"The lonelinest highway in the USA" (Las Vegas, Reno: camp, restaurants)

[ChrisMT]

Bureau of Land Management (BLM = Federal ownership) owns most of Nevada....67% to be exact! https://www.blm.gov/nevada.

Outside of Fallon, you have a bombing range!!!!! https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cn...g_complex.html

In Southern Nevada you have 'Area 51' that gobbles up all the land along the highway down there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51

Personally, I love that about Nevada because BLM is pretty 'hands-off' about most of the open space it manages and you can do whatever as long as you don't hurt anything Don't fence us in!

Not so Area 51, I think you can be shot at for snooping around too much!

When we traveled through Idaho last year, I was so frustrated by all the fences and private property with no public access...I guess we are spoiled here in Nevada with so much public land. It is a really special resource.

Here is another great link about public lands: https://headwaterseconomics.org/publ...hip-in-the-us/

I am planning our latest road trip and we are taking Hwy 50 to Utah this time. We plan on mountain biking on all the trails around Austin, camping around Great Basin Park and fishing at some of the more remote lakes in that area before we eventually head into Utah and who knows where else....we have a mini-camper and the greatest thing about BLM land is you can camp for free much of the time.

[Igor Blevin]

Originally Posted by nowhereman427

Just which part of Nevada and towns is this lonely highway located? Which part are they referring to?

Life Magazine called Highway 50 from Fernley to Ely, the "Loneliest Road", in 1986.

https://nevadamagazine.com/issue/jan...ary-2016/3146/


Highway 50 was built in the 1920s and became the main east-west route across America, even though it was mostly unpaved. It had lots of gas station, hotels, and restaurants along the way for cross country travelers, probably mostly trucks. Most people didn't drive too far before WWII. Well, most people didn't own cars before WWII. Car ownership soared in the 1950s when the US industry moved from military top civilian goods.

Interstate 80 was built in the 1960s and 1970s, and killed Highway 50 poste haste. Route 66 had the big reputation, but highway 50 was really the main cross-country highway until the interstate building era of the 1960s.

Nevada Highway 50 didn't become lonely until Dwight D. Eisenhower became president and built the US interstate system. After Eisenhower went to defeated Germany in 1945, he saw that the nation was supported by a network of smooth, paved highways that allowed German defense forces to quickly travel around Germany.

As soon as Eisenhower became president, he set about duplicating a paved highway system for America. Most roads at the time were unpaved. What was paved was narrow or still followed the winding old dear trails the Indians originally used to get around..

During the 1960s and 1970s, America built tens of thousands of miles of paved interstate highways. One of these was Interstate 80, running from San Francisco to New York City and it killed highway 50 as soon as it opened.



Bonus:


Do you know how highways came to be paved? It was from bicycle riders.

Have you ever seen one a movie about the "turn of the century" from 1899 to 1900? Have you seen a guy riding one of these 2 wheeled bicycles with the 6-foot tall front wheel?

In the early 1900s, bicycle clubs cropped up in many places. But it was murder riding these bicycles on rutted dirt, gravel and mud. The cyclist got together and convinced people to pay for paved roads they could enjoy for their cycling hobbies. They sold it to politicians and investors by saying it was for use by everybody. Suddenly the car drivers realized, it was great to drive on smooth paved roads.

So the entire reason we got paved roads was for bicycles, not cars.

[Igor Blevin]

Originally Posted by nowhereman427

That's great and it's still that way today? I mean with all of this development going on places that used to be open wide spaces are subdivisions.

Where was that movie "Vanishing Point" filmed?

It would be pointless to develop there. No jobs. No water. No amenities.

[nowhereman427]

Originally Posted by Igor Blevin

It would be pointless to develop there. No jobs. No water. No amenities.

What city or area are you referring to?

[nowhereman427]

Originally Posted by Igor Blevin

Life Magazine called Highway 50 from Fernley to Ely, the "Loneliest Road", in 1986.

https://nevadamagazine.com/issue/jan...ary-2016/3146/


Highway 50 was built in the 1920s and became the main east-west route across America, even though it was mostly unpaved. It had lots of gas station, hotels, and restaurants along the way for cross country travelers, probably mostly trucks. Most people didn't drive too far before WWII. Well, most people didn't own cars before WWII. Car ownership soared in the 1950s when the US industry moved from military top civilian goods.

Interstate 80 was built in the 1960s and 1970s, and killed Highway 50 poste haste. Route 66 had the big reputation, but highway 50 was really the main cross-country highway until the interstate building era of the 1960s.

Nevada Highway 50 didn't become lonely until Dwight D. Eisenhower became president and built the US interstate system. After Eisenhower went to defeated Germany in 1945, he saw that the nation was supported by a network of smooth, paved highways that allowed German defense forces to quickly travel around Germany.

As soon as Eisenhower became president, he set about duplicating a paved highway system for America. Most roads at the time were unpaved. What was paved was narrow or still followed the winding old dear trails the Indians originally used to get around..

During the 1960s and 1970s, America built tens of thousands of miles of paved interstate highways. One of these was Interstate 80, running from San Francisco to New York City and it killed highway 50 as soon as it opened.



Bonus:


Do you know how highways came to be paved? It was from bicycle riders.

Have you ever seen one a movie about the "turn of the century" from 1899 to 1900? Have you seen a guy riding one of these 2 wheeled bicycles with the 6-foot tall front wheel?

In the early 1900s, bicycle clubs cropped up in many places. But it was murder riding these bicycles on rutted dirt, gravel and mud. The cyclist got together and convinced people to pay for paved roads they could enjoy for their cycling hobbies. They sold it to politicians and investors by saying it was for use by everybody. Suddenly the car drivers realized, it was great to drive on smooth paved roads.

So the entire reason we got paved roads was for bicycles, not cars.

That was in 1986 I wonder if it is the same today? If so better get some runflat tires for that trip.

[Igor Blevin]

Originally Posted by nowhereman427

That was in 1986 I wonder if it is the same today? If so better get some runflat tires for that trip.

I drove it in 2005. Still empty with a few small towns.

When I rode my motorcycle across Nevada in 1997, I was always worried about running out of gas because the towns were fairly widespread. I had 120 miles range on that motorcycle, and towns were never more than 40 miles apart, but it is not as if I stopped at every town. So once in a while, I would see I was near empty of gas and was sweating bullets trying to guess if I should try to make it to the next town or circle back and gas up at the last town I passed 15 miles back or whatnot. It was a bit unnerving. I never ran dry, but it was always on my mind.

In 2005, it didn't look any different. Still empty. There just isn't enough traffic to provide incentive to build or add truck stops or whathaveyou. The customer base just doesn't support growth of any kind.

In 2005, I just did 100 mph through most of highway 50. At first it was fun to see such arid, empty scenery but it got so boring so fast, I just wanted to put it behind me. I stayed over 80 between towns and often ran at 100 mph, just to get it over with. I love to drive and I just didn't find it fun. It just wasnt fun.

I couldn't run 80 mph everywhere. The road snakes through slow twisty roads up through some of those mountains. It is not like Interstate 80, where most turns are designed for 70 mph. Highway 50 gets really slow and twisty in places. But where it was arrow straight between towns, I just set the cruise control on 97 mph and tried to leap to someplace more interesting to look at.

I would never drive "the loneliest road" again. Twice was once too many.

So yeah, I assume in 2021 it is still the same. Why would it change?

[ChrisMT]

I think Highway 50 is interesting to drive - many ghost town/mining relics and I like the pinion and mountains. A number a BLM camping areas around natural interest points and less traffic or tourists at the parks and lakes.

https://travelnevada.com/

I80 is boring for me and lower 95 out of Las Vegas (along Area 51) is my absolute most dreaded drive in Nevada. Around Bakersfield or Victorville in California is another drive I dread. So much trash everywhere along the highway down there it’s really sad.

[alaskaflyer]

Originally Posted by nowhereman427

That's great and it's still that way today? I mean with all of this development going on places that used to be open wide spaces are subdivisions.

Where was that movie "Vanishing Point" filmed?

It was filmed all over the Highway 50 corridor in Nye, Esmeralda, Lander, Elko Counties, probably other areas. It's been a while since I saw it (great cult classic) but I think a city scene might have been filmed in Reno back in the day, and the the Super Soul radio station supposedly broadcasting from Goldfield, Nevada - was actually filmed in Goldfield. One scene was along the Colorado River after he left Denver, is a stretch of access road near I-70 between Rifle and Glenwood Springs, CO near where I worked one summer. Some other mountain scenes in Utah.

[nowhereman427]

Originally Posted by alaskaflyer

It was filmed all over the Highway 50 corridor in Nye, Esmeralda, Lander, Elko Counties, probably other areas. It's been a while since I saw it (great cult classic) but I think a city scene might have been filmed in Reno back in the day, and the the Super Soul radio station supposedly broadcasting from Goldfield, Nevada - was actually filmed in Goldfield. One scene was along the Colorado River after he left Denver, is a stretch of access road near I-70 between Rifle and Glenwood Springs, CO near where I worked one summer. Some other mountain scenes in Utah.

Where is Goldfield?

[cre8lite]

esmerelda county - just 30 mins south of tonopah