Screams pierced the night air, to be swiftly followed by a howl. We all jumped. Then there was laughter as yet another rendition of the Monster Mash blasted out.
We were heading mountainwards away from the remote copper mining town of Ely, deep in rural Nevada, on a Halloween-themed night train ride laid on by the Nevada Northern Railway.
Every few hundred yards, locals on the trackside performed elaborate murder scenes, to stoic parents and their excited, whooping vampire kids.
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But it was getting chilly in our open carriage. Only the day before I had been in Las Vegas, less than a four-hour drive away, basking in temperatures of 30C. Tonight it was near zero and my packing hadn’t included Arctic wear. “Is it much longer?” I whimpered.
Then I looked up.
I thought I’d seen the night sky in all its splendour once before while camping in the Cairngorms. But this exhilarating experience was off the planet.
Mouth wide open in awe, I took in the Milky Way and Andromeda, entire galaxies sweeping over my head. Shooting stars skimmed and bright stars popped. My breath was well and truly taken away.
That utterly entrancing encounter with the stars – nothing extraordinary in these parts, it turns out – is one of many reasons why this vastly underrated corner of the USA deserves your attention.
The driest state in the union boasts some 300 mountain ranges and more than 24 state parks across thousands of miles of rugged wilderness, dotted with remote ranches and old mining towns.
During my four-day whistlestop road trip along Nevada’s Great Basin Highway, the weather switched from sun to snow and back to sun, with one overnight blizzard dumping inches of snow from nowhere. It’s a reminder that its name comes from the Spanish word nieve, roughly meaning “snow-capped”.
Mum went on 8 holidays with flights from £16 – and always got back in time for work
Ely was the furthest point we reached from Vegas where we had started our journey, and is near to Baker, gateway to the Great Basin National Park.
From our base, the Prospector Hotel in the centre of the town, we took a tour around the Renaissance Village, where a collection of wooden huts that used to house migrant workers from 100 nations have been lovingly restored.
Former cowboy Glen Terry, now nearly 80, described how each one is themed to reflect the different nationalities that descended on the copper mining town to seek their fortune, while also paying tribute to the feminist icons who he says held the place together.
It’s an hour’s drive to the Great Basin National Park, home to 13,063ft Wheeler Peak, Nevada’s second tallest. The park is also home to the stunning Lehman Caves, around 10 million years old. Tour guide Alicia led us inside the half-mile route deep into the caves with their remarkable natural sculptures of stalactites and stalagmites.
Other park highs come at Kershaw-Ryan State Park, just outside Caliente, where an oasis of fruit trees, wading pool and, oddly, a volleyball court, can be found under craggy hills.
Over in the Cathedral Gorge state park, ranger Dawn leads us deep inside a group of soaring volcanic ash-and-dust towers for an eerie hide-and-seek. A short hike later we arrive at a vantage point that brings the scale of this place into heartstopping relief.
Closest to Vegas, the Valley of Fire, is rich in Aztec vivid red sandstone. Set in the land of the Mojave tribe, intriguing petroglyphs (carvings) in the stone cliffs trace ancient lives.
But this trip is about more than its natural wonders – for Nevada is also famed for its connection to the otherworldly.
Home to the infamous Area 51, the secretive US Air Force base that’s given rise to stories of captured spaceships and alien dissections, so numerous are the claims of sightings of UFOs along Route 375 that it’s been dubbed the Extraterrestrial Highway.
This 100-mile stretch of lonely road, cutting through desert landscape dotted by the occasional Joshua tree, makes much of its outer space connection. We went in search of the famous road sign. Unsurprisingly it had gone missing – it is claimed to be the most stolen sign in the world – although apparently in this instance it had been run over by a truck.
We had no difficulty though in finding the Alien Research Center. You can’t miss the giant metal alien statue standing guard at the entrance, and the Area-51 gift shop is kitsch heaven for UFO fans, with everything from Extraterrestrial Highway mouse pads to Alien Agave Nectar.
Down the road the world-famous E.T. Fresh Jerky store sells “out of this world” dried beef in every flavour imaginable, while staff will entertain you with stories of unexplained light sightings and CIA briefing leaks.
But it’s not only creatures from outer space that get the blood pumping, as we found out at Pioche. For a small town – there’s only two bars – it has some surprising quirky attractions, from the Lincoln County Courthouse, aka Million Dollar Courthouse, to nearby Boot Hill cemetery, where gunslinging outlaw cowboys are buried, their boots hung up on wooden crosses.
We had checked into the Overland Hotel and Saloon and the decor of my room (heavy on a fish theme) set the scene for an eventful night.
Over a card game and a nightcap in a bar just up the street, talk turned to hair-raising ghost stories – Pioche is known as Nevada’s “liveliest ghost town”.
Sniggering in disbelief, nevertheless I took no chances on my return to the hotel. I checked carefully inside the wardrobe and peered under the bed in my room before switching off the lights and retiring for the night.
So it was in fog of dazed confusion that I woke up in the early hours to find every single light in my room was on! Turning off the lights again, I drifted off into a sleep that was punctuated by vivid dreams of floating bedsheets and faces in mirrors.
Over breakfast the next morning all the excited talk among fellow guests was of heavy footsteps heard pacing the landing at 3am. Nobody was claiming responsibility. “Stop, don’t say any more,” begged one nervous guest. “Oh that’s nothing,” I declared, regaling them with my light-filled night.
With no end of natural showstoppers and some supernatural shockers too, my trip to Nevada had been truly memorable – even, dare I say, out of this world!
Book the holiday
Get there:
British Airways flies from Heathrow and Gatwick to Las Vegas, Nevada, from £426 return; britishairways.com
Stay there:
Rooms at the Vdara Hotel & Spa in Las Vegas start at around £98 a night; vdara.mgmresorts.com.
Rooms at the Overland Hotel & Saloon in Pioche start at around £73 a night; overlandhotelnv.com.
Rooms at the Prospector Hotel & Gambling Hall in Ely start at around £98 a night; prospectorhotel.us.
Rooms at the Signature at MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas start at around £82 a night; signaturemgmgrand.mgmresorts.com.
Further information:
You can find out more at travelnevada.com.
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