After the tire debacle, Jason and I had to be extra careful with the truck.  The spare tire is marked for temporary use only and here we are in the middle of the high rock canyon bashing it around on sharp rocks and narrow trails!

One of the coolest parts of this entire trail was the name carved into the wall by one of the early emigrants. I wonder how many more there are here that we just didn’t see?

Eventually, and luckily, we made our way out of the trail with no further damage to the truck or tires! At this point we were still an hour away on gravel trails from Gerlach.  Given that Gerlach has a population of less than 500 people and it was almost sunset, we didn’t expect to find any help there.  However Gerlach does have paved roads and we were anxious to get back on pavement and away from the sharp gravel.

We stopped for a break at the little high rock Hilton (ha!) and also made one other stop when I found a wild horse to take pictures of!

We made it to Gerlach, aired up our tires by the light of the closed gas station, and then hit the road towards Reno with the decision already made to just get a hotel for the night and not deal with it until tomorrow!