Notes from the Cabin in the Sky, 9-19-2025

It's a dichotomy. Two of my favorite sounds are the vast, sweeping silence of the Nevada desert and the hearty rumble of a V8 engine. As the annual Ferrari Hill Climb event circled Gold Hill, I found a smile spreading across my face. The Ferrari V12, after all, has four more cylinders to love.

The adrenaline rush of such an event is temporary, though, and life quickly returns to normal—or as normal as we get on the Comstock, anyhow. The local interpretation of such a standard is notoriously idiosyncratic, wildly independent, and just a trifle eccentric.

Many of you don’t know this, but there’s an irregular, unsanctioned hill climb event between Silver City and Gold Hill on a, well, irregular and unpredictable basis. I first noticed this late one summer evening. I had been painting a house all day, and I sat on the front porch in the dwindling twilight, admiring the view toward Devil’s Gate. The colors faded, and the lights came up at the Gold Hill Hotel, with snippets of bar conversation floating on the breeze. It was a timeless moment. An evening like this happened in the 1800s, and it happened last year and this year, but when I heard the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves on the pavement, I wondered for a moment if I’d stumbled into a Hank Morgan time-travel situation and anything might happen next. I half-expected Clint Eastwood to round the corner in his poncho and Stetson, maybe asking me if I felt lucky.

Instead, it was a solitary wild stallion. He paused in front of me, looked, gave a head nod, and kept on walking, his hoofbeats suddenly the loudest thing in Gold Hill. Turns out, he’s got a spot on the hillside that he was headed to—a nice, quiet overlook. I’ll frequently see him out there, keeping an eye on the oblivious travelers. He wins his hill climb every time.

Some races are quiet and personal, and some close the truck route. Whichever one you’re in this week, may your footsteps echo through the canyons and your engine always be in time. Find Top Dead Center and proceed accordingly.

Clip. Clop. The sun is rising at the Cabin in the Sky, and as I look at that view toward Devil’s Gate, it’s time once again to go to print.

Signing off,

AG