Bikeneering the Stillwater Range.

PC Kustin

December 9 2025

This ride was a condensed version of my "Bolivia" overnighter which has been in the backlog for several years.  I think I captured all the best of the overnighter and maybe more in this shorter day trip version although I'm not sure sure how I missed the connector over to Fencemaker Pass road from Kitten Sprgs rd. I think it would have been a better connection. 

Leaving the parking spot near the Oxbow geothermal plant, we initially climbed up a trackless canyon to roughly the site of the old nickel mining camp of Bolivia. 

Oxbow geothermal plant.

 

This section was super cool and we spent most of the time in the stream bed. 

PC Kurstin

 

We even ran into a small cascading waterfall.

Looking down canyon from the top.

PC Kurstin

PC Kurstin

 

Signs of the old mining activity were plentiful on reaching the town site.

PC Kurstin

From there we climbed a north branch of Cottonwood Canyon to a ridge top and dropped Kitten Springs road down the west side of the range. Cutting across to the north on a power line service road which I normally avoid, proved why I normally avoid them. Typical of these types of roads, a sea of drops straight down into gulch's and then straight up the other side led us eventually over to Fencemaker Pass road. An easy climb up to the pass and Kurstin mentioned "it's only another 800 vertical to the radio towers." I politely declined. After all we already had over 4000ft in our legs still had 23 miles to go.

Top of climb one. 

Kitten Spgs area. PC Kurstin

Topping out Fencemaker Pass. PC Kurstin

 

The route then dropped a super steep and pretty gnarly old ATV track for 2000 ft before finally mellowing out and leading over to Seven Devils Hot Springs, aka Sou Springs. 

PC Kurstin

 

Checking out the area I discovered a fumerole like hole straight down into the pits of hell. I wondered how many animal skeletons lay at the bottom. 

PC Kurstin

Steaming fumarole like hole.

 

Leaving the springs we made our way over to Dixie Valley road for the flat 13 mile spin back to our parked vehicles just outside the geothermal plant. Darkness caught us for the last couple of miles or so but we had both brought bike lights and of course headlamps. Comically, we tried to meet up for dinner in Fallon but there are 2 restaurants with the same name. So you can guess what happened. We had both already ordered food by the time we figured it out. "Oh well see ya next time."

Steam rising in the distance from the geothermal plant where we were parked.

PC Kurstin

 

I was pretty stoked on this route and consider it one of the best day rides I have done. I suspect it would be improved by using the connector off Kitten Springs road instead of the utility road and I would certainly use that if I ever do this route again.

Stats: 

Bike setups:
Doug - Binary Gordita rigid fat bike running 27.5x4" tires on carbon I45 rims.

Kurstin - Custom Meriwether long tail rigid fat bike running 26x4" meat on I90 rims. 

Link to route: Bolivia Short

Mt. Rainier, Mt.Temple, Mt. Whitney, Mt. Mendel.

 

Mt Fay from somewhere in the 'Black Towers' on the East Ridge route of Mt Temple

Perusing the internet I re-found these old trip reports. Although I've climbed more of them than what I submitted reports for, and now archived with the Los Alamos Mountaineers, these were originally published to the North American Classics project. A collection of climbs that had been deemed classic climbs of North America and reports of those climbs by some of the top climbers and alpinists of the times, (excluding me.) Reading through the index and reading some of the reports brought back many good memories. And some terrifying!

The Index: https://lamountaineers.org/NAC/browserf/other/climlist/clindex.htm

My written contributions:

Mt. Mendel, Mendel Couloir - https://lamountaineers.org/NAC/browserf/climbs/mendel/da_805.htm 

Mt. Whitney, E Face - https://lamountaineers.org/NAC/browserf/climbs/whitney/da_1002.htm

Mt. Rainier, Liberty Ridge - https://lamountaineers.org/NAC/browserf/climbs/rainier/da_501.htm

Mt. Temple, East Ridge -  https://lamountaineers.org/NAC/browserf/climbs/templemt/da_903.htm

 

Photo contributions, marked as DA in *photo* column.

Mt Robson -  https://lamountaineers.org/NAC/browserf/climbs/robsonkn/imagelis.htm

MY-na Has Dark Skies.

 

"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.“
— Vincent Van Gogh

 

October 2025

MY-na. Don't worry, I wasn't sure how to say it either. 

Since the Great Basin’s Edge bikepacking trip was shorter than expected I still had a little left in tank. An increasingly rare phenomena but one I happily embrace. I perused through my adventure backlog and found one that looked perfect. New to me territory and a cool looking ghost town that I have been wanting to visit. I cleaned up my bike but hadn’t yet done a more permanent repair to the tire I cut on the previous trip so I changed out the front tire on my Binary Bicycles, Kinetik bike. In looking at the terrain on Google Earth I suspected that I might be better off with something even fatter. In retrospect this would have been a perfect route for my Binary fat bike running the 27.5 wheel set and 4” tires on the I45 rims. No matter, my plus tires worked fine.

 

I started out just outside of Mina Nevada after noon but managed to get up to the old mining camp of Simon that evening. An old silver - lead mining camp, Simon is an interesting site with lots of remains. One deteriorating building held hundreds of core samples.

I found a perfect campsite overlooking the valley below. Later I went out to look for the comet but couldn’t see it despite perfect dark skies. Still, I spent some time practicing a little cell phone astrophotography. I knew approximately where the comet should be and managed to capture it in a shot. Like I always say: You don’t have to be good if you’re lucky. Ok full disclosure. I didn’t even know I got it until I got home and examined the photos more closely.

 Early the next day it was up and over the Cedar Hills and a drop into Big Smokey Valley. 

 

 

As I climbed back up into the Royston Hills there were clear views of Crescent Dunes Solar Plant (The Eye Of Mordor) and Tonopah beyond.

 

Much of the climbing was in washes on soft surfaces and somewhat slow. There seems to still be some small scale mining activity out here with lots of more modern equipment and vehicles about but I didn’t see anyone working any claims.

 

I made camp at Crow Springs which had served as a stage stop between Sodaville and Tonopah and had plenty of attainable water. A good thing after being unable to get any water at Black Springs which was a huge surprise! I say attainable and it was. There was plenty of water but all in shallow rivulets. I got water out of a tire rut because that way I didn’t have to try to find a deeper spot. I always carry a dip bag to dip water out of shallow pools to load my ‘dirty’ water bag for filtering vs trying to dig something out and wait for the water to settle. It’s a step up from my mountaineering days when I used to carry a straw to suck snow melt water from melting snow banks. Man I ate a lot of gravel that way!

Day 3, well really day 2.5 (but who’s counting?) felt long due to soft surfaces riding. Along the way I passed through the remains of Gilbert mining camp, a gold discovery made by the Gilbert brothers. So much horse sign! But I saw no horses. A few more riding hours and I camped less than half a mile from Blue Link Spring as I had been seeing a few cattle and surmised that maybe the spring area was full of cattle. Got a little more astrophotography practice that night.

In the morning the quick jaunt to the spring proved it wasn’t full of cattle. It was however full of small minnow like fish. A google search has informed me that these are apparently Hiko White River Springfish and Blue Link Spring was selected by federal and state agencies to serve as a refuge for this endangered subspecies. I didn’t need anymore water here and the low angle light prevented any decent photos of the fish so after sinking in the mud crossing the spring outflow I made my way up into the Pilot mountains climbing another soft-ish wash topping out at 8000 ft. A fast 10 mile descent through an awesome desert canyon with more springs took me back to my starting point and after packing away my gear and bike, a burrito at La Casita in Mina.

I enjoyed this route and the old mining town of Simon was outstanding. The long pedal down Big Smokey Valley and up through the Royston Hills was a little meh. Crow Springs and Blue Link springs were excellent, just don't count on water at Black Springs. The route up through and particularly down through the canyon in the Pilot mountains was also superbly scenic. I can recommend this route as a moderately easy several day adventure.

 

Stats: according to my Coros Dura: 

109.6 miles 

8,770 ft. elevation gain

 

Route file: Simon 

 

Bike setup:

Binary Bicycles Kinetik hardtail w/130mm suspension fork, 29x2.8" rear tire 29x3.0" front.

Bikepacking bags and custom rear rack