Day Three – Vernal UT to Ely NV
Miles: 402
There was free made to order breakfast at the hotel so we deiced to give it a try. It was better than Hampton Inn but nothing very special. We ate pretty quickly as the place started to fill up and got on our way. We jumped back on US 40 and headed west. Nothing great leaving Vernal but once we hit Duchesne and turned south on US 191 the fun began. The rugged canyons in the Argyle/Indian Canyon region was a nice change of scenery from the desert looking area around Vernal. We stopped near the summit at just over 9,000 feet at a little pull off for what we thought was the best view. The road through this area was also very nice. Soon we were back down to 6,000 feet near the town of Helper where we headed north on US 6 actually missing the town of Helper. This was clearly a big energy sector with lots of oil rigs and even a couple of coal plants. US 6 is big four-lane highway in this area but we didn't have to stay on it long. We headed west and back south on UT96 staying in coal country. We made a very brief stop at the Scofield Reservoir and took a few pics. We turned west on UT156 at Eccles Canyon and really started seeing lots of coal. All the way up UT264 the road paralled a conveyor belt used for coal. As climbed we reached the main mine as far as I could tell, and the road was a mess with wet black coal which was soon all over our bikes. Our next stop was shortly after the mine on a road named Skyline Drive I had found looking at Google Earth. The gravel road looked to be really good and rode it up a couple of miles and stopped to view the scenery. It was nice but it would have been much nicer on a KLR. As we were leaving it began to rain; nothing much but enough to get us moving a little faster, we didn't want to be on gravel in the rain. We were back down to US 89 and ready to head back south for a short time then west at Mt Pleasant and back north at Moroni. We crossed over US 15 and caught up with US 6 at Lynndyl and headed south again. In Delta we picked up US50 that runs with US 6 to the Ely NV, our destination. We made a stop at King's Canyon just west of Hinckley just to stop and stretch. Nothing much other than some rocky hills but it was better than just the flat desert. We made our last stop at the Utah - Nevada border where there was a nice gas stop and motel and even a little cafe. We were going to grab a bite but we were clearly going to run into a pretty severe storm. We had planned to take a side trip to Wheeler Peak but that wasn't going to happen in the this storm either. So, we put our heads down and rode to Ely. It had stopped raining by the time we got there, and because we bypassed Wheeler we had some extra time. We got to our room unpacked and explored the town a little. It was ok, and the hotel was fine but it was, shall I say, a little on the rough side. We ate dinner across the street at a decent Italian restaurant named Mr G's and shared a bottle of wine. After a little bit of gambling we walked around town some and called it a night.
