On the Way to Ely…featuring Black Rock Lava Flow

After leaving Scotty’s Castle, I headed up US267 to US95 and on north to Tonopah. Then east on US6 towards Ely. About 3:30 or so, I passed a wide spot in the road named Black Rock Lava Flow. This is public range land with very, very few houses or people for that matter. Only saw about 20 vehicles all day.

Here’s the sad little plaque they have at Black Rock…

The road was graveled but level so I went the 1 mile off the highway to the little park. The display was totally unimpressive but I took a pix anyway. But the lava flow was kinda cool. Just a jumble of blackish, sharp edged rocks thrust up from the flat valley floor. Probably 2-300 yards in diameter and 25-50 feet high.

So I drove another mile around the lava flow till I found a neat place that faced west where I could pull the rig off the road and spend the night. At the time it was 45F and calm. The sunset was not to far off so I began settling in. Also took a walkabout to check things out. Note that there wasn’t a soul within 20 miles or so except for the occasional car/truck that passed on the highway, two miles away. The silence was perfect.

After I climbed up the lava flow I took this pix of the RV in it’s little protected cubby hole. I couldn’t back up any further because the ground got soft back in that area and I was worried about getting stuck. Think about that. I was sooo far from anything that I’d probably still be stuck there. There is a town shown on the map several miles west that I’d passed earlier in the day named Warm Springs, but it’s abandoned now. I also found a animal den of some kind near where I took this pix, which put me in a very watchful mood for nasty animals. (Do cougars live around here???)

If you’re looking for this place on a map of Nevada, it’s just 2 miles north of the highway, US-6. About 6 miles south of the turnoff for Lunar Crater. I didn’t go to the crater because the road was unimproved and rough looking. Here’s the coordinates:

38.461176, -116.005369

Just copy those, plug them into any mapping app and it’ll go right to the turnoff.

Looking due north over the lava rocks.

Looking due east.

Looking south.

It started getting cold around sunset and at 7ish it was snowing.

Moonset the next morning looking west…one of my favorite pictures out of this group.

Dawn over the rig. I got up at dawn because this was my first experience with snow in this rig and I’d heard stories about the diesel engine not starting when it got cold. I wanted to be on top of the situation and then while I was looking around, the beauty of the place struck me and I wandered around enjoying the snowfall on the rocks and valley:

Edit: Replaced missing pictures on Oct. 5, ’06 and expanded text.

Edit: Added map coordinates and corrected spelling on May 07, ’21

I hadn’t owned this RV for long so during this winter event, I aware that there is an electrical light type switch on the side of the bed frame, but I didn’t know what it did. Turned out that the switch turned on a 120 volt electrical outlet in a small basement compartment where the engine block heater plug was located and plugged into the outlet. It was all ready to warm up the engine just had to know that the switch was there and turn it on. I’d noticed it before this trip of course, just didn’t know what it was for so left it off.

Anyway, what happened was I tried to start the engine so I could drive to a cafe nearby…if there was one, I didn’t know. But when I tried to start the engine, it turned over slowly and didn’t even try to start. Hmmm – cold. While I was pondering that situation, I started the genset and ran that to warm up the house using electrical heaters, make coffee, have breakfast, etc.. Meanwhile, I read some of the users guides that came with the RV and discovered that the engine did indeed have a block heater. But they didn’t say much about it or how to turn it on. Car type block heaters just hang loose and you plug in an extension cord. Maybe this was the same deal? However, I did have one power switch back in the engine area on the bed frame that I no idea what it’s purpose was but thinking just maybe this might be the switch for it, I flipped it on while the genset ran and I goofed around getting ready to leave. Also looked up my roadside assistance groups phone number and tried to pin down where I was just in case.

And that did the trick. After an hour of the genset running, the engine started right up with no hesitation. Yea! Ok, now I know that the block heater is necessary during cold weather and that switch on the bed stand turned it on. I used it repeatedly during that winter and those that followed. Really makes the engine zip to life quickly. And I only needed to have it on for an hour before trying to start the engine, and it’s designed to be on continuously with no harm. I did find that 30 minutes on time was about all that was needed in the worst of conditions so if it was warmer, I could lessen the on time to as short as 10 minutes and the engine would still start easier. Good to know

After I left this area, I found that there wasn’t any nearby cafe to where I was. In fact, wasn’t until later that I learned this section of highway is named the Loneliest Road in America. Or similar. I believe it.