Summer/Fall 2023, Nine State Tour, 8.20.23 - 9.25.23, Part 8 of 9: Great Basin National Park

After eight glorious days in the Moab area it was time to move on to the next phase of our tour. Leaving Moab we drove west on I-70 and then got onto US 50 west across Utah and into Nevada. Not far over the border, pretty much in the middle of nowhere lies Great Basin National Park. There is really not much of anything around this park for many, many miles which I suspect is one of the reasons it is currently ranked as the tenth least visited National Park in the country. In 2022 Great Basin saw 142,114 visitors. Compare this to Zion which saw 4.69 million visitors and it is clear that finding solitude at Great Basin is a much easier task. It is a relatively newer park, established in 1986. The park is known for four main things.

Lehman Caves. This underground cavern has guided tours.
Wheeler Peak. With the base of the park at an altitude of 5,315’, Nevada’s second highest peak rises over seventy-eight hundred vertical feet to an altitude of 13,167’ at the summit.
High on the flanks of Wheeler Peak, an ancient forest of bristlecone pine trees can be found in three main areas of the park.
Being so far from just about everything, Great Basin is one of the premier International Dark Sky parks in the country.

The park got its name because it is situated in the desert known as The Great Basin which encompasses much of Nevada and parts of Utah, California, Oregon and Wyoming. Due to the incredible changes in altitude from the desert flats to the tops of the peaks, you can have great fluctuations in temperatures on any given day. It’s a “wear a t-shirt but bring your down jacket” kind of place.

There are several free spots to camp scattered around the area, but we really wanted to have time to experience the park so we allotted five days which meant full hookups would be desirable. There is a tiny little town right at the base of the park near the visitor center called Baker. It can barely be called a town. We had booked a hookup site a good six months before arriving at an RV park in Baker. When we arrived around two-thirty, our site turned out to be a spot in the far back corner. Overgrown weeds covered most of the site and upon further inspection, hordes of red ants were crawling all over the site. It was by far the worst site we had ever been offered anywhere. The whole place just gave us the creeps. A quick search said that another option was just down the street. We drove the Jeep there to see. It was called Baker Fuel and RV. It was just a big gravel parking lot with a gas pump near the road. On one side of the lot was a little six room motel. Along the back of the lot weren’t so much sites, but there were five full hookup stations spread out along the back fence. The sites had great views of the peaks in the park and also great views looking out into the desert of the Great Basin. Nothing fancy at all, but a world better than the conditions we had booked. The lot was completely empty but a sign said we could book a site across the street at the general store. Luckily, we hadn’t paid yet so we went back, hopped in the Navibahn and got out of there, instead paying for a spot in the Baker Fuel and RV lot, very thankful that there was availability for five nights.

The following morning we drove up the road to the Lehman Caves. They offer two different tours and we had pre-reserved spots for what is called the Grand Palace Tour for a 9AM slot. The tour lasts an hour and a half. We had fifteen people in our group that morning. A park ranger that reminded us a lot of our son gave us the history of how the caves were discovered and some other general information before we entered a tunnel leading into the caves. I have been to three caverns that I know of, Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, Cave of the Winds in Colorado and Lewis and Clark Caverns in Montana. Bridgit had never been in any caverns before. The tour was great and we saw some incredible stuff. Hanging draperies, all sorts of stalagmites and stalactites and even some underground pools. I thought that the only negative was that the lighting wasn’t very creative. It hadn’t been updated since the seventies and better lighting would have made the features more impressive. Still, you sure don’t see stuff like that every day and it was well worth the ticket price ($7.50 each with a Senior pass).

There are only a few roads that penetrate the park and the main one is a paved twelve mile road that gains over four thousand feet of elevation. There are a couple of scenic viewpoints along the way and it ends at a campground that also has several trailheads. After doing the Lehman Caves tour we drove up to the top of the road just to check things out. By this point in our trip it was mid-September and the leaves and foliage were beginning to show their fall colors. The Scenic Drive was lined with rabbitbrush which are bushes that turn bright yellow in the fall. Also as we gained altitude we drove up through several ecological zones so nearer to the top we began to see lots of aspen trees. We saw a couple of mule deer and a jackrabbit along the way.

From down in the town of Baker, Wheeler Peak is obscured by 12,771’ Doso Doyabi which is a new name that replaced the original name of the peak, Jeff Davis Peak. As you climb on the Scenic Drive you begin to curve around the side of Doso Doyabi and then Wheeler Peak comes into view.

**Doso Doyabi (left) and Wheeler Peak from Wheeler Peak Overlook**

That evening we had a couple of other rigs pull in but we had plenty of elbow room. I played guitar for the folks in the next site for a couple of hours.

In the morning we got up pretty early so I could see sunrise on Wheeler Peak from up the Scenic Drive. I think we ended up being the first car in the parking lot at the top of the road. There are several options for hiking that all stem from the same trailhead. We started our four and a half mile hike at 7AM. The trail immediately crossed Lehman Creek and soon came to a junction. To the right was the start of the Alpine Loop. We stayed to the left which is called the Bristlecone/Glacier Trail. After climbing a bit we followed a very short side trail loop through a stand of ancient bristlecone pines. These are the oldest species on the planet. Some of these trees are over four thousand years old! Even the dead ones were still standing and the twisted patterns of the trunks and branches made some of them look like strange creatures. They reminded me of the trees in the Wizard of Oz. The Great Basin Bristlecone pines are an extremely rare species and only found in California, Nevada and Utah. Other species of Bristlecones can be found elsewhere but the Great Basin Bristlecones are the oldest.

Great Basin National Park has three main groves of Bristlecones. The other two groves are much less accessible, although I have read that the Washington Grove which is accessed by a very gnarly jeep road or a long hike, is a larger and even more scenic grove than the one we saw.

The Bristlecone Grove was just below timberline. Just beyond the grove the trail begins to climb moderately and works its way around a ridge and up into a large cirque below the east face of Wheeler Peak. The main trail appeared to end at a large interpretive sign with a view up into the cirque to the remains of the last remaining glacier in Nevada, the Wheeler Peak Glacier. This is one of the southernmost glaciers in the country and sits at 11,500’. It’s really not much of a glacier anymore. Living in Washington, I’ve seen some pretty impressive glaciers and this was really more of a permanent (for now) snowfield.

A rougher trail continued up into the cirque, crossing a small snowfield and working its way up over several rock glaciers. We climbed all the way to the top of the cirque and stopped at 11,050’, straight underneath the impressive east face of Wheeler Peak. The last part of the hike felt like some of the fourteeners I climbed in Colorado, just a massive pile of rocks to climb through but I was loving every minute of it.

**Climbing into the cirque below Wheeler Peak**

**Looking back from the top of the cirque. We came up from way down around the left corner.**

**Loving life in Great Basin National Park**

The next day as is usually the case, we were up before the sun and drove back up to the same trailhead. Starting out, this time at the first junction we turned right onto the Alpine Loop trail. We hiked through the woods and soon came to more open meadows where a family of wild turkeys hiked alongside us for a good third of a mile.

As we climbed into higher meadows we began to get tremendous views of Wheeler Peak. Just before reaching a high alpine lake called Stella Lake, we turned off to a connector trail that put us onto the Wheeler Peak Trail.

A separate trailhead close to the end of the road is the start of the Wheeler Peak Trail. This is the loftiest trail in the park, gaining almost three thousand feet over four and a half miles as it climbs to the 13,167’ summit of Nevada’s second highest peak. I had really hoped to attempt this hike while we were at Great Basin but with other things to do and knowing that Bridgit certainly would not want to go on that hike, I opted not to leave her for a full day commitment. Instead, our plan was to follow the Wheeler Peak Trail to the Wheeler Peak saddle at timberline. From there, if you go left the trail climbs up the rocky ridge all the way to the top of Wheeler Peak. Taking a right will lead you up a much more gentle slope to the top of 11,495’ Bald Mountain. As we hiked we decided that it would be shorter and not much harder to simply leave the trail and head up to the ridge leading up to Bald Mountain’s summit. Bridgit started struggling here with the altitude but slowly we made our way up to the ridge. From there it was hiking over rock talus another four hundred feet until we got to the top.

**Looking up the ridge leading to Bald Mountain**

By the time we reached the summit a cold wind was whipping at us. We took shelter behind a large rock cairn on the summit and ate our lunch. Weather was moving in that afternoon and we were seeing the beginning of the change.

**Wheeler Peak from the summit of Bald Mountain. The climbing route follows the right hand ridge all the way up.**

**Zoom of the trail zig-zagging before heading straight up the ridgeline**

We descended the same way we had come up and once we dropped off the ridge the wind subsided. Back on the Alpine Loop we turned right and in just a few yards we came to Stella Lake. Stella is one of only six lakes in the park.

We continued around the Alpine Loop Trail until we got to another lake called Theresa Lake. From Theresa Lake it is not too much farther to complete the Alpine Lake Loop and we were back at the Jeep.

We had been blessed with pretty amazing weather on this entire trip but rain was in the forecast for our last day in Great Basin. On our final day there I got up at five-forty five and saw an amazingly brilliant orange sunrise from our campsite. To the west clouds shrouded the peaks and it was supposed to rain all day although it wasn’t raining at sunrise. To kill the day we drove an hour into the town of Ely searching for a great breakfast but we found Ely to be very run down with many closed businesses. The only breakfast we could find was at the Prospector Casino and it was marginal at best. It didn’t matter. We were really just trying to find things to do to pass the time. On the way back we drove over Sacramento Pass and there is a great dispersed campground just over the pass. It’s a free campground but has developed sites with covered picnic tables, fire rings and bathrooms. It is only about twenty minutes from the park entrance so if we ever get back there we would probably stay at Sacramento Pass Recreation Area.

Once we got back it was only noon and it looked somewhat sunny to the south. The clouds had cleared off the peaks and they were all covered with a new coat of snow! Checking the website, it had snowed so much the night before that they closed the Scenic Drive road and the upper campground so we were thrilled we had gotten in everything up there we had set out to do before they shut it down. We ate lunch and then drove seven miles south to the Snake Creek Road which is a dirt road following Snake Creek into the park near the south end. It’s at a lower elevation so we weren’t as worried about running into snow. The dirt road entered the park at five miles and went along the creek for another eight miles to a trailhead at the end. The fall colors were really getting good down here although the aspens were still mostly green. This section of the park is known as the quiet part of Great Basin and doesn’t see a lot of visitors compared to the main paved Scenic Drive area. That said, we didn’t see very many people anywhere in the park so it was all very peaceful. Just before the end of the road was another trail called the Serviceberry Loop Trail. It was only a 3.2 mile loop with about 780’ of elevation gain. Bridgit knew I wanted to hike it so she offered to just hang in the Jeep if I wanted one last hike. I love my wife!

Well I wasn’t really prepared for a hike at all. I was in jeans, had no water, no hat but I did have a rain jacket since we expected rain. I figured based on the distance and elevation I could do this hike on an hour and a half so off I went. The trail started out fairly level and then began to climb up the side of a big hill. I began to get great views of meadows filled with aspens and snow covered Peak 11,775’ and 11,926’ Pyramid Peak towering above. Beautiful! As I climbed higher I entered some thick stands of weird trees with hairy looking leaves. I found out later these are Curl Leaf Mountain Mahogany and they were really interesting. Keeping an eye on the time, I was very pleased to reach the top and halfway point in forty-five minutes. Entering a thick grove of aspens, the trail then descended a different side and down a bunch of steep switchbacks. This section was really colorful with lots of yellow rabbitbrush mingling with all kinds of foliage in red, orange and purple. I only got rained on for about two minutes near the end of the hike and it stopped before I even got back to the Jeep.

It was a really nice hike and I was completely by myself until just before the end of the hike where I passed two women coming up in the other direction. I thought my direction of clockwise was a much better choice. So that was a great way to wrap up our stay in Great Basin. Five days is a lot for that park but if you are the exploring type, there is plenty to do and we left some things on the table if we ever get back there.

**Hiking through the Mountain Mahogany forest**

On departure day we woke up to rain through the sunshine and a nice rainbow over great basin. The high peaks had gotten even more snow so it was time for us to move on.

Summer/Fall 2023, Nine State Tour, 8.20.23 - 9.25.23, Part 8 of 9: Great Basin National Park

Summer/Fall 2023, Nine State Tour, 8.20.23 - 9.25.23, Part 7 of 9: Arches National Park

Summer/Fall 2023, Nine State Tour, 8.20.23 - 9.25.23, Part 9 of 9: The Final Chapter - Lake Tahoe