On today's Outdoor Nevada, we're introducing you to the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

Not many people know about this trail, and that's because this trail isn't for everyone and highlights some of Nevada's most remote and untouched lands.

I hope you're ready for an adventure.

♪♪♪ I'm Connor Fields, and this is Outdoor Nevada.

♪♪♪ What is the Toiyabe Crest Trail?

Well, that's exactly what we're going to find out.

We're going to meet up with a few local experts to learn more about the trail, how to prepare for it, and the best way to tackle it.

♪♪♪ The Toiyabe Crest Trail covers over 70 miles, with the majority stretching through non wilderness, and a significant portion making its way through the Arc Dome Wilderness.

One thing to understand about the Toiyabe Crest Trail and its connecting feeder trails is that it offers options for different levels of hikes and treks.

You could do a day hike, an overnight, a multi-day adventure, and the complete experience, which would take an experienced trekker up to three to five days.

Make no mistake, to take on this remote Central Nevada mountain range, you need to be experienced and prepared.

Depending on your preference, you can start at the South Twin Trailhead and enter the Arc Dome Wilderness, or you can start at the Kingston Trailhead in the non-wilderness section of the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

We figured the best place to start would be at the Kingston Trailhead.

To help us navigate the trail, we met up with Chad Kelly of Battleborn Adventures.

Chad calls Kingston home and has been an avid outdoorsman his whole life.

Chad is also part of the revitalization of the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

He and others have put in some serious sweat equity into the TCT and its feeder trails.

We'll learn more about that later.

This is a multi-day adventure, so we got right to it and met up with Chad.

(Chad Kelly) We're here today at the northern terminus of the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

We're in the non-wilderness section, and we'll be taking off from here today, hiking to the south.

The Toiyabe Crest Trail is Nevada's longest hiking trail.

It's right around 71 miles.

We have 32 miles in the non-wilderness section, and then the remainder is in the wilderness section.

We're going to gain about 2,800, almost 2,900 feet of elevation in around 3 miles.

And that's going to get us up to some amazing views of the Reese River.

Then a little bit beyond that, we'll be able to see Big Smokey Valley and the Reese River Valley, both.

A lot of the sections we're going to see over the next few days.

We've got plenty of water, but there are some stretches of this trail where you're 8 to 10 miles in between water sources, so make sure you got plenty of water.

It's a good idea to have a satellite transponder.

Again, back to that remoteness, we're a long ways from help anywhere, and we're a long ways for anybody to get to you.

So it's pretty important to have some way to communicate, and, you know, through GPS, because there's places, there are some places up here where we'll have cell service, but most of it, you're going to need a satellite transponder.

Anytime in the mountains, especially these really high mountain ranges down here, be prepared for any kind of weather.

Make sure you have some rain gear.

And as we're getting into monsoon season, quite often, we'll have some big afternoon thunderstorms, and the valleys will be bone dry.

And if you were down there, you would never think, and there could be a lot of weather going on up in the mountains.

I got involved seven years ago.

A good friend of mine, Kurt Gensheimer, has spearheaded the resurrection of this trail, and, you know, it was in my backyard, so I felt a connection with that and was really glad to get involved with it.

And we've been getting some grant money now for the last four years through RTP and through Nevada Division of Outdoor Recreation, and we've started bringing this trail back.

For a lot of years, it went with no maintenance.

The last the Forest Service maintained it, it was late '80s, early '90s, and it was just kind of forgotten about.

We've been bringing this back.

We've got about 25 miles completed now.

We're working on two more canyons, and then there will be six canyons on the east side with access, and then the entire non-wilderness section of the Toiyobe Crest Trail will be open for visitors.

Toiyabe Range is one of the longest ranges in Nevada, close to 130 miles long, and it's the highest consistent range in Nevada that's got the most peaks over 10,000 feet.

-The vertical elevation gain in such a short hike is no joke.

In less than 2 miles, we went from about 7,000 feet to just under 9,000 feet.

And today's hike isn't done.

We were heading to the crest.

-Well, we're back to the north.

We've gained about 2/3 of our elevation right here.

Yeah, we got about 8/10 of a mile to go, and another 500-600 feet of elevation gain.

This portion of the trail we just climbed up is our biggest elevation gain on the trail.

So a popular route for people to take is from south to north, and that will save you this 2,800 foot of elevation gain.

You know, versus climbing that at the beginning, you'll be descending in at the end.

If you're coming from lower elevation, understand that when you start this hike, you're already at 7,000 feet, and then you're going to be-- this portion of the trail and the wilderness section, you're going to be in that 8,500- to 10,000-foot zone for the majority of the trail.

From here on out, like I say, we're going to gain about another 500-600 feet of vert.

And from there, we're going to get a look into, we'll probably see a 50-mile zone of Reese River.

We'll be looking to the west into the Shoshone Range, which is an amazing mountain range in itself.

And then we're gonna go a little bit beyond that, and we're gonna get up to a spot above 10,000 feet, and we'll be able to be looking back into the Big Smoky Valley and the Reese River.

-The hike continued, and so did the climb.

You can definitely feel the altitude and the muscle burn, but the view... absolutely amazing.

You could say that it was breathtaking, but the hike already did that.

-Yeah, so we're right about 3 miles in from our hike that we took off this morning.

Got a good climb, very challenging, and then we get up to this view here.

We're about 9,100 feet and amazing view of the valleys.

Right behind me, you got a great view of this peak.

This is Bunker Hill, and it's the second tallest peak in the Toiyabes, and it's the Lander County high point.

So the next couple days, what I was explaining earlier about the different ecosystems is we're going to get into where we'll be hiking along Washington Creek for a couple miles, all the way up, and we'll get up into a beautiful meadow up there.

And we're going to be under some towering cliffs, and that's where the TCT starts to get up a little bit more on some of the ridges and more views from there.

And then the next day after that, we're going to be above 10,000 feet on the trail, and we'll probably peak out about 10,400 is the top of the Toiyabe Crest Trail in the non-wilderness section.

As I said at the beginning, the view is always worth the climb.

-When we started this hike, we were surrounded by rolling hills in a beautiful canyon.

Now we are standing looking out as far as the eye can see at the Toiyabe Range and beyond.

Wow!

Just wow!

While we enjoyed the view, about 30 miles away at the South Twin Trailhead is a trail crew from the Friends of Nevada Wilderness.

We caught up with them to see what they were up to.

-My name is Wes Hoskins, and I'm with Friends of Nevada Wilderness.

-My name is Edward Ruiz.

I'm with Friends of Nevada Wilderness.

-We are in the South Twin River drainage on the southern end of the Toiyabe Range, near the Arc Dome Wilderness, and we're out here on an eight-day hitch performing trail maintenance to make the Toiyabe Crest Trail better.

-It feels good to do something that's not-- that's a little more selfless that's for others to enjoy, not just myself.

I'll go out there and work on a trail for other people to enjoy those areas as well.

So with Friends, in particular, I've fallen in love with Nevada and the mountains out here, the wilderness areas out here, the solitude.

It's a special place, absolutely.

-The really unique thing about this crew that's with Friends of Nevada Wilderness is that we're a traditional skills crew, so everything that we do is with-- it's with picks, it's with shovels, it's with cross-cut saws, all tools that have been around for hundreds of years and have a tradition of trail work, you know, going back to the 1930s with the Civilian Conservation Corps.

And so on any given day, we might be using picks and shovels and hand tools to move a ton of rock from a rock slide that's come and totally occluded the trail.

So the crew, and it's a four-person crew, might be doing that.

Or if there's been a storm that comes through and pushes a lot of wind-blown trees down, we'll come in with cross-cut saws that were made, you know, in the 1930s and axes, and we'll log out all of those trees.

We also, with the storm damage and erosion, we're doing a lot of what we call "crush and fill," so throwing rocks into rutted areas on the trail, crushing it down with sledgehammers, and then filling it in with dirt.

And all of this, all of this we're doing with just, you know, basically our muscle power.

-And using hand tools as well, it helps preserve the character of the wilderness.

-Trail work is, you know, it's a real craft.

And the crew members are trained up in first aid.

They're all cross-cut certified, and there's a lot of amount, a lot of training that goes into before the season starts.

And a lot of the training that we're doing, it's-- a lot of times it's side by side with agency partners.

A lot of the work we do is with the US Forest Service, and so we really tie into their training regimen.

And, you know, we're doing all of this work in partnership with the US Forest Service and doing it to their trail maintenance standards.

This trail is definitely, you know, not like a front country trail that you may find just like outside of your town.

Last thing, when you come out here, definitely file a hiking plan with your emergency contacts so they know where you're at and what your itinerary is, because it can go south real quick out here.

-Good advice for sure.

Seeing this Friends of Nevada Wilderness crew put in the work is not only honorable, it is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

After a long day, it was time to settle in.

And it was camping under an amazing star-filled sky.

The morning came quick, and it was time to head to Washington Creek, one of the recently cleared feeder canyons leading up to the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

Here, Chad and the crew caught up with Lance Brown with the US Forest Service.

(Lance Brown) Yeah, so we're currently in Washington Canyon.

This is at the, currently, right at the trailhead here, that's Spur Trail, that leads up to the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

You know, so the elevational changes you have from the trailheads to the Crest Trail, you know, are amazing.

And as you rise in elevation, you have a little bit of vegetative change; you get into some different vegetative communities.

So right here at the trailhead, we're sitting right next to Washington Creek that has a very robust aspen and water birch and some willow component here.

And some of the side slopes on the uplands is mount mahogany and pinion juniper.

And as you, as you go up this trail and rise in elevation, you'll see more water.

You'll see some areas that are flattened with some meadows and more robust willow, willow habitats and aspen stands.

And then the country opens up a little bit to some of the big sage hillsides and basins.

And as you continue up in elevation, you know, you do have limber pine and some treed mountain, you know, mountain tops as well.

It's truly an amazing experience and a lot of diversity that should be considered for, you know, personal experience and use.

-It was time to head back to the Crest Trail and continue on our journey.

The Washington Creek Trail is incredible, and this canyon is such a different feel from the Crest Trail.

It's what's so great about this whole area.

It's diversity plus the bonus of being with Chad and having him share his knowledge and expertise is so helpful and so educational.

It's a really nice change of pace with no shortage of places to take a break and the perfect place for Chad to share more about this feeder trail.

-We're on the west flank of the Toiyabe Range, and this is the first canyon on the north end that feeds up to the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

This was one of the first ones we started work on.

This is one of six on this side.

We've got two more to clear out.

And once those are all cleared out, there's going to be multiple opportunities to loop from feeder trail to feeder trail and utilize the Crest Trail for small portions.

And then once all these feeder trails are open, it gives people the options to drop off the Crest Trail.

This is generally where most of your water is.

If you're up in a dry section and need to come down to water, you're going to find it in these feeder canyons.

This canyon here is pretty magical.

This is kind of one of the premier canyons, in my opinion.

It offers opportunities for a lot of water.

You're under canopy.

Probably this two-and-a-half-mile section that we're hiking, we're probably under canopy for 75% of it.

Once you get about halfway up this canyon, you start getting those views of the crest, and you're seeing the top of the Toiyabe Range there, and it's pretty magical.

We're probably about a half mile away from the junction of the Crest Trail.

We'll get up into a nice little meadow area.

It would be a great place if you wanted to set up camp.

There's some level spots up there and offers you some great views as well.

So the canyon will open up, and you'll get some good vistas.

-He's not kidding.

When the canyon opens up, it truly is something.

We didn't have far to go to reach the meadow, and it was the perfect place to set up camp.

-We've made it up to the junction now.

We've come up Washington Creek Trail, and we're at the junction of the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

And so right now we're sitting 6 miles south of where we made it to on our first day out.

This is the point where you can either, you know, from Kingston, you could descend down into Washington or continue on south on the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

You don't have to hike all the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

You can, you can come out and take your vehicle, do vehicle camping and do day hikes just up these canyons and get up to the Crest Trail and see some breathtaking views.

You know, you're 9 miles in here at this point, so you've got a nice little grassy spot here.

It's going to be a comfortable place to put your tent and your bag down, and you're going to get some amazing views in this spot right here.

-It was a long day and the right time to settle down for the night.

Tomorrow was going to be another big day.

We were meeting up with the trail crew from the Great Basin Institute who were working on another feeder trail in Mohawk Canyon.

This is a good point to see how the process of clearing a trail works.

It's important to understand that these trails are being reconditioned because of a lack of maintenance and use.

After years of no maintenance and little use, they get overgrown and become impassable.

This is where Chad, Kurt, and others will come in and mark the trail.

It starts by navigating an overgrown trail and tagging the route with red ribbons.

Along the way, they will do their best to help clear the trail, but it takes a skilled trail crew to come in and truly open up the trail.

This is all a lot of work.

-So we're about 3/4 of a mile up Mohawk Canyon, and it took us about two days to get to this point right here with the crew that we're going to be catching up with.

We did a lot of clearing out willows, wild rose, and one thing that made that possible is, because we are in the non-wilderness section, we're able to use power tools.

So those allow us to make pretty good ground each day and get things cleared out efficiently.

Because this stuff grows back so fast, we're opening up anywhere from a 4-foot to a 6-foot wide path so that we can minimize the time that we're back in here.

So this trail, where we're cutting a 4- to 6-foot-wide path, we'll be back in here in two years doing the same thing.

It will be a little bit less work, but as we lay that back farther, that allows us a little more time in between.

So we kind of get on a routine, alternating these canyons that we're working in and keeping them caught up.

I'm excited.

We'll be catching up with the Great Basin Institute.

They've got one of their Nevada Conservation Corps chainsaw crews out here right now.

Great group.

There's five of them, and they were absolutely instrumental in some of the stuff we're getting up into with their help with the chainsaws.

They're all certified chainsaw crew, and they really made some good progress.

I've been out of here for the last week and a half, so I'm really excited to catch up to them and see how much more they've gained.

-Hey, what's up, guys?

-Hey, what's up, Chad?

-Good to see you, man.

The trail is looking awesome!

-Thank you.

-You guys made progress since I was out here last.

-Yeah, we've been working hard.

-These crews who work on maintaining and clearing these trails come out to these areas, camp, and live for 7- to 10-day stretches, each day pushing further along the marked trails.

-We've been working our way south.

Essentially, we started in Kingston, started working on the TCT, and then started in Washington Creek as the first feeder Canyon.

And we've been working our way south, and we've got two canyons left.

We got Marysville, and Mohawk is going to be the final canyon, once we open it up.

And we're probably somewhere in a year to two seasons out from having everything fully open, all signage installed, and ready to rock and roll.

This was my first trail that I got a chance to come out.

I've flagged this trail, and so it's meant a lot to me to be able to see one from start to finish and the shape that this trail was in, zero maintenance for the last three decades, and see it come to life now is, it's been amazing.

(Lee Marker) We walk back through everything that we've cut out.

And it is, it is just so fulfilling just to see what you've done in the day.

It is.

It's not-- it's qualitative and quantitative, because you can physically see how much you've cut and then remember, oh, when we got here this morning, I couldn't actually walk through here.

And now it's just a full, clear path so we can go to wherever we need to.

I think opening up a lot more places like this, especially being as remote as we are, we'll want to bring more people out here.

I know once this is done, I'll probably be out here to hike it and remember I'm the one that did this along with my crew.

So it is really nice to see and just to feel and to know that you've done this work.

And you go back to camp tired at the end of the day knowing you did a good job.

-It's awesome to see the finished product, and the hard work that it takes to get to that point is very rewarding at the end of the day.

-I mean, GBI, all they want to do is make the outdoors better for everybody.

We've-- a saying that I've been saying, We're a nonprofit organization looking to help the environment.

And I think that's really the basis of everything that we're trying to do.

-Watching this crew work is nothing short of amazing.

It is a well-oiled machine, the crew and the chainsaws.

It's not a melee of chainsaws swinging around; it is a careful and meticulous effort, one section at a time with safety, thought, and purpose.

This crew knows what they are doing.

A big thanks to them.

There was a lot of ground to cover today, and we were burning daylight.

It was off to the Ophir Summit Trailhead and the final stop.

It was a long day and time to get some rest.

It was a beautiful sunset to wrap up the day.

Then it was sleeping under yet another incredible night sky.

It was perfect for the last night out on the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

And before you knew it, it was back on the trail to hike up to the highest point of the adventure.

♪♪♪ -So we're a few hundred feet up above Ophir Pass on the Toiyabe Crest Trail heading north, and we're in an amazing vista right here, where we're looking off into Reese River Valley to our west and Big Smokey Valley to our east.

I'm very blessed to be able to call the Big Smokey Valley and Kingston home and remembering all these times, my first times in these mountains and the first time I hiked in this particular canyon or rode my bike in this canyon.

To be able to bring that to other people so they can experience that same thing is really why so many of us that have worked on this project are out here doing that.

Because how much fulfillment it brings to us to enjoy this, we want to share that and open that up to other people so that they know that they can get out here and experience the same things.

The outdoors, for me, that's where I revitalize my-- that's where I clear my mind.

You might have some heavy things on your mind.

You get outside, and a lot of that stuff washes away.

It just gives you a chance to get out into peace and quiet and just really focus on what you're doing at the moment, and it's good for your soul.

-We can't thank you enough, Chad.

Keep up the good work, and we will definitely see you again soon.

This has been a fantastic adventure.

The Toiyabe Crest Trail did not disappoint; it was no joke.

Despite its length and rugged terrain, it remains one of Nevada's hidden gems, providing solitude and a deep connection to nature for anyone who's willing to explore its remote wilderness.

If you want to take on the Toiyabe Crest Trail, do your research, assemble a skilled team, and make a plan.

Be smart and be safe.

Until next time, I'm Connor Fields, and this is Outdoor Nevada.

♪♪♪