Slumbering Jumbo
  Last viewed: Dec 09, 2009, 05:12:03 AM (GMT)

Winnemucca, NV--Slumbering Jumbo

Distance: 40 miles, or about 30 with early bailout option

Difficulty: High, but not extreme

Season: Best in cool spring or fall weather. Silver State Draw could be sandy late in the season. Avoid in wet or even damp weather, as slumgullion mud abounds.

Attractions: Ghost towns, mines, rock formations, wildlife, mountain beauty


This ride through a remote, seldom-visited range of low hills ranks among my all-time favorite mountain bike rides. Why? Wildlife is cartoonishly abundant, with antelope, deer, mustang, badger, red-wing blackbirds, cottontails, cougar and lots more, probably, on the list. Miles of good singletrack cow- and game-trails parallel the main routes, which are mostly decent doubletrack jeep road. Outlandish granite monoliths and rock gardens near the center of the range feed the imagination and shape the horizon's foreground, setting off more distant vistas of the Santa Rosas, Bloody Run Hills, Sonomas, Tobins, Jacksons, Bilk Creeks and Pine Forests. Finally, half a dozen mining camps and ghost towns, including one once visited by ex-president Herbert Hoover, offer distraction from the saddle and good exploring. Be prepared for two possible negatives, though. First, the ride's second climb, up Awakening Peak, will put you in the granny ring for several very steep but smoothly surfaced miles that could be very hot in the afternoon. Second, the ride ends with 15 miles of flat, sometimes windy gravel road back to the start point through several ranches in the Silver State Valley.

From Winnemucca, head north on Hwy 95 for 10 miles, passing a large area of sand dunes, before turning left onto Sand Pass Road. Sand Pass Road is a high-quality gravel-surfaced road with little dust and no washboards, suitable for any passenger car. It climbs up over a low pass in the Bloody Run Hills, to the right, named for the dark patches of shale that run downslope like blood from running wounds. Cresting the pass, with 7,835-foot Bloody Run Peak on your right, you'll glimpse the Slumbering Hills ahead and to the right, a low range about 18 miles long and 5 miles wide, with 6,437-foot high Awakening Peak near the north end.

Ten miles from its junction with Hwy 95, after passing a windmill and some fenced pastures belonging to the Miller and Lux cattle empire, Sand Pass Road makes an almost right-angle turn to the right and continues due north through the Silver State Valley. Park here, at this turn, in the small clearing at the corner. Our ride starts on the rough doubletrack leading from here up the Silver State Draw, a gentle 10-mile climb.

Stay left a few hundred yards from the parking spot, where another road angles off towards the Silver State Mine.

Soon, you'll cross a low-walled, wide, grassy channel, where you can begin looking for stock trails, if you like. Or, just stay on the main road, as it climbs up past a pair of developed springs with tanks and ponds. Look for blackbirds in the willows and other small trees beside the draw. If you have not seen any antelope or deer by now, you must have been laughing and joking and having way too much fun. Look for wild rock formations and Stonehenge-like granite monoliths on the slopes of Sombrero Peak (5,587 feet) ahead.

SIDETRIP: a primitive double-track trace leads left at around seven miles, climbing steeply toward Sombrero Peak.

After about nine miles of gentle climbing, you'll break out onto a ridge offering long views toward the Santa Rosas, and our first hint of the wild rock formations to come. The road breaks left and continues up the ridge, while an enticing singletrack to the right drops steeply through a rocky canyon, possibly leading down to one or the other of the Circle Bar Springs and/or to the Silver State Mine. Or, possibly dissipating into high sagebrush: explore at your own risk!

Continuing up the ridge, we soon arrive at a BLM fence, with a fenceline road to the left heading toward Sombrero Peak. Go through the gate and continue on the road, which now bends right and winds through dramatic rock gardens for the next several miles. Look for "the catcher's mitt," "the alpha rock," the "dancing beetle" and other notable formations of your own imagining. Keep an eye out for cougar here, too: one crossed the road about 20 yards ahead of me the second time I rode this loop.

After dropping through ever more spectacular rock formations for several miles, you'll T-bone Pickhandle Pass Road. If you're looking for an early bailout, take a right and you'll drop quickly down to Daveytown, chopping off the second half--and the toughest climb--of the ride. Otherwise, make a left and begin dropping down a fun, washed-out doubletrack rollercoaster toward the Desert Valley.

Soon, the road bends right and heads into another draw, with the abandoned guard-house and headstock of the Pickhandle Mine visible up the road. More good cow-trails can be found paralleling the road.

SIDETRIP: To the right, a very steep jeep road climbs up to the center ridge of the Slumbering Hills, passing several small abortive mining explorations. Three incredibly steep pitches challenge the strongest rider to stay on the bike, but a good surface, almost pavement-like, results from all the small, oily shale rock. After rolling along the ridge for several miles, this road rejoins the main one.

At the Pickhandle Mine, we found what appeared to be a small guard-house. Inside, sheathed between the wood and tin siding, we found but did not remove some Life magazine clippings from 1941. One headline read: "Hitler Threat Real, According to Europe."

The road continues to climb steeply up toward Awakening Peak, with a road leading right where it tops out. I believe you could take this road directly to Daveytown, but you would miss out on seeing the famous Jumbo Mine, the cause of a minor gold rush during the 1930s.

The Jumbo lies just ahead: continue as the road drops down and curves west, opening onto views of a small, cone-shaped butte. Within a mile or two, the Jumbo Mine road leads to the left.

Half a dozen timber buildings, and a few stick-built ones, remain at Jumbo, along with a neat old truck, a water tank and a series of dramatic, colorful canyons blasted out of the mountaintop. During its heydey, 38 tons of ore per day were processed here, with about 15 workers culling about $175,000 per year in gold and silver. When ex-president Herbert Hoover visited this mine, and commented favorably on it, a small rush ensued that opened up much nearby exploration that, for the most part, resulted in little pay dirt. Jumbo itself operated steadily through the 50s.

Today, the diggings at Jumbo look tiny compared with modern facilities such as the AMAX Sleeper mine just a few miles west. Situated down on the western pediment of the Slumbering Hills, the Sleeper has pulled nearly 2 million ounces of gold out, with another 2 million suspected remaining. The Sleeper was active in the 1980s and 90s, with three years of further exploration scheduled to begin in 2003. If, as suspected, gold trends northwest along the line between the Jumbo and Sleeper, instead of along the line of the pediment as thought when the Sleeper was initially laid out, this area could be only starting its era of highest production. The moral of that story is: get out and ride to Slumbering Jumbo before it's all one great big open pit encircled by barbed wire fencing for miles around. Mines today are huge affairs, and Nevada has produced more gold ounces in the last 30 years than was produced in all previous U.S. gold rushes combined.

Our road continues past the Jumbo, looping around to the main road dropping back down to the Silver State Valley. If you like, you can explore any of a number of "shortcut" roads that branch right on a more direct route to Daveytown. Or, just follow the main road until it meets with the good gravel road that becomes Sand Pass Road and passes through Daveytown. The shortcut roads can often be quite rough, depending on recent weather, truck and cow traffic.

Daveytown once offered ghost town explorers dozens of buildings to poke around in, and even a huge old multi-story amalgamation mill with a very early diesel engine. Since improvements to Sand Pass Road, though, much of Daveytown's charm and essentially all of its wood have been hauled away.

Next comes the flat run-in to the starting point on Sand Pass Road. If you're lucky, winds will be light, and high clouds will play shadows over the snowy peaks of all the ringing mountains. If not, well, it's only 15 miles, and you'll just be all the happier when done.

There you have it, the Slumbering Jumbo. A perfect, moderate, 40-mile mountain bike loop, complete with command performances from local wildlife, stand-up comedy from local geology, and all the beautiful mountain views you can soak up in four to six hours. Ride it soon, though, because with possible major expansion at the Sleeper Mine, you snooze, you lose.

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