This Nevada Scenic Byway Is The Road Trip Of A Lifetime
Few Nevada drives trade the neon for open desert as fast as the Pyramid Lake Scenic Byway. The route runs north from Wadsworth toward the shores of Pyramid Lake, a desert lake the Northern Paiute hold sacred. The water is the biggest remnant of ancient Lake Lahontan, the inland sea that filled much of western Nevada during the last Ice Age. Today its waters support a working tribal fishery, home to endangered cui-ui and the prized Lahontan cutthroat trout. You can cover the whole loop over a relaxed weekend, with one night on the water in between.
Plan around the permits before you go. Recreation on the reservation runs on tribal fees, and separate permits cover swimming, camping, boating, and fishing, with restrictions that protect the land and the Paiute community. Buy them in person at the ranger station in Sutcliffe, at the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Museum and Visitors Center in Nixon, or online at pyramidlake.us. Come ready for extremes: heat and seasonal fire risk in the warm months, ice and snow in winter.
Day 1: Wadsworth Park to Sutcliffe
Start at family-friendly Wadsworth Park, near the banks of the Truckee River on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation in the small community of Wadsworth. Follow Pyramid Street out of town onto Highway 447 and the official byway. You drive through parched, rugged desert, with the peaks of the Pah Rah Range and the Lake Range rising on either side of Washoe County. Along the drive you pass Nevada Historical Marker #148, which records the two Battles of Pyramid Lake in May and June of 1860, when Northern Paiute warriors met a volunteer army raised out of Virginia City and nearby settlements.
The drive to the lakeshore takes roughly 35 minutes, traffic depending. You reach the sandy shore at Sutcliffe after passing Wino Beach and Sandhole Beach, closing out the western arm of the byway's rough wishbone shape. In Sutcliffe, look for the old railroad water tower, set against the warm-toned Pah Rah Range in the distance. The Pyramid Lake Fisheries operate here, and the fish they raise carry real economic and cultural weight for the Paiute community. For a bed, the Pyramid Lake Lodge is the one place to stay, with mobile homes, private cabins, trailers, and larger units for families or groups. The lodge asks travelers to call ahead for pricing and availability. If you need supplies, the Pyramid Lake Marina Store runs a cafeteria-style counter with chips, soda, coffee, and more.
Day 2: Finishing the Byway
On your second and final morning, grab breakfast at the Pyramid Lake Marina Store, or eat what you packed in your cabin. Either way, leave the quiet shore at Sutcliffe, backtrack the way you came, and pick up the last leg of the byway as it swings toward the eastern side of Pyramid Lake. Roughly 20 minutes on, you cross the Truckee River near Nixon, where the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Museum and Visitors Center is worth a stop for the tribe's history in its own words. The road then curves past the edge of the Marble Bluff Fish Passage and Research Facility, a federal operation that helps cui-ui and cutthroat trout move upriver to spawn.
The byway ends on the eastern side of the lake, about 10 minutes from Nixon and across the water from Anaho Island National Wildlife Refuge. President Woodrow Wilson set the island aside in 1913 to protect colonial nesting birds, chief among them the American white pelican. The refuge stays closed to the public, but you can see it from the Sutcliffe side, along with the pyramid-shaped rock that the lake is named for, a strange centerpiece to an already strange stretch of desert.
Where to Head Next
For a change of scenery, drive Nevada's other famous lake. At Lake Tahoe, the Eastshore Drive is a Federal Highway Administration scenic byway, with dense forest and busy lakeside recreation in place of desert heat. If you want something quicker and a lot brighter, drive the Las Vegas Strip or the Las Vegas Boulevard National Scenic Byway for glitz and lights instead of open water. Either one is a fair counterpoint to a couple of days spent watching the light move across Pyramid Lake. Plenty of travelers also fold this drive into a longer trip to or from the Burning Man festival, held out on the Nevada playa each summer, and a slow lap of the lake is an easy way to break up the long haul.
