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Show SALT LAKE-ELY KOADS TOURED FOR INFORMATION' Investigation of road connections between Salt Lake and Ely, and between be-tween Ely and the scenic wonderland of southern Utah was made over the last week-end by Governor Mabey and Preston G. Peterson, chairman of the state road commission. The Utah officials went to Ely by way of Beaver, Milford and Garrison, to Baker, Nev., and returned by way of Baker, and then almost due east to Hinckley, then to Oasis and Fillmore. The latter route was known as the Baker-Delta road, but. inasmuch as the objective for the evening's trip was Fillmore, a shorter route was taken from Hinckley to the Delta-Holden Delta-Holden road a few miles east of Oasis. Oa-sis. At Ely possible connections with Salt Lake across the Great Salt Lake desert were discussed. Here there were three alternatives. That primarily pri-marily favored by the Ely business men was the Lincoln highway, running run-ning to Ibapah, and thence across the southewestern arm of the Great Salt Lake desert to Johnson's pass and Tooele city. The alternative to this was a connection with the road now being built across the Great Salt Lake desert along the line of the Western Pacific to Wendov -r. Such cnniieci'oti from Kly could b? made, it was suggested by ray of Schell-bourne Schell-bourne uas ;o Ibapah, and thence north hv way of Gold Hill and a route partly in ''tab. and partly in '-va-!u Y--i:-:- 'r. Or a road ni'ght be built more dn-'-itly from Ely to W'emiover. crossing a lower summit at White Horse puss, and taking a shorter route, but one entirely in Nevada until Wendover was reached. The routes above - mentioned are about all the through Utah-Nevada line except that followed by the road that runs through Ogden around the north end of the Great Salt lake. The road from Modena to Pioche is not generally considered as a part of a through route, and the Zion Park highway crosses the Utah-Arizona, instead of the Utah-Nevada line, crossing the Arizona-Nevada line a few miles farther on. The road investigation made by the Utah officials was, as has been suggested, partly with the idea in view of seeing whaf must be done to connect the Utah scenic wonderland with the wonders of Lehman's cave, near Baker. Governor Mabey and party were guests of Governor J. G. Scrugham of Nevada last Sunday on a trip through that cave, which they found to be an object, of natural beauty and wonder worth going many miles to see. Ample accommodations for the tourists were found at the cave, which is on the Baker national nation-al forest. After a late morning start from Ely the party had lunch at the cave, and then made the trip underground, under-ground, armed with acetylene lamps. Under expert guidance stationed there for the convenience of the touring tour-ing visitor, the Utahns, with a large party from various parts of Nevada, were shown through a maze of fantastic fan-tastic shapes rivaling in beauty and delicacy of color any pen picture of fairyland, or in monstrosity any geologist's geo-logist's tale of prehistoric dinosaurs. Grottoes and chambers and halls and passages contain stalagmites and stalactites resembling almost anything any-thing to be found in the dictionary, from the vegetable market to the bridal'chamber, and from the -homely tallow candle wick and ali to the bridal altar, or the ruins of Pompeii. Pom-peii. Flutelike music is rendered by the' guide on the hundreds of pipes, large and small, which hang from the rock ceilings, while at other times he reproduces an Indian dance in a iinnese paean or praise with lifelike fidelity. Gorgeous color effects ef-fects also are shown, through translucent trans-lucent onyx. The whole effect is such as to make the visitor wish that his two or three hours devoted to the iave were as many days. The camp lias other attractions. The mountain-climber. the"- fisherman, fisher-man, the hunter and the lover of outdoors in.its many forms would find here something to tickle his fancy, fan-cy, whatever his taste might be. From Milford to Ely, about 155 miles by the route taken, the governor's gover-nor's automobile made the trip in around six and one-half hours' driving driv-ing time. Claims are made that the time can be cut by two hours, but at that an average of twenty-five miles an hour or better over long stretches of desert plateau, divided by five mountain passes, proves that the going is pretty fair. An average of twenty-five miles means much better time for much of the way. As traffic develops over the route and better maintenance is made possible the speed will be increased, for the necessity of showing up for a suspected sus-pected rough spot will be eliminated. The Utah end of the road for nearly near-ly all the distance crosses a country of which the soil is a natural road-building road-building material. In a few places this material would have to be hauled haul-ed short distances; but with the exception ex-ception of widening the road through some of the passes, with poisible equalizing of grades and elimination of curvatures, neither construction nor maintenance costs would be high to keep a road in condition that could carry upwards of 100 automobiles a day readily. Since the local traffic through that uninhabited country is very light, it is seen that even the present road, with some maintenance would carry a vast amount of tourist traffic. The road has been graded, and some drainage structures have been placed by Beaver county. It Is signed all the way and at present Is adequate for all the traffic offered. The governor spent the night at Beaver. Breakfast the following morning was at Milford. where a road conference was held with local business busi-ness men. It was 10 o'clock or after i when the start was made from Milford. Mil-ford. and some time after noon when Burhank near the Nevada, border, had been passed, and the party came to the home of E. W. Clay, a rancher of Antelope valley. Speaking of oases in the desert. Mr. Clay's place shows a touch of real home life, with comforts that could hardly be deempd possible at such a distance from the railroad about seventy-five miles either way. It is n place in which the forbidding monotony of 'he desert is converted into charm and romance. A pioneer of this valley in 1 S 7 4 . Mr. Clay built his home a few years later near j where a spring pours its half second- foot water from the hill all the year round, varying neither in temperature temper-ature nor in volume. This he has diverted di-verted to irrigation of a rich, if thirsty soil, and has piped for domestic do-mestic use. Across the valley rises a range of mountains on which two timber lines show a lower at the edge of the desert and the higher at the edge of the Arctic peak. Mount Jefferson, a glacier-bedecked pyramid pyra-mid rises prominently in this range. Beyond and through a gap in the nearer range are visible the Gosbute mountains and towering Mount Wheeler, 13,070 feet high, the topmost top-most peak in Nevada. Water so abundant and so fresh had led to the stop at Mr. Clay's wayside log home, nestling among the willows. His invitation to dinner was gladly accepted, and he regaled the visitors with stories of pioneering pioneer-ing days and of the modern day reproduction re-production of those times in the filming film-ing near there of "The Covered Wagon," Wag-on," an event long remembered in that section. Ely was reached in early twilight, the last several miles and the last mountain pass being over the Pioche Ely road. The next afternoon, after Lehman's cave had been viewed, the party retraced its route to a short distance beyond Baker, and soon found itself on the Baker-Delta road. This had been declared by someone to be a forty-mile-nn-hour road, but it proved to be slower. The governor's gover-nor's car averaged about twenty miles into Hinckley, crossing this time anly two mountain passes. Much of this route also is natural readbed, but there are some stretches of mud flat which are longer than on the Milford-Baker route. In many places, also, the route crosses innumerable shallow, washes in the talus bed. While these present no serious difficulty diffi-culty to the traveler, they are excellent, ex-cellent, speed reducers. Marjnm pass, on this road, where is'located the last water until Hinckley is reached, possibly pos-sibly forty miles away, is a gash of wonderful scenic beauty in the House mountains which possibly may receive re-ceive their name from the eprpendi-cular eprpendi-cular sides and the steep slopes of the tops of the mountains. From the top of the pass the lights of -Hinckley came into view, and from then on it was steady traveling down hill and across the flats of the lower Se- vier almost in a mathematically straight line for Hinckley. While the governor stopped at Fillmore Fil-lmore for the night the trip easily demonstrated that, if the extra mileage mile-age at Baker, in visiting the natural cave, had been eliminated a reasonably reason-ably early start from Ely would have placed the car in Salt Lake before nightfall. The big problem of either route is the long, long stretch of road through a country which has none, or very few, inhabitants. The saving feature of each is the probable eas3 v';h wh.ch a cheaply constructed road mi;ht be maintained there in ; condition which would satisfy all the traffic likely to irxur theri for years, e"en with proper exploitation ot its tdv-mtages as : through roi;t. Salt Lake Tribun" A |