Day 4: Great Basin National Park

Stops:

Great Basin NP, NV

Richfield, UT

Before we came on this trip, I had a lot of people give me park recommendations and I was always surprised that each person had a different favorite.  Great Basin National Park is the favorite of my friend Zach and he couldn't speak more highly of it.  His praise was warranted.  Just driving into the park is an experience - that vastness I mentioned earlier?  In spades!  They don't call it The Loneliest Highway for nothing.  Just getting to the park is an adventure in itself.  

Then there's the inside of the park.  The plain around the park is flat and covered in shrubs and small dry-adapted plants, but as you move up the mountain, there are rivulets and streams tumbling over rocks and fallen logs and beautiful Bristlecone and Flowing Pines surrounding you bearing testimony to the force of wind pushing them into shapes suggestive of sculpted clay.  Then you'll look down at your feet and be reminded of the dry season when you see prickly cactus.  Much of this park is back country and I envy the rangers and backpackers that get to go deeper than we did as the roads cover very little of the park.  We pretty well drove them all, though and the views are spectacular.

As A may have mentioned, we drove all through the camping areas looking for a place to camp and that gave us a good tour of the park - through the wooded area covering many streams and then into the Grey Cliffs area which is just what it sounds like - the ranger who led our astronomy program is a geologist and requested to be at this park and all you have to do is look around to see why.  I don't have the knowledge to describe what we saw, but just laying around are beautiful stones - dazzling white, purple, striped in a variety of colors and the natural stone formations are unique in my experience.  It's worth driving down the Grey Cliffs roads even if you aren't camping down there.

Scenic Wheeler Drive takes you up to overlooks where you can see for miles across the Snake Valley portion of the Great Basin.  Eventually you reach about 9,800 feet elevation where three main hiking trails begin: the summit, bristlecone pine grove, rock glacier and alpine lakes loops are all popular.  

We decided to do the alpine lakes loop as we were advised that there was not too much snow there and that the views were spectacular.  We made friends with an older couple that were on the same schedule as us and decided to hike up to the bristlecone grove with them and then see if we had time to do the lake loop after.  So what one must understand is that I really haven't much experience as a hiker.  I've done a little hiking and until the last year or two, had decided I didn't really like it.  Really, what's not to like, it's walking in nature, but somehow I thought it was always hard and uncomfortable.  With enough water, snacks, breaks and good company, though, I've learned to like it.  Now, with trekking poles, I think I could learn to love it.  Wow, they are so helpful, and as you can see from the photos, we really needed them during this hike!  In addition to my dislike of hiking, I have very strong feelings about snow.  I grew up in Michigan and lake effect snow, snow dumped inside my jacket and snowballs are not fond memories for me.  So we did the bristlecone grove hike...through the snow.  Well, we said it would be an adventure!  

When we got to a certain point and were occasionally in knee deep or deeper snow, our friends peeled off to the lakes, but A and I just kept going.  There were places where the trail was obscured by snow, but we always located it.  Eventually the snow got the better of me and I decided to go no further.  We knew we were close to the glacier so Ankesh pushed on.  We had GPS showing him where he was on the trail and walkie-talkies to keep in touch, but I was still nervous while we were apart.  He made it to the glacier and enjoyed the views for a few minutes before coming back down to where I was comfortably catching my breath on some boulders watching the birds and listening to the breeze blow through the trees.  

We had bought tickets for the cave tour so after the hike, we just had time to change our soaking shoes and grab a sandwich before it was time for an underground walk.  Lehman caves have a long history with writings from the first peoples of the area (no extant tribe), "discovery" and commercialization by Lehman and probable conversion to a speakeasy during prohibition.  During the time of Lehman, the policy was, "if you break it, you can take it," so many small stalactites are broken off, but the cave is still spectacular as caves are.  Some of the fun formations we saw are cave shields (pictured here), bulbous stalactites (made when a bubble formed and calcite was laid around the bubble), cave bacon (created by streaking of iron, pictured here), popcorn, columns, drapery, cave straws and of course, stalactites and stalagmites.  It was a beautiful cave and we learned a little more about white-nose-fungus and it's effect on bats which has an 80-90% fatality rate in bat colonies.  As we'll be visiting many caves, we asked about decontamination procedures which basically involve bleaching the soles of your shoes and laundering your clothes.  They also recommended that A wipe down his camera with a Lysol wipe.  

Though we had planned to overnight at the park, after the cave tour, we decided to hit the road and get part of our drive to Capitol Reef out of the way, so it's more Hwy 50 for us.