Wilderness Wandering

Park #9

October 7 and 8

We drove across southwestern Utah and entered Nevada on Hwy 50. Highway 50 is said to be the loneliest stretch of highway in the lower 48. 

We weren’t that lonely, but it certainly is dry and fairly mountainous! There were stretches of 80 miles with no services!

We made it to Baker, Nevada around noon, but we switched to Pacific time and gained an hour. 

GBNP is another national park with 2 facets, 1 far above ground and the other far below. 

The 2 big assets are Wheeler’s Peak and Lehman Cave. This is also the site of the only glacier in Nevada. The name Great Basin comes from the fact that all the rivers for a gigantic area around here do not drain to an ocean. They drain to this basin and stay in the area. 

Great Basin has 4 campgrounds. This is late in their season, so 2 were closed. The two that are open are FCFS. We came to Baker first, and traveled 3 miles down a washboard gravel road to the campground. There were 4 decent sites open, so we chose one and made lunch.

After lunch, we went back into Baker. We need bananas, ice and gas. We were able to get two of the three items. No bananas. LOL!

GBNP also has 2 visitor centers, one in the town of Baker (population <100) and one at Lehman Cave.

The big item of interest at the Baker VC is the cross section of Methuselah, a bristle cone pine that was probably the oldest tree on earth that sadly was cut down in GBNP.

We visited the Baker VC and then drove the scenic drive through 4 climates zones from desert at the entrance of the park to mountain (at 11,000 feet) near Wheeler Peak. The drive is a beauty. Our timing was perfect for the peak of the aspen leaves turning. We returned to the campsite for a quiet evening next to the campfire.

We were up pretty early. A lovely sunrise and a visit from a mule deer started the day. We packed up our site, vowing not to subject Calypso to the poor gravel road again. We stopped at the other open campground on our way up the mountain and a nice couple was leaving that day and allowed us to put our payment receipt on the post and set up a camp chair so we could stay there tonight.

We continued up the mountain to do a hike of 5 miles on the Bristle Cone and Glacier trails. It was a great hike! The Bristle Cone Pines are amazingly tenacious! They endure extremely harsh conditions and live up to 5000 years. Their trunks are all twisted and most of the tree can die, yet a small part can live on for 1000s more years. They are found in small parts of 5 US states. After passing through the bristle cone grove, you continue into the alpine zone and end up near the glacier. The trails were pretty quiet on our way out, and got a little more crowded on our way back.

We had a quick sandwich at the trailhead and headed back down the mountain to the Lehman Cave VC. We had a 1:00 reservation for the Lehman Cave tour. About 20 people can tour at one time, so they sell out quickly. This cave is one of the few in the US where the bats do not have White Nose Syndrome and they want to keep it that way, so you have to answer a few questions on if you’ve been to any other caves the past 10 years and if you have, you have to disinfect your shoes.

You enter the cave through a tunnel. The ranger leads you through the different rooms turning on dim lights as you enter. I haven’t been on any other cave tours, so i don’t have any point of comparison, but the cave was very interesting. We learned a lot about the different types of formations – the usual stalagmites and stalactites, as well as shields, straws, bacon, popcorn and turnips.

Before the cave was protected by the NPS, it was run privately by an entrepreneurial couple. They used to hold concerts and dances in the cave and did damage structures to make rooms more accessible. We were happy to return to the sunshine after the tour.

We got our passport stamped and watched the well done movie about the park. Then back to enjoy our new campsite for the night. It was a delightful site with a beautiful babbling brook at the rear. I loved listening to it. 

On Monday before we left town, we had breakfast at pretty much the only restaurant in town, Sugar, Salt and Malt. They had a wonderful breakfast sandwich! We charged the battery a little and filled up on ice. 

We decided to do 1 more hike before we left. Kind of a bad decision. The ranger had recommended The Serviceberry Loop as a beautiful 3 mile hike. But it was down a very rough 13 mile stretch of gravel road. We almost turned back several times.

We made it to the trailhead and the hike was lovely. A fair amount of elevation gain meandering through beauty aspen groves. Glad we did it, but it probably wasn’t worth the time invested and the wear on the van.

Now we are on to Zion!