2012/05 Western USA trip - Pyramid Lake |
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Saturday May 26th
That night we had a howling gale and horizontal snow, really ugly weather. Luckily we had electricity so we were able to run our little heater in the trailer. The weather wasn’t much better in the morning, so there was no point in walking around town. We drove back down to Reno for some shopping and to get Edna a throwaway phone that she can use to talk and text with Australia. Carolyn and Jason were in the midst of making the big move from Shepparton to Sydney and Edna wanted to stay in touch. I hoped to go up to Lake Tahoe in the afternoon.
We were trying to find a simple lunch place but found ourselves with these horses outside Chang’s China Bistro, which turned out to be much better than it sounds.
The weather up in the Sierras looked to be wet and was probably cold so we decided not to go up there to Lake Tahoe. I thought we’d head for 
Pyramid Lake, a place I’d never quite got to on previous trips. It’s out in the desert, and should be relatively warm in the afternoon sun. On our way there we passed through Palomino Valley and saw a large paddock, full of horses. This was the adoption centre for wild horses and burros, and maybe explains where Virginia City’s horses had gone.
Closer to the lake we found that it is entirely within a Paiute Indian reservation and also that visitors were subject to usage fees. We weren’t planning on swimming or boating and we didn’t have our buckets and spades with us, so we didn’t think that looking and taking pictures constituted “usage” and we avoided their toll gates. The scenery was good, a beautiful blue lake surrounded by desert hills. Down on the opposite shore was Pyramid Rock. The picture shows the dry country around the lake.
Almost all the lake’s water comes in from the Truckee River which drains Lake Tahoe, so it’s mostly cold in early summer. Like the other lakes in the Great Basin, it has no outlet, so it’s also gradually getting saltier. The day was warmish for a change but very windy up where we were. Kids were splashing around in the water, but they were probably a lot tougher than us.
We drove a back road to get around the other side of Virginia City, as I was hoping we could take a look at some of the old mines between there and Silver City, but it became very dark and wet and we couldn’t see very much. It was much too wet and cold to go into town again.