We absolutely love Northern Nevada also known as Nevada’s Cowboy Country. The vast emptiness is just absolutely amazing with its never ending views makes this high desert area one of our favorite places. The mountains ranges such as Ruby Mountains is a beauty to behold. Fall time is one of our favorite time of the year to explore Nevada. The complete abstance of traffic and crowds makes it all that much more enjoyable. Here are some of the places we visited on our trip and not one of these places we had any problems with finding a parking spot or difficulty with getting in due to crowds. At Lovelake Cave and Angels Lake our car was the only one parked in the parking lot. It almost felt like reserving a lake or cave for ourselves.
Lamoille Canyon Scenic Byway
Ruby Mountains are so beautiful and this glacier-carved canyon is so breathtaking during the fall months. We spent time driving through and exploring the 12-mile scenic byway. We did not make time for hiking on this trip but we plan to come back in the near future and really explore and see the beautiful canyon from a different angle. This is probably the most prettiest drive we have ever taken. We also brought lunch with us and were able to soak in the scenery a little bit longer.
Located at NF- 660, Spring Creek, NV 89815.
Angel Lake
Angel Lake is a Mountain Lake that you can find in Elko County, Nevada. A truly beautiful lake that is surrounded by mountains. Definitely worth a visit and is indeed worth driving to because there are scenic roads to the lake itself. This is also a great place to fish at, skip rocks on, and take in the beautiful fall colors. You can camp near the lake.
Located 12 miles from the city of Wells.
California Trail Interpretive Center
The California Trail a 3,000 mile trail starting at Missouri and ending in California. 400,000 people used this trail to arrive to Oregon, California, and Utah. The estimated amount of deaths ranges from 9,700 to 21,000. This trail was not cheap to travel though because to travel on this road cost 10.00 per person or 30.00 per wagon which at the time was a fairly large price.
Here we learned how so many died and those who didn’t die ate people and even killed Native Americans just so that they could survive. It is a scary part of history. The weather was so harsh and they were so not prepared. The interactive exhibits were very educational. Something that really saddened us was the burial of a 8 year old boy and you can see a coyote digging it up. Elizabeth and I enjoyed dressing up here.
Located at 1 Trail Center Way, Elko, NV 89801.
Northeastern Nevada Museum
The Northeastern Nevada Museum is a place for all fans of art and historic item collectors. This museum contains art galleries ranging from quilt art to pencil art and even contains the second largest Will James collection in the world which is a must see for all classic western lovers. Their historic collections include gun collections to clothing and rock collections. There is also a large collection of animals (a total of 180). This museum has many interesting items that we hope everyone will see.
Located at 1515 Idaho Street Elko, Nevada 89801.
Lovelock Cave
Lovelock Cave is a very easy cave to explore and fairly small, spanning only 160 feet in length. It was once inhabited by a cannibal giant who was killed by natives via fire. Supposedly you can find the giants hand print in the cave and we looked and looked but could not find it. Our kids said that this was one of the coolest caves they ever explored. This could be because we read and saw the giants skull online and the story about this cave so it made it that much more interesting. 2,000 year old tule duck decoys were found here as well.
The Native Americans once used this cave and you will see the ceiling covered in black shapes. At first I thought someone must have vandalized the cave but this is not the reason. The ceiling looks the way it does from the fire that emitted smoke in the cave.
We saw one bat in the cave. There are not many bats in this cave because the area is too dry which means that there isn’t enough food to support many bats. We did see lots of owl pellets outside of the cave which means that there are owls in the area.
Located 22 miles south of Lovelock, Nevada.
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