for a couple bucks from the thrift store but in hindsight you definitely don't need to do this as there's thousands of shoes just laying below the tree that you can pick up and throw in leaving the city of fallon and heading on to our next stop grimes point fallon is also home to a big naval air base so keep your eyes peeled as you may see jets flying training runs above you [Music] we're about 10 miles outside of the town of fallon here and we're about to see some petroglyphs at grimes point grimes point is one of the largest and most accessible petroglyph sites in northern nevada i don't know if you guys can see it but there's all sorts of jets flying around out here there's a navy base so it's pretty cool to see them flying through the air [Music] there's some petroglyphs at least i believe those are old i have no idea they don't know what these petroglyphs mean but this is probably one of the best ones we've seen right here this is a fun family friendly hike it's fun to just try to find them all on the different rocks this sign says that all this area out in the distance was beach front property because it was a lake about 10 000 years ago not a lake anymore i think this is the biggest one we've seen so far that's a oh i don't want to touch it that's the size of my hand versus that there's four jets now coming through here [Music] this trail is less than a quarter of a mile but we spent a good 20 to 30 minutes just walking around seeing what we could find so yeah this one it's like a thanksgiving wishbone this was a great stop especially if you have a family there's tons of petroglyphs to see and it's fun to just look at the rocks and try to pick them out on to our next stop i don't remember what it is from fallon the drive gets pretty remote so be sure to stock up on gas before you leave our next stop was the sand mountain area this is a cool little idea we just saw it's called random acts of art art abandonment so people paint these little pieces of art on these rocks and then you can just take one with you sand mountain is a popular off-roading area about 20 miles east of fallon the sand dunes here are about 2 miles long and 600 feet tall i didn't get a chance to explore them much but it looked like a pretty cool area and there was a lot of people there this area is also home to the sand springs station and old pony express station that's one of the best preserved along the route we took the short detour along a dirt road to drive over and see it [Music] that is the sand spring station or what's left of it right there and there's a little bit trail to walk out from the parking area it's about a quarter of a mile walk through the sand out to the sandspring station while it might not seem like much at first these ruins are well preserved and give you a great glimpse into the life of a pony express rider pony express station site this station was built in 1860 for the pony express and then one year later the telegraph came through 1861 i stopped using the station so this little room that i'm in right now is where the employees of the pony express stayed and the quote says that it was ruthless chairless filthy squalid and a smoky fire in one corner doesn't sound like a very fun place to be you can walk all throughout the ruins and they're information plaques that tell you about each of the rooms and the history time for a late lunch monster burger at middlegate station you're gonna take it down no from sand springs to middlegate it's about a 20 minute drive there's basically nothing out here but there are a few plaques that designate historic points of interest this sign notes uh fairview which was a substantial town that had 27 saloons during the mining boom but uh nothing there now this is our lunch spot at old middlegate station they have a crazy thing here called the monster burger so i'm gonna check it out if you're driving this route i highly recommend you plan to have lunch at middlegate station definitely call in advance to see what their hours are and make sure they're open and you basically don't have any other option between fallon and austin anyway but luckily middlegate station makes a pretty mean burger plus it's just a cool restaurant to explore that really has that highway 50 vibe [Music] pops ready for his monster burger all right so this is the monster burger that we have right here wow it's awesome so you can order this and if you eat the entire thing then they'll give you a shirt but we are uh just splitting it so go ahead and cut the monster oh my gosh now you gotta hold you gotta try to take a bite of it though are you kidding me yep you gotta try ready oh man the monster burger is a pound and a half of beef on a sourdough bun with lettuce tomatoes onions pickles cheese and french fries monster burger so we didn't know what we're gonna think about that burger since it's so big and gimmicky but it was absolutely incredible you guys have to eat that if you go wonderful really really good good burger all right we're leaving middlegate station we got about two and a half hours at least of driving before we make it to our hotel so uh i think the sun's gonna go down by the time we get there but we're heading to the shoe tree now middlegate station was easily a highlight for my dad and i plus it's only about 10 minutes from the shoe tree looks like there's some shoes in that tree got my thrift store shoes for the shoe tree good to go pops has some like brand new nike golf shoes brand new nike leather golf shoes look at that so hopefully someone comes and finds those and takes them home 250 at the thrift store i think pops is way smarter in the way that he tied his shoes versus mine that's gonna be way easier to get to the the top area of the tree all right you better back up you ready there's like uh at least a 50 chance he misses the tree altogether at least 50. this is the walk of shame try to throw your shoes at the shoe tree all right pops is round two round three third time's the charm all right big talk let's see what you got it took you three tries to technically i only have to do it in two oh oh yeah not so easy you want to talk about a walk of shame i lost my brown shoes somewhere in uh this pile oh let's just hang them on that branch right there where you can reach it oh success success so if you want to throw shoes in the shoe tree you don't need to bring your own there's enough here hops is trying to point out how excited he is that his shoes are in the tree the beautiful nikes come get him if you're a golfer right there the shoe tree is a fun little stop on highway 50 but it's a lot harder than you would think to get the shoes up into the tree rock creek cold spring station was an important part of the pony express it's right down there we got to backtrack a little bit to see it [Music] we were chasing the sunset on the way to austin but luckily there's not a lot to see in this stretch of highway 50 anyway just a few historical plaques along the road [Music] so apparently for this station they do not want you going inside and disturbing the ruins so that's about as good as it gets for this one the two-lane highway truly is desolate and we passed very few cars as we were driving through this section it's beautiful though and i can see why this drive has become a tourist attraction as we climbed up one of the 17 passes there was another pony express station this one was also behind barbed wire so you couldn't get in and see the ruins i'm not sure why some of these are protected with barbed wire while others are free to visit the sun was heading behind the hills providing a beautiful desert sunset as we made our way to our last spot of the day so at the top of this pass right here we're making it to our next city which is austin nevada there's definitely not coffee in austin because i looked but not sure what else there is there as you approach austin you can see a building sitting out in the distance in the trees this is stokes castle which is the main tourist attraction here and where we were hoping to spend sunset [Music] we made it to our last stop of the day in the light this is stoke's castle not a bad spot to watch the sunset stokes castle is a three-story stone building that was built in 1897 for a mine developer and banker who lived in the area they only ever lived in the castle for a few months and now it's run by the austin historical society we hung out here for about 45 minutes and we were the only people here that's the road we've been driving highway 50 all along there fitting sunset to end day one we got an hour drive to eureka where we're going to check in to the haunted hotel we're staying at tonight note that if you're driving this the only thing i saw open in the entire town of austin was one gas station on the way out of town there is an old store from the 1860s and we saw some deer roaming the street the next town after austin is eureka which is about an hour away so be sure to get gas in austin if you need it we did the rest of this drive in the dark and arrived at the jackson house hotel a haunted hotel we were spending the night at this is the historic jackson house hotel in eureka in nevada it's supposedly haunted oh we see it so we're gonna explore a little bit pretty cool the jackson house hotel was built in the mining heyday of eureka in 1877 and it definitely retains that eerie vibe [Music] whoa pretty cool there's like an outdoor balcony standing on the corner of what was 1800s hotel once you check into the hotel you have a key to be able to walk around the entire upstairs area also note that you have to call to make a reservation and it's only open seasonally look at this creepy children's bed people got upset when you slept in route 66 bed you're gonna sleep in the children's bed tonight we walked around the hotel for a while at night just exploring but we didn't see any ghosts while we were there let us know if you have a ghost story from this hotel in the comments that's it for day one on our highway 50 loneliest road road trip one thing to note is that the drive from austin to eureka there's absolutely nothing no gas nothing to stop at so get gas in austin if you need it we'll see you tomorrow morning if the ghosts don't get us we survived the jackson house hotel and today we're heading out to finish highway 50 ending in utah and then heading into the great basin national park it's a cool sign for the lincoln highway which we're driving on right now check out this lincoln highway sign too that's super cool before leaving eureka we took some time to explore the downtown area which has some interesting murals and old buildings plus there's three main things you're going to want to see while you're here the museum the courthouse and the opera house our first stop was at the museum which is in the old eureka sentinel building that had a newspaper that ran out of the bottom floor for most of the last century the entire bottom floor represents what the press room would have looked like in the 1800s and it even has posters that were printed during that time on the walls i have to say it was one of the museum highlights for our highway 50 road trip and you should definitely stop and see it if it's open a two-minute walk from the museum brings you to the eureka courthouse it was constructed in 1876 and renovated in 1995 and you can still walk up to the second floor and see the courthouse itself our last stop in eureka was across the street from the courthouse near the jackson house hotel and that was the eureka opera house i didn't do any research beforehand but this was easily a highlight for me as this opera house was built in 1880 and it's incredible to see in person the structure was restored in 1993 and you can still walk backstage and see signatures from over a hundred years of different performers it was free to enter when we were there and we were allowed to walk backstage and see the signatures and walk upstairs and see the theater from above it was definitely a highlight for me in the city of eureka and make sure to check it out if it's open when you're there from eureka it's another long and desolate one hour drive to ely we went over multiple passes and passed very few cars during this section [Music] along the way there were a few historical markers and lincoln highway plaques that we could see but believe me when i say that this is a desolate and windy road with very few places to stop limited cell phone reception and not a lot to see other than the sheer natural beauty of northern nevada eventually we arrived in the town of ely probably the biggest town outside of fallon on this drive in this town you'll find casinos hotels multiple museums and restaurants our first stop was at the nevada northern railway museum this museum is in the east ely depot and has a bunch of offices that have been preserved upstairs [Music] hello sir i'd like one ticket please to put my dad on the next train out of here don't give him anything he's not reliable new besties where's your mask sir directly outside the main museum is the rail yard the rail yard here has been called one of the best preserved in the nation and it served passengers and businesses until 1983. after getting a safety briefing from one of the museum workers you can walk along the rail yard and see the old trains exploring the northern nevada railway museum the rail yard area it's really cool but it's crazy windy check it out that tumbleweed is going for my dad it's gonna go attack him get him tumbleweed [Music] we're heading in to what's supposedly the best part of this museum the engine shop safety first walking a quarter mile down from the railway or just driving down allows you to enter the old engine shop the engine shop is still being used to this day and there are people working on the trains while we were there it's really awesome that they keep this open and allow you to walk through watch the work in progress and see a lot of the cool trains check out all these old trains that we're exploring in this area really cool my dad and i took a while exploring this area and even were able to talk to a few of the workers that were working on the trains [Music] do you know what this is it is a snow plow never seen anything like that that is really cool [Music] what'd you think pops and i guess a couple of these are functional wow when it's the season they can kind of run back and forth a little bit for people pretty cool all right we're getting out of this uh crazy wind i'm gonna go find something to eat and then go to another museum we decided to drive back into downtown ely and spend a little bit of time walking up and down the streets and seeing what the town had to offer one of the things i noticed almost immediately is that there are a lot of really cool murals around the town another lincoln highway sign in ely [Music] this is the ely renaissance society sculpture park so all these different sculptures have an explanation right here the downtown sculpture park was especially fun to explore with some really cool art pieces and a lot of information on the lincoln highway there's the bristlecone pines which we are going to be seeing today hopefully if the wind's not too bad we found some more murals on the way to hotel nevada and we wanted to see the hotel during the day because that's where we were spending the night [Music] so outside of the hotel nevada there's stars that show people who have actually stayed here like gary cooper jimmy stewart ingrid bergman wayne newton pat nixon president lyndon b johnson the hotel nevada which the walk of fame is outside of is the main point of interest in ely this hotel and gambling hall was built in 1929 and it's become a popular spot over the years even if you're not staying there or gambling be sure to poke your head in at hotel nevada as there are a few cool exhibits to see there's also some information nearby and a mural that's dedicated to all the mining history that happened outside of ely plus there's a thrift store called the loneliest thrift store in america in ely there's a jailhouse steakhouse where you actually eat in old cell blocks if that's something you're into as well getting our coffee fix at the cup if you need a coffee break in ely this is a good spot the cup in downtown heading on from downtown our last stop in ely was at the white pine museum established in 1959 this museum has a lot of history on the pony express and the area plus it had the last stamp we needed for our book we just got our last stamps of the trip i survived the loneliest highway now yeah we haven't made it back this museum is pretty overwhelming as it has a lot of stuff to see in a very small area if you're into northern nevada's history i'm sure you'll want to spend a lot of time here though don't forget to see the cave bear that's their claim to fame this skeleton right here really cool normally i would uh make you put one of these things on for a photo but uh we're in the middle of a pandemic so probably that'd be good to pick those up say cheese oh terrifying wow this is an 1870s horse-drawn hearse looks like they're restoring it but that's pretty crazy i've never seen anything like that before i found the desperado from the last photo i'm putting him in jail jail escape don't forget to visit the exterior of the museum which has some train cars and other antique automobiles that you can see as well as actual historic buildings that have been transplanted here [Music] this is like a washing machine what is this thing yeah that's washing machine and then and then you take the things that you wash and you run them through that and it kind of cranks them so it kind of squeezes all the water out of it you can hang them on the line or whatever does that bring back the old days for you seriously when you had your washing machine like that seriously i can remember a day of my grandma everybody's all in a basement she wasn't actually using it that much this cabin was built in the 1880s [Music] horseside [Music] we spent about 45 minutes exploring this museum before leaving ely and heading on to our next stop as i said before the drive from ely is pretty remote on a two-lane road with just historical markers every once in a while about 30 minutes south of ely we decided to leave highway 50 again to visit ward charcoal oven state historic park don't forget to bring five dollars cash in order to visit the park [Music] we took a slight detour off highway 50 this is about 10 to 15 minutes off of the road but these are some really cool charcoal kilns that they have back here it says that these kilns were actually used as a bandit hideout at some points in time this is what it would have looked like when it was in use these charcoal ovens look kind of like bee hives and were used from 1876 to [Music] 1879 i can see how people could have actually lived in here yeah i mean it's pretty giant see how big my dad is six seven and this is a pretty big area i've seen some of these kilns before in death valley but these are probably the best preserved i've ever seen they said bandits used to hide out in here and you could see why they would like it there's some of these little like holes that you could potentially shoot through or something all around it you're going in every single one one in every single one this mud between them almost just feels like on the outside concrete but inside almost feels like just clay or just mud that's crazy things are gigantic [Music] on to our next spot as we left the charcoal kilns on our way towards the state line in the national park it was sad that our road trip was starting to come to an end so i believe there's 17 passes on the route and this is conor's pass which is the tallest pass on the loneliest road 7722 [Music] in case you're wondering this is what the road trip looks like most of the time with both of us singing along to old bands like the eagles fortunately i can't play our singing one because it's bad and two because i'll get a copyright strike leaving conor's pass towards great basin this is one of the most beautiful areas of the drive so we are coming up to the border of utah and nevada that gas station is the official border the end of the loneliest road in nevada this is the only thing on the utah nevada border there is gas and that's about it next gas that direction is like 80 miles so know that going in we've officially made it to utah finishing our time on the loneliest road in nevada but we're still gonna head to great basin national park it is crazy windy but uh this is definitely the only road i've ever seen where you can walk down the center of it and there's no one driving it after getting to the utah nevada state line and finishing the loneliest road we backtracked to great basin national park which is one of the top attractions in this part of nevada since this was during the pandemic in 2020 the visitor center was closed and the caves had been closed all year which is a top attraction we didn't know whether the road to the ancient bristol cones would be open because it was late in the season but we were lucky to be able to drive the entire scenic highway on the last day was open before the snow rolled in the next day this 12 mile scenic drive is incredible as you go all the way up to 10 000 feet and can see great views of the desert below you speed demon right here almost at 9 000 feet baby pubs loves these kind of drives too this is like his favorite thing at least i'm on the inside the inside is my dad hates driving with large drops on one side of you so we made our way as slowly as we could towards wheeler peak in the bristlecone pine parking lot we made it up to 10 000 feet in great basin national park and we're heading out on the briscon trail before the light goes down expect the unexpected ancient bristlecone pines are only found a few places in the entire world you can see my dad and i's road trip up highway 395 in california to see another grove in the description it's only 2 45 right now but it gets dark at around 4 45 this time of year which is why we try to rush up here see if we can get to the bristle cones and then head back down be sure to note the elevation if you come up here you're at ten thousand feet and it can be pretty hard to catch your breath on the three mile round troop trail this trail in the caves are the two most popular things in the park the caves have been closed all of 2020 because of cobid though so that's why we're hiking this trail first view of wheeler peak right there point seven miles to the bristlecone pines there's a nice bench to relax at right here too halfway [Music] that's where we started right there now we're all the way over here some epic views way out in the distance wheeler peak is a commanding presence on this hike sitting at over 13 000 feet i had planned to hike it the next day but the snow canceled those plans i think those might be the start of some bristlecone pines the ancient ones down there not 100 though but we're almost there [Music] this trail is beautiful and remote and my dad and i were the only people on it the entire time we made it to the first for sure ancient bristlecone pines right there [Music] we made it to the official start of the bristlecone pine interpretive trail this interpretive trail is the point of interest here as it's a short little loop that takes you through all the ancient bristlecone pines and has information about them if you haven't seen these trees before they're pretty incredible they're all gnarled and weathered and they're really cool for photographs [Music] pops is demonstrating how you can find a good spot to rest while you're at the bristlecones i learned a lot about the trees from the plaques on the interpretive trail and about how they only live at this certain elevation and on certain sides of the mountain plus these trees are some of the oldest in the entire world that's it for the little interpretive trail we're on you can actually go out to the glacier but it's too late in the day for that for us so we're gonna head back [Music] amazing views on this trail that was an awesome little interpretive trail a great collection of trees this is one of three areas in the world where these types of trees grow you can see my dad nice visit to another one up here in the corner and hopefully we'll get to the third one sometime in the future check out how epic this view is i bet that trail to the glacier is amazing from there was 1.5 miles back to the car to start the drive out of great basin national park and back to ely [Music] on the way down we stopped at the mather point overlook and got some great views of wheeler peak as well as a little bit of sunset with the clouds coming in we raced the storm out of great basin national park and back to the town of ely for our last night on highway 50. my dad and i decided that what better way to spend your last night on the loneliest road in america than staying at a historic hotel we chose the hotel nevada and ely as it was a good distance back from the great basin national park and let us drive all the way back to reno the next day so we just checked into the suite in the hotel nevada it was less than 100 at this time of the year but we thought we'd spoil ourselves why not that's it for our time on highway 50 hopefully you enjoyed going on this road trip with us go to throughmylens.com for more and we'll see you on the next video you

Channel: Through My Lens

Views: 1,539,178

Rating: 4.8834567 out of 5

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Id: Qj9uxk0ASsk

Length: 47min 15sec (2835 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 06 2020