It was 4pm and I wanted to take my Belgian, Princess, on a drive. She seems more comfortable in the back of the car than at home, so the more she rides, the happier she seems to be. Unfortunately this was going to be a ride for her, and then a walk somewhere else.

It's still the middle of January so the sun is setting around 5pm, but that might be the horizon-time, getting cut short by the Sierra Nevadas that only seem to tower over the city in the evening hours.

A winding road heading up the foothills to Virginia City, Geiger Grade is a mini-destination road for performance cars and motorcycles; there is always someone waiting for you to take one of the pullouts so they can pass and feel the bends of the road. I'm not confident with pushing that stuff.

Geiger Grade. Past that mountain is Virginia City, another 15-20 minutes from Lookout Point.

OnX reminded me there was a Lookout spot that's frequented by anyone looking for a good sunset view over the Sierra Nevadas. It's a great hangout spot, but looks like it had ambitions to do more many years ago, with rock-built structures that have disintegrated into ruins. The only sign that they weren't historical was the concrete that kept stair steps and isolated spires together.

I kept wondering to myself, "What was it all supposed to be?" Maybe I should have kept the pictures of the rest of the ruins, but I don't want to blow this post up with too many pictures.

Several lookout spots were built on rock outcroppings. Almost all of them were covered in graffiti. Broken glass bottles of past parties littered the bottoms of the outcroppings, where I was attempting to find some good landscape angles before the sun disappeared. I didn't have much luck, and ended up taking a few more post-Golden Hour photos.

Looking down into Washoe Valley.

Honestly, due to mansions taking the tops of the mountains in this area, I didn't find many shots to take advantage of the red and green textures that make me enjoy Geiger Grade so much. A lot of the northern Nevada high desert are a mix of greys and greens, which are usually overpowered by the color of the sky. There are just some occasional patches of the desert that really "pops" for the camera.

After pondering the ruins of recreation around the Lookout, I decided there was not much more to take advantage of, especially since Princess was patiently waiting to go somewhere else.

Next time, if I come back, I'll take the steep trail down and see if there's anything else to see, but overall, it seems more like a "shoot your camera straight into the sun until it's gone" type of place.