I've thought about going that way too. Maybe taking the Pilot road cutoff to Montello - I usually go that way in daylight, it's usually a couple minutes faster and cuts some miles off. At night it's faster staying on the pavement though - too many cows wandering out on that cutoff at night. Staying on the highway (not taking the Pilot cutoff), it's roughly 85 - 90 miles to the sewer pipes. With only about the last 10 or 11 of that on dirt. I don't go too fast on the highway up to Montello at night either, seen too many critters jump out. And there is construction going on this side of Silverzone that usually slows me down (they're building a huge tunnel). So, I'm thinking maybe about an hour and a half from the Salt Flats Cafe to the tunnels going that way at night? Could be a few minutes longer, depending?
It's only about 50 miles from the cafe going straight there. All dirt. I have not driven it for a year or two, conditions change, but last time I did, during the day, it was mostly 50 MPH dirt. So, a little over an hour to the tunnels. But at night, maybe conditions not so good, it could be more like 25 MPH and take two hours.
Hard to say. Really depends on conditions and what kind of shape the dirt road is in. Figure if you can't average a good 30 MPH on it at night, it probably will be just as fast going the long way around.
- DAA