Reno to Virginia City: An Afternoon on the Comstock Lode
A driver-guide collects you in Reno, talks the whole way up, and leaves you an hour loose on C Street.
Most people meet Virginia City through a windshield, somewhere on the road between Reno and Lake Tahoe. It is a silver town of a few hundred people, perched over 6,150 feet up in the Virginia Range, and the road in climbs the whole way. This half-day run makes it the destination.
Pickup is at 13:30, from your hotel, your casino, or an address you give when you book. The guide starts talking on the way up. By the time the van reaches the ridge you have the short version of why a mountain this dry was worth tunneling into.
The shape of the afternoon is fixed, and worth knowing before you book. Three of the four and a half hours are guided; the last hour is yours. The guided stretch covers the historic district on foot, along the wooden boardwalks of C Street. The free hour is whatever you make of it: a meal, the shops, a saloon, a museum.
Five seats to the van, with an English-speaking driver-guide. Bottled water and the air conditioning come with it. Meals, entry tickets, and anything you buy in town do not.
Virginia City Wild West Half-Day Tour From RenoFour and a half hours, departing 13:30, with hotel pickup across Reno and a maximum of five travelers sharing the van.www.viator.comC Street Dates Itself, Building by Building
C Street is the spine of the place. The boardwalks are wooden and uneven, the storefronts are nineteenth-century, and the hills behind them are still cut open where the mines went in. The guided walk moves along it at a talking pace, which is the whole point of doing this with someone.
The buildings put their own dates on the facade. A brick firehouse carries 1864 on its gable under the bell tower and now holds a firemen's museum. A saloon a block down paints 1876 on its sign. The old newspaper office on the same few blocks runs as a Mark Twain museum. Your guide fills in what the paint leaves out.
The Mining Is Gone. The Hardware Stayed.
Between the shopfronts the industrial leftovers are still standing. A steam engine sits against a brick wall on its original iron wheels, chained and going nowhere. Headframes hold the ridge above town, and the tailings spilling below the houses are a different color from the hill they came out of.
The other traffic on these streets is the Virginia Range horse bands. They come down off the hills and walk the residential blocks at their own pace, and nobody schedules them. If a group crosses in front of the van, that is the stop.
What It Costs, and Why the Number Moves
The advertised rate is a per-person price at two travelers. It moves the other way when you go alone.
- One adult: USD 299.99
- Two adults: USD 199.99 each
- Three adults: USD 189.99 each
- Four adults: USD 169.99 each
- Five adults: USD 159.99 each
- Children aged three to seven: USD 99.99 for one, USD 79.99 each for two
- Infants aged one and two: USD 59.99
One adult pays a hundred dollars more than each of a pair does. Every booking needs an adult on it, and five is the ceiling. Confirmation is instant. The 13:30 run closes to new bookings at 09:30 that morning.
They Come to You, Wherever You Are in Reno
There is no meeting point to find. Pickup runs across Reno and into Sparks, from hotels, casinos, and addresses you supply, and you are dropped back where you started. The booking form asks for your pickup point, so give the exact one; a neighborhood name leaves the driver guessing.
Two things worth settling at the same time.
- The trip is not cancelled for bad weather or for a thin booking list. Dress for the range and it runs.
- Cancelling yourself is free up to 24 hours before departure. Inside that window the booking is not refundable. Those terms are the ones attached to this listing.
The form also carries a special-requirements field. Seat, mobility, and service-animal questions belong there, where the operator sees them before the day.
The van is back in Reno around 18:00, which leaves the evening open. Scenic stops and photo time are part of what is included, and the late light coming down off the range is when they earn their place in the itinerary.
Wear shoes that can take a wooden boardwalk, and keep a card on you for the hour that belongs to you.