Great Basin National Park

I will admit that going into this trip I had a mental file of “check the box” parks. Parks I had never heard of and wasn’t especially keen to drive hundreds (or even thousands) of miles out of our way to see. Great Basin was definitely on this list. I had never heard of it, in part because very few people visit. For reference, Great Basin NP saw about 168K visitors in 2017. Smoky Mountain NP saw over 11M visitors! The drive to GB didn’t inspire me either. Desolate is the best word I can use to describe our approach to GB. We traveled from Zion NP in the southwest corner of Utah to GB on the eastern boarder of Nevada. The landscape was void of any obvious life. No people, no animals, no trees. Just mountains, rocks and grasses. The landscape almost inspires fear. I have hiked many miles of woods on the east coast and some in the Rockies and pacific northwest. If there is a ready source of water and trees around I have never felt afraid in the woods – but out here – nothing. We stopped the RV in the middle of the road to take the picture below – there wasn’t another car for miles – we could have camped there in the middle of that road and wouldn’t have disturbed a soul!

We finally got to Great Basin early afternoon (7/23). We planned to boondock at a BLM site near the park – but as we are discovering, if we can get into the park itself, the experience is that much better. Early on this was difficult – in popular parks, RV sites in the parks themselves are booked months in advance. But as our travels continue we are finding that most parks have a first come, first serve section of the park that we can wiggle into if we get there early enough. Hazel and I scouted GB in our tow car and found the last (very skinny) RV site available. We made dinner and prepared for an evening astronomy program with one of the park rangers. Unfortunately it was a cloudy night – but the ranger made the best of it by sharing a program on the Apollo 11 mission to celebrate 50 years since the lunar landing.

On Wednesday we explored the park. GB is really 3 parks in one. First, it is home to the rare and ancient bristlecone pines. Second, it is home to Lehman Caves and finally, it is a beautiful alpine forest containing the second highest peak in Nevada (Wheeler Mountain). We started the morning in Lehman Caves. Lehman is night and day different from Mammoth. Mammoth was enormous – not just long but also had significant volume in the rooms we toured. And it doesn’t have stalactites and stalagmites because it is effectively capped by a rock layer that prevents most water from getting in. Lehman on the other hand has water actively seeping into it – making the most amazing formations. The rooms are narrow and winding with spectacular stalactites (formations from the ceiling) and stalagmites (from the floor). This cave is also unique because it has formations called “cave shields” which are round and flat formations (see middle picture below – the shield is the disc shaped formation with what looks like tendrils coming off of it). I am not overly interested in caves, but am so glad we took the tour – what a beautiful act of nature.

The bristlecone pine forest was probably GB’s most unique feature and my favorite part. There are several stands of bristlecones in GB, but the one we visited was a hike just under the mountain peak – about 13K feet. It was a 1.5 mile hike in to the pine stand and worth every step of the way. Bristlecones are the longest living tree – though there is some debate in the scientific community if bristlecones are the oldest surviving plants (some type of creosote bush might win that prize). I am not sure I understand the distinction – but either way they are just cool! They are gnarled and twisted and look absolutely ancient. There was one in the stand we visited that was 3,000 year old. It was a privilege to visit them – honestly I am grateful that the park system has faith in people to respect the grove and allows visitors to walk among them without fences or other barricades.

The last feature of the park we enjoyed was a special and unexpected treat. We tacked a short side hike on to the bristlecone trail and visited Teresa lake. Teresa is a small glacier lake under Wheeler peak. The lake itself was beautiful – but the treat was just on the other side of the lake when we went to investigate the sound of rushing water – what we presumed was a creek feeding the lake. We did indeed find the creek, but oh what a setting! What we found was the most picturesque mountain scene. The creek meandered just so and was rushing with the abnormally high water levels caused by record setting snow this past winter. And to top the whole thing off – the stream was bordered on both sides by Perry’s Primrose (primula parryi). I plopped right down on the stream bank and contemplated perfection!

Great Basin IS out of the way – no sugarcoating that – but it isn’t a check the box park. It is worth visiting at least once in a lifetime. If nothing else – it is a beautiful setting to appreciate parts of nature that were here long before we were born and will be standing long after we are gone.