POST #21-44

 North To Ely, Nevada...

 ...Hunting for Garnets - checking out steam locomotives!

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On April 5, we left the Boulder Beach Campground, and made our way north to Ely, Nevada, a distance of about 258 miles.

Here is a sped up Lo-Res video of the beginning and end of that drive...

Not much to see in the middle part of that trip so we left it out of the video.  The Fell-Resolution copy of that video can be seen HERE.

We called ahead and made reservations at the Ely, Nevada KOA...

We are staying two nights so we can look around a bit before we continue north on April 5th.

Next day we drove up to Garnet Hill, where you can search for semi-precious garnets...about 13 miles.

Here is a sped up Lo-Res video of the drive up to Garnet Hill...

The Full-Resolution copy of that video can be seen HERE.

This is the top of the hill, an outcrop of welded volcanic ash that has Garnets encased in the rock.  

Several folks were hunting for garnets. These had been here since 8 AM.

They found a few after 4 hours of very hard work...

We worked for awhile...maybe 30 minutes, looking for this...

But only found a couple like this...

It was hard, back-breaking work - Bent over breaking up rocks with a pick-hammer and sorting through the pieces. They used to have guys in prison braking up rockpiles!  I think we will stick with our sapphire mining in Montana!

When we got done with that we drove back to Ely to check out their Railroad Museum.   

It’s what's left of the Nevada Northern Railway, completed in 1906. In 1942 the railroad was purchased by Kennecott Copper Corporation. In a series of donations beginning in 1986, Kennecott transferred the entire Ore Line, as well as the railroad's yard and shop facilities in East Ely, to the White Pine Historical Railroad Foundation, a non-profit organization which today operates the property as the Nevada Northern Railway Museum which operates a heritage railroad on this part of the former NN.  Passenger excursion train service is offered between Ely, Ruth, and McGill using period equipment pulled by historic steam and diesel locomotives.

In April of 2006, Nevada's National Historical Landmarks Committee granted unanimous support to nominating the Nevada Northern's East Ely shops complex as a National Historic Landmark.

It's all very cool!  You can even make arrangements to be the engineer of a Steam Locomotive or be the engineer of a Diesel Locomotive.

That would be a super cool experience!  It's a bit pricey at $749 for the Diesel Locomotive and $1027 for the Steam Locomotive!  Maybe some day!!

In the morning we will head out on the next leg of the trip home...Destination - Twin Falls Idaho!

Until Next  Time!