Dave and Val's Travel Blog: The Long Way to Las Vegas - Basin and Range National Monument

Ely to Panaca

Friday, May 16, 2025

We had a surprise when we got up this morning, it was raining outside, not very hard but definitely raining. Luckily it didn't last long.

Our plan today is to visit Basin and Range National Monument as we travel south to the town of Panaca where we’ll spend the night.


Our route for the day as we travel from Ely to Panaca. Much of the area inside the triangle formed by US6, US93 and Nevada 318 is Basin and Range National Monument. For some reason it's not shown on Google Maps, maybe it's too new.

Before we started, we made another visit to the Ely BLM Office as the lady we talked to last night about the Basin and Range park said she had brought some brochures to the Ely BLM office. Upon arriving, we started searching through a rack of brochures and sure enough, there at the bottom was a brochure for Basin and Range National Monument with a large map of the park, just what we wanted.

We had one more stop to make before leaving Ely and that was to get some sandwiches for our lunch today. That taken care of, we headed west out of town on US6 until we reached the turnoff for Nevada 318 and headed south on that. Highway 318 appeared to be a minor highway on the map, and we didn’t expect to see much traffic, but it turned out it is a pretty important route between Ely and I15 in Southern Nevada. I wouldn’t say it was very busy, but we saw far more cars and semi-trucks than on any other of the other paved back roads we’ve traveled.

We drove south on Nevada Highway 318.

We drove through the small town of Lund.

We passed through the small pleasant looking town of Lund and then followed the east boundary of the Basin and Range National Monument south for the next 100 miles.

The first road the park service lady had recommended we take into the park was Timber Mountain Road, an unpaved but well-maintained road. This is a fairly new national monument and there are no road markers at all, so you basically have to guess. The map in the brochure helped, but some of the road names didn’t match Google Maps or our GPS names so it was difficult.

Basin and Range National Monument with Timber Mountain Road Marker.

We found the turnoff to Timber Mountain Road without too much trouble, but our intent was to turn off Timber Mountain Road on to Willow Road and follow it south to White River Narrows Road, another place recommended by the park lady. There were no signs, and the GPS names didn’t match the park map, so we decided to abort that plan and make our way back to the 318. This area is very large and isolated, and we had not seen another vehicle or person, so we didn’t want to just start wandering around, not sure of where we were. That might have been an exciting adventure when we were younger, but not at our age.

The start of Timber Mountain Road

We came across a kiosk with park information just beyond what seemed to be an old corral. It was the only indication that we were in a national monument the whole day.

We thought this turnoff might be the road we were looking for to head south on, but there were no signs and we had already crossed several other roads, so we decided not to chance it and turned around and headed back to 318.

We arrive back at highway 318.

After getting back onto 318 we traveled further south into the area where the park service lady had told us the turnoff for the White River Narrows was. Once again, no signs, just a road that had a cattle guard at the beginning. Despite going up and down that section of 318 several times we found very few roads and none with a cattle guard. There was one with a gate, but we weren’t about to drive miles into the back country only to find out this wasn’t the road, so we gave up.

We're back on 318 heading south.

A bit further down the road we found what looked like an interesting track and decided to explore that and find a place to have our lunch. It was an interesting 20-mile drive, and we did find a nice place for lunch. Temperatures were finally nice enough that we didn’t have to eat in the car to stay warm, so we enjoyed a nice lunch out in the open. After lunch we explored another road in the park and then decided it was time to move on.

(With a little research after we got to Panaca, we found that the road where we had lunch was Weepah Road, and the other road we explored in this area was Oreana Springs Road. We also found out the White River Narrows was right across 316 from Weepah Road, but we couldn’t see that there was an access road, only hiking trails.)

Weepah Road is the next marker down on this map.

The start of Weepah Road.

Lunchtime

Basin and Range National Monument is hard to describe as it is not a place that has any spectacular sights (at least that we saw), but it has a stark, untouched beauty that we loved. We didn’t see one other person or vehicle out there the entire day, but it is so immense, you may never see anyone else. I wouldn’t want to see much development of the area, but in the future, it would be handy to have at least some markings for the roads and signs for the turnoffs from 318. Despite some frustrations, we had a wonderful day exploring Basin and Range National Monument.

From the south end of Basin and Range NM we followed 318 south through the town of Hiko and then to US93. We turned east on 93 towards Caliente and our home for the night, Panaca. Since it was only mid-afternoon, we decided to do one more thing.

Heading south on 318

The intersection of Nevada 318 and US93, we turned left and headed east.

East on US93

I had done some research before the trip on some of the many ghost towns scattered around Nevada and one of them was Delamar south of US93 just ahead of us. We found the turnoff and started off on an easy dirt road. It was in good condition, and we thought we could make the 25-mile drive fairly quickly, but that was only partially true.

The first 20 miles went by quickly, but the last 5 miles was an extremely rough, rocky and very narrow road that we ended up driving in 4WD. The first twenty miles could be driven by any vehicle, but the last part should at least have a high-clearance vehicle and in my opinion, it should have 4WD. The road is very steep and the low range 4WD was pretty helpful for the descent down from Delamar. A few miles from US93 we were surprised to find ourselves driving through a forest of Joshua Trees, we had no idea there were any in this area. We were driving through desert terrain and Joshua trees don’t grow close together so when I say forest, it’s not very dense, but there was a remarkable number of Joshua trees.

Delamar is not in Basin and Range National Monument, but it is nearby as shown by the marker near the bottom of the map.

We were surprised to find ourselves in a forest of Joshua Trees.

The first part of the drive to Delamar was pretty easy, but the last part was steep, narrow and very rough.

We made it to what was left of Delamar.

Looking back at the way we had come up.

The biggest structure left in Delamar

Delamar itself was pretty interesting. As most ghost towns are in Nevada, it was once a mining town, and you could see the remains of the mines and tailing piles all around it. Most of the buildings had fallen down with only a single wall left, but you did get a feel for how it once was.

After making the grueling drive back down out of the mountains, it felt like getting on a paved road when we reached the bottom of the grade and a more civilized dirt road. There was a car waiting at the bottom of the grade, and they asked us how the drive was and we told them it was very rough and narrow. They had a small crossover SUV that didn’t look to me like it had very good ground clearance, so I hope they didn’t attempt it. One problem is, once you commit to doing it, you are pretty much stuck unless you want to back down as the road is so narrow there is no place to turn around until you reach Delamar.

Time to start back down

Finally back to a decent road. The people in the white car asked us how the road was and we told them it was pretty rough. I hope they didn't try it as it didn't look like they had the ground clearance and it was pretty rough for that kind of vehicle.

We followed the high-line the rest of the way out.

Back to US93

What we thought would take an hour, took us two hours and even though we enjoyed the challenge and excitement, if we had known at the start what we know now, we wouldn’t have done it. The reward was just not worth the effort and stress, but since we did do it, we can say we had a great time.

Once back on US93 it was less than an hour drive to Panaca and we got there just after five. Panaca is the oldest town in Eastern Nevada and dates back to the 1860s. When I was researching Nevada ghost towns Panaca was listed, but it didn't really look like a ghost town.

There are not many places to stay in the area and a lot of the motels seem sort of old and a sketchy, but Val found a bed and breakfast in Panaca called Swallow Cove that seemed pretty nice. After getting settled in we decided it was nice, pretty basic, but it will do just fine for us. Tomorrow is the last day on the road before we head to Las Vegas.