Looks like I'll be hitting Tahoe the week before the Gathering. Any intel on the road US-50 through Ely, NV? The map apps call out the I-80 to SLC-Provo_I-70 as about a half hour faster, but I-80 from Reno to SLC is about the most boring road in the Western US.
While the distance is shorter and time not much longer according to Google maps, you'd be substituting what you call "about the most boring road in the Western US" for what Life magazine in 1986 called "The Loneliest Road in America" and I don't think much has changed on the route. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_50_in_Nevada for some details which includes the 17 passes crossing NV and includes "The name was intended as a
pejorative, but Nevada officials seized it as a marketing slogan. The name originates from large desolate areas traversed by the route, with few or no signs of civilization". While you'd probably miss 7,146' Spooner Summit leaving Tahoe Basin and some of the passes are minor, there are 7 passes over 7K starting with Austin Summit less than halfway across NV.
If you take US-50 during the winter (or probably anytime), you'd want to drive it during the day. Using I-80 on more than one trip, I've been able to ski more than 1/2 of the day in UT or Tahoe and the next day at Tahoe or UT. So if you want to give up a ski day and weather continues as it has so far in 2022, maybe you could try US-50. But if you don't want to lose a ski day, take I-80 and drive across at least part of NV at night. My plan on way to Gathering is ski Palisades two days, Deer Valley until noon or so the next day, pickup my wife at HDN at 5 PM and ski Steamboat the next two days, then Copper, then either Sunlight or a day off on Sat. 2/26.
Instigator.
