Great Basin National Park

 For a couple years now, a remote lesser known and visited National Park, in Nevada, called Great Basin, has been on my radar to visit.  Everything for this trip finally worked out, and it helped that we live in Twin Falls now, so it was only a 5 hour drive.  The name of the park is derived from the greater geographical area called The Great Basin.  It encompasses vast swaths of Utah and Nevada where all the precipitation that falls remains in the area.  No rivers or streams carry it to the ocean.  The area is also categorized by numerous basins and high mountain ranges.  Great Basin National Park protects a slice of this basin and range landscape, and all the different elevations in between.  It ranges from 6,000 feet in elevation at the valley floor to over 13,000 feet at the summit of Wheeler Peak.  The park started out as Lehman Caves National Monument, but was later expanded to a National Park in 1986.

We rolled into Great Basin late morning and were thankfully able to grab a campsite at Baker Creek Campground.  This campground is off from the main park area and is a lot more secluded and quite, with beautiful views.

We checked out the two different visitor centers in the park, and then took the kids on a short nature trail that is located above Lehman Caves.  It was neat to see the prickly pear cactus in bloom (which was a new site to me).

 That evening the kids got to have their first ever campfire and Addie got to enjoy fresh s'mores.  

In the morning we hit the ground running after breakfast.  We decided to drive the scenic Wheeler Peak Drive.  Due to more snow this past winter, the Wheeler Peak Campground, Bristlecone loop trail, and Alpine Lakes Loop trails were all still closed.  That was a bummer since those were high on my priority list, but we decided to just take the kids up and enjoy the views, have a picnic lunch, and build snow men with the kids.

The scenic drive ends at around 10,000 feet and the Alpine Lakes and Bristlecone Pines sit in a basin below the peak.  There are numerous places to explore when the snow isn't an issue including hiking to Nevada's only glacier (Rock Glacier) and a hike all the way to the top of Wheeler Peak (13,063 feet).

In the afternoon we headed back down to Lehman Cave to kill time before our cave tour.  By this point, we had learned that the kids favorite part of the entire park was the fake layout of a cave inside the Lehman Cave Visitor Center, and taking flashlights to explore it.

We were prepared to bail on the cave tour if the kids didn't cooperate, but thankfully we were able to make it through.  We learned a little about the geology (of course with a false evolutionary perspective) and history of the cave.  It began getting explored by Absalom Lehman, a local ranger and former miner, starting in 1885.  He began to learn the passages and its incredible beauty became more known and in 1922 the cave was protected as a National Monument.

A lot of the rest of our trip revolved around trying to keep a 3 year old and 1 year old entertained.  Being that Great Basin is a smaller and more remote park there aren't many amenities that might appeal to little kids.  We took lots of walks, went to the Lehman Cave Visitor Center a lot, ate lots of ice cream at a small cafe, and just enjoyed the perfect temperatures and weather.  One final point of interest was on our last full day.  We did a short hike with the kids along the Osceola Ditch.

In 1872 gold was discovered just to the west of what would become Great Basin.  As mining claims increased it was realized that they could not be operate profitably with the mining techniques currently in place.  By 1882 a small town named Osceola sprung up.  The idea of placer mining was then looked into in order to try and extract more wealth from the land, and from 1884-1885 a 16 mile ditch was constructed to bring water from the Eastern side of Great Basin.  It ultimately was a colossal failure in the long run due to the limited amount of water in the arid desert.  Today you can hike some of the length of this ditch and see remnants of the timbers that once carried water 16 miles across a mountain range.  It is pretty incredible to see.

All in all, it was a great first visit to Great Basin National Park.  We for sure have to return someday so that we can hike to the 5,000 year old Bristlecone Pine Tree grove, and see some of the alpine lakes beneath the summit of Wheeler Peak.  The remoteness naturally thins out the crowds in this beautiful park that has elements that all the Big parks like Glacier, Yosemite, and Badlands posses.  For this reason Great Basin easily lands in my Top 5 favorite National Parks that I have visited so far.  I'd take this quiet slice of Nevada over Glacier and Yellowstone any day.  Until our next adventure (which happens to be a week long trip in August)...