Going To Burning Man via Jungo Road

The Burning Man guide says not to attempt Jungo Road from Winnemucca. Heed that warning! How did I make the trip in less that 3 hours?

I had a fully capable high clearance off road vehicle with a tire repair kit, air compressor and a full size spare tire that was in good condition. Is the warning about getting a flat tire warranted? Yes, absolutely. The road in places is made of shale rock, it is like driving on little knives that will puncture your tires. Once you leave Winnemucca the road is gravel. For 3/4 of the way it is a decent gravel road, the last 1/4 (once you pass the mine) is more like a goat trail, it is narrow, has many blind corners and is very dusty. The chances of catching up to others on the road is very good. I caught up to a motor home using the road. They were kind enough to pull off and let me by on a wide spot.

I used technology to plot the route. Before trying to use Jungo Road I had a look at it with Google maps and I also discovered it has street view so the Google car has been down it too. I could see on the maps that much of the road is straight but there are some places that have sharp corners and twisty spots. I plotted way points on my GPS to give me advanced warnings of the bad corners. On the flat straight parts of the road I was able to travel at 70 mph but many places it was 30 – 40 mph. I have logged many hours driving on gravel roads so I know what to expect, if you are used to pavement only do not attempt to travel fast on a gravel road as you will start to float on the gravel and your stopping distance is greatly reduced if you brake hard the rear of your car will get light as the transfer of the weight during the braking unweights the rear tires and the car will want to start going sideways. This is a situation where your brain is telling you to brake harder but what you really need to do is get on the gas to even out the weight. Panic braking can end up putting you in the weeds.

As we were paralleling Black Rock dry lake bed we came across some stranded burners in a mini van that had a flat tire. They had travelled the road with no spare and they asked me if I had a spare tire.

“Yes, yes I do have a spare tire but it is 33 inches tall and will not fit on your van, sorry about your luck.”
We were pulling away and I was focused on getting to the entrance gate and my girlfriend asked me, “Don’t you have a tire repair kit?”

I looked at her and said, “Yes, yes I do, I will turn around and go help them out.”

We returned to the stranded burners and I explained that I can’t loan them a spare tire but I can probably fix the one they have. So we put some air in the tire to find the leak and in less that 15 min they had a repaired tire, yes they were grateful. I was happy to help the stranded travellers. It was ironic that they could see their destination but could not make the short distance with the disabled mini van.

If you want to try and use Jungo Road to get to Black Rock City make sure you have a good spare tire, a working jack, an air compressor and a tire repair kit. It is 100 miles of gravel so take precautions and plan to be self reliant in your travels. Heed the Burning Man guide.