A letter to Doug from a customer
“
Disco performed perfectly throughout this 1400 mile excursion, culminating in the Black Rock Desert. Gerlach Nevada (107 miles east of Reno) is the jumping-off point and has the only services available in a 10,000 square mile area. Thanks for making sure I was “good to go.”
High-speed runs across the “playa” which is a dry lake bed (used to set all the land speed records these days….better than Bonneville, and also the site of the annual Burning Man Festival), and low speed driving into the High Rock Canyon. Observers said the Rover did better than the Jeeps in the slow, uphill, rock-climbing sections. Hmmm. The Rover was the only stock vehicle in the group.
95 degrees, windy, and very dusty; those were the conditions during the day; we were just fine in our air-conditioned comfort, while 3 of the jeeps were open-top…you can imagine what those jeepers looked like at the end of the day.
A few photos to show you how it was…..
The BRD and HRC were traversed by thousands and thousands of emigrants going from the East to Oregon and California in the 1840’s and 1850’s. We drove in some of the ruts their wagons created in the rocks. Many of the oxen, horses, and people died enroute. 100 miles of desert, with scarce water in the summer months…no choice for them, as they could not cross the Sierra Nevada mountain after the snows started. This shows how desperate people were in those days to abandon the comforts of the East and strike off for the unknowns of the West, where there not only was no support but there were Indians trying to kill you. ”
