National Park Tour Day 2 Great Basin 08/15/2015 Photo Album

Great Basin National Park is one of the least visited parks in the United States. Evidently other U.S. citizens do not relish traveling across the expansive Great Basin in Utah and Nevada to reach this gem near the eastern edge of Nevada. Jane and I are typically contrarians, and our enjoyment of Great Basin reinforces that label.

After a continental breakfast at the La Quinta, we got off to an early start and back tracked for 65 miles to the eastern entrance to Great Basin at a small town called Baker. We stopped at the visitor center outside of Baker to get an overview of our destination, and then we proceeded from Baker to the Lehman Cave Visitor Center. The Lehman Cave tour is one of the main attractions, so we hoped to confirm a tour reservation. A man behind the counter quickly informed us that the only open spots were in the 3 and 4PM tours, so we signed up for 4PM and departed. A cave tour at 4PM as air temperatures peaked would be a welcome relief.

Interesting Sign Near Our Campground

Our next concern was a campsite. We were arriving on Saturday, the middle of the weekend. The Great Basin campgrounds do not offer a reservation system, so we banked on the remoteness of the park yielding available campsites. The young man at the Lehman visitor center suggested that we check out Baker Creek Campground first, as it is on a gravel road and not along the paved thoroughfare that leads to most of the park attractions. We followed his advice and drove approximately five miles to the Baker Creek Campground where we found 50% of the sites unoccupied. We cruised all the loops and chose a nice site on the eastern most circle. The picnic table was surrounded by pinon pine and juniper trees, and a nice hard gravel area was ideal for tent placement.

Our Perfect Campsite at Baker Creek

After paying our fee for one night, we climbed back in the car to explore as much of the park as we could before honoring our cave tour reservation. We drove to the main paved road and began a slow twisting westward ascent which eventually deposited us at a small parking lot below Wheeler Peak. Along the way we stopped at several overlooks to enjoy the spectacular vistas before us. The parking lot that served the trail heads for the lakes trail, rock glacier and the bristlecone pine grove was full, but we spotted a young couple returning to their car and asked if they were leaving. They replied that yes, indeed they were vacating their spot, so we quickly snagged it and prepared to hike.

Onward

The trail to the bristlecone pine grove was 1.4 miles one way, and Jane and I managed to make the climb in 45 minutes. Since we live in the mile high city, the elevation did not bother us, and the air temperatures at this high altitude portion of the park were a pleasant 67 degrees. When we reached the pine grove, a park ranger informed us that he was making a presentation at 1PM, so we hurried our pace and continued on the trail to the rock glacier area. This scene was a wide valley completely filled with a jumble of large boulders and largely devoid of any vegetation. We read the plaque and then hustled back down the trail to the grove of trees where the park ranger had already begun his presentation.

Our Endpoint

We learned quite a bit about bristlecone pines. They are the oldest living organisms on earth, and a research scientist mistakenly cut one down that was 5,000 years old. Killing the oldest known living thing on earth did not make him very popular, but it allowed a laborious ring count that yielded the age of the tree. The name stems from the cone, as it has tiny spikes on each small scale that emanates from the stem of the cone. The longevity of the bristlecone pine is attributed to three factors: a sturdy constitution that allows it to withstand very adverse conditions, living in a location that is too harsh for most organisms, and helpful neighbors that assist in the dispersion of seeds.

A Bristlecone

Jane in Front of a Live Bristlecone

After the informative ranger talk, Jane and I circled the grove and snapped some photographs of the gnarly old specimen, and then we retreated back down the mountain to the parking lot. As we drove from the parking lot toward the visitor center, we stopped and completed a short hike to the Osceola Ditch. I was perplexed over why a ditch merited a hiking trail, but when we reached the overgrown trench, we read the information plaque which provided the answer. Apparently gold was discovered in the next valley north of the park that was called Spring Valley, but the area was too dry and required water. The early miners built a long ditch that transported water from Lehman Creek to Spring Valley, but unfortunately after a lot of labor and cost, the mine played out, and investors were left with a large write off.

Dave in the Osceola Ditch

Our next stop was our campsite, where we used our extra hour to assemble our tent, and then we returned to the Lehman Cave visitor center where we completed a short hiking loop. At 4PM our tour guide appeared, and we pulled on our jackets and completed the Lehman Cave tour with eighteen other tourists. The tour guide was excellent, as he provided us with much information about caves, formations, entrances and history.

Lehman Cave

We returned to our campground for a quick dinner, and then we once again traveled to the visitor center for a ranger talk on the stars. Great Basin is so remote that it offers one of the best environments in the United States for star gazing. The ranger stressed that no white lights were allowed, and then he presented a brief slide show while we waited for the skies to darken. Sure enough, once there was an absence of light in the night sky, a dense mass of stars, galaxies and planets appeared above us. The ranger directed our attention to the northern sky and predicted that the international space station would appear at 9:10. Sure enough a bright object that moved faster than any other celestial bodies appeared and sped half way across the sky before disappearing.

One of the most impressive aspects of the presentation was the laser that the ranger held in his possession. This instrument could project light in a narrow beam 60 miles into space, and he demonstrated its usefulness by pinpointing Saturn and various stars in the night sky. While the presentation was being delivered, some younger rangers set up telescopes on the left side of the visitor center parking lot. The lead ranger invited us all to line up in two queues behind the telescopes, and we were free to use the telescope to view Saturn. Jane and I each had a look, but the line was so long, that we decided to not return to the end in order to view the next celestial body.

Instead we slowly walked to our car without the aid of light, and then I backed out of our parking space and crept to the exit without lights. We did not want to shine white light on the area where the telescopes were set up. Once I turned and drove away from the visitor center, I turned on the lights. We saw a lot on Saturday at Great Basin, but the night presentation was clearly the most impressive. Why Great Basin is one of the least visited parks remains a mystery to us.