step back in time with nevada’s first settlers

Hike in the mountains, hike in the city up and down the streets in 7000ft… Since our hotel in the recent Lake Tahoe trip was only 100 yards away from the Nevada border, we just had to visit the first towns and gold rush areas of the wild, wild west…And it certainly was something!

A true step back in time, with open gold mines, dilapidated buildings and abandon equipment and cars scattering the landscape. When driving around the little roads even the cars were a few decades old, or so it seemed.

We took a quick tour of the capital Carson City (a very scattered and quite boring city, but there were some pretty old houses and a beautiful capitol building), and then headed up to the mining land and the historical Virginia City. What a lovely place! They are working hard to preserve these old buildings and there are tons of cute, little shops, a mining museum, mine tours (in summertime), old railroad – and unparalleled views of the hills stretching to what seems like an eternity.

Trees are gone and dry hills are everywhere

Gold mining is not just a thing in the past, but there are still hopefuls out there looking for their treasures

Even the cars seemed to have gotten stuck back in time in the mountains

Need I say more – you are entering the Gold Canyon

Entering Virginia City. This amazing house is the school building – beats the mobile units we have in California

Main street of Virginia City

Views from Virginia City

Gold mining museum

Horses roaming in the outskirts of the city (no fences anywhere…)

The old railroad still runs sometimes

Sadly we didn’t see any of these running around…

This was a pretty cold December day – can’t imagine crossing the hot hills with horses or on foot

First settlers of Nevada arrived in Genoa, a little village by the mountains on the other side of Lake Tahoe