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1.START-END NORTH ALT:the town Murphy, along Id78 2.START-END NORTH: profile turns left onto unsgined, unpaved Old Stage Rd or Old Silver City Rd 3.profile continues on Silver City Rd/Ridge Rd 4.TOP, 6690ft 5.START-END SOUTH: turnoff to Silver City towards south 6.first turnoff towards Reynolds Creek drainage towards north 7.turnoff to Reynolds Creek via Whiskey Mtn Rd 8.START-END SOUTH ALT:Jordan Valley, Oregon

Approaches

From North.Silver City Road is a signed turnoff from Id67. Heading on pavement towards the ridge in the distance, the road climbs over softly flowing, hardly perceptible waves of sage, that resemble each other like the waves on a sea.

The first major intersection is with Old Silver City Road, marked as Ridge Road on my map, and now waves of sage have become much higher. The bike speeds down one, only to just about stop on a dime in order to climb the next one. A few miles after this intersection the surface turns to a gravel, but this is a friendly hard kind of medalled surface gravel. On these next several miles, the road descends down into the trough, separating the last sage wave from the first forested wave. This transition is my favorite part on this ride. The views along the front of the Owyhee Range include a strange canyon, where the sage seems to have cracked open.

Again the bike seems to stop on a dime at the next low point. The transition into the forested part announces itself with steep drops  temperature and brightness, which is good because otherwise the increase in sweat per hundred feet climbing would be even higher. From here to the top there are no views to take your mind of the task at hand, climb this steep, busy, yet well surfaced gravel road until there is no more to climb.

Besides a few nice, but still limited views at the top, there is a strange fenced in section, that people use to stage their motor vehicles. Tracks in both directions lead higher, but following them for 15 minutes each, I didn't find any more views either. A sign 12 miles below the top refers to this point as New York Summit. Looking on a map the name is attached to a nearby mountain top.

From South. (described downwards) The view down this way looks somewhat more normal, trees, gentle forested hills that sort of thing. A turnoff 200ft down to the left leads to a higher transmission facility. But this day on a warm Sunday in October, it would have been not such a good idea to oppose the heavy ATV traffic, that was coming down. Amongst the hundreds of ATVs, the dozens of motorcyles, I actually encountered 3 people who had been walking today, in this case up to the transmission tower view - no other cyclists I am sad to observe. But at least 4 people out of several hundred got some exercise today.

A few more hundred feet down is the signed turnoff to the old town Silver Creek. It is actually one mile out of the way of the profile. I think that there is no other more remotely located "ghost town" in the American west, that also attracts this many ATV visitors. There were actual ghost town ATV traffic jams. Or maybe this is just a very popular spot on a warm October Sunday. Even thought it is a little off the profile, I included a few pictures.

Back to the road following Jordan Creek downstream from the summit. This side soon follows an ever getting gentler ravine through loose forest and along the creek. Soon it is barely discernible that we are still surrounded by mountains.