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Pancake Summit
 Quite
a few signed summits in this area are so flat,
that they deserve this name, but none more than
this one. On the east side of US50 the approach
adds up to less than 500ft, which I set as the
cutoff to include a summit in these pages. But
when taking a dirt road to the north, one can come
up with a 500ft high profile on this side.But there are different reasons for including this page. On these few scenic dessert miles over low hills in the Newark Valley I saw more cyclists than on any other stretch of road in Nevada so far. These were not big groups but solitary tourers with fully packed panniers, 2 of them heading west, one man with silver hair and beard protruding from an old crush hat. Then on the way back I met a Frenchman riding from New York to Paris. Apparently he was well ahead of schedule, and thinking or rebooking his return flight to Paris a week earlier than planned. I signed his guest book that he carried along, and we took pictures of one another. One other thing I remember about this summit. One the way west a truck passed me. As usual around here he gave me more space than I could hope for in most US states. I waved after him as thanks. He blew his horn, as a "you're welcome" gesture. Now - where else can this happen ?
Approaches From East. It's a tiny climb, but I can
see the scenic attraction of the vast northern
part of Newark Valley. The hills on the road give
several special vantage points, looking north
along the dry side of the Diamond Mountains. To
the south a single ranch floats like a life boat
in a see of dessert.   From West. (also described upwards) This
climb is just slightly bigger. I did this in the
afternoon and clouds over the Fish Creek Range
transformed the distant mountains into a set of
harmonically arranged triangles of different
shades of grey. A Dayride with this point as intermediate
summit is on page: Little
Antelope Summit  |
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