NV -- Baker and Great Basin National Park, 5-10 Apr 2017

Just five days in Baker and Great Basin National Park NV…

Why we came…

To explore Great Basin National Park!

Nearing Great Basin National park

The campground…

The Whispering Elms Motel and Campground in Baker is an older campground. It looks tired due to age. The bathroom shower house was not open during our stay due to maintenance issues.

The dozen or so sites are long, a bit unlevel, gravel pull-thrus with full hookups. They also have picnic tables and fire grills. There are large mature elm trees so satellite reception is tricky but we were able to get a good signal. The elms were flowering and their flowers are a faint lime-green color.

The wi-fi signal was intermittent. We had a good 3G Verizon signal which was surprising given how remote the area is.

We know that the manager, Chuck, is trying to make improvements as the motel and bath house look like they have fresh coats of paint. Only a few of the washers and dryers are operative but it was only $2.50 per load.

It is not easy to keep an older facility up. Chuck told us that during the winter he had lost one tree and a gazebo due to high winds.

   

We were comfortable at Whispering Elms Campground (Note the roof in the picture on the left.)

On our third day there, a fair sized dust devil twisted up the street and grabbed the roof off of their office/restaurant/bar building. It made quite the racket! Then the 40 mph wind continued to pummel the building and removed more roofing material.

Chuck and a few other helpers gathered metal roof pieces strewn near and far, stacked and anchored them. They finally nailed a fresh layer of plywood to protect from rain that was expected that night.

A strong dust devil did a number on the roof.  Thankfully it missed our trailer!

Nearby towns…

The gateway to the park is Baker NV, population 68 and elevation 5,315 feet.  It’s sleepy and quiet, just what we like!  Baker was settled first by miners and then by ranchers and farmers who came to squeeze a living out of the Snake Valley’s harsh environment.

We walked from one end of Baker, near the National Park Visitor center, to the other end, where the town’s gas station is just a few self-serve pumps and a soda machine. It was only a half mile walk.

The single, very small convenience store is open just four days a week for only two hours in the late afternoon. However, the tiny town appears to have three bars.

The sparsely populated county school system is divided between three towns. Baker hosts 3^rd grade through 6^th grade.

The area is scenic as it sits under the shadow of Wheeler Peak. The Lehman Caves Visitor center is only a quick six miles away.

Baker NV viewed from roughly three miles up the Wheeler  Peak road

The nearest decent sized town is Ely NV, population 4,255 and elevation 6,437 feet, 62 miles to the northwest.  The closest Walmart is a 170 miles away in Payson, Utah. 

Bring groceries and other supplies with you. Baker and Great Basin National Park are remote!

Adventures…

   

Posing at the Park entrance  /  Arleen got her National Park stamp

The Great Basin stretches across Nevada from the Wasatch Mountains in Utah to the Sierra Nevada’s in California. Punctuated across this high desert area are several isolated mountain ranges like stripes on a tiger.

Nevada is the most mountainous state in the US. It has more than 300 named mountain ranges. Four of the five highest peaks are in the Snake Range and Great Basin National Park.  The Park is known for 13,063 foot Wheeler Peak, ancient bristlecone pine groves, star gazing under dark skies, and the Lehman Caves.

This is our first visit to Great Basin National Park.  From the Park’s web page:

“From the 13,000-foot summit of Wheeler Peak, to the sage-covered foothills, Great Basin National Park is a place to sample the stunning diversity of the larger Great Basin region. Come and partake of the solitude of the wilderness, walk among ancient bristlecone pines, bask in the darkest of night skies, and explore mysterious subterranean passages. There's a whole lot more than just desert here!”

It’s our kind of place!

On 6 April we hiked to Mather Overlook…

We had all the ingredients for a special experience. First of all, it was shoulder season.

Next, Great Basin National Park is a desert island with only ninety thousand visitors per year. That is only 3% of the three million visitors who flood Zion each year.

Finally, the Wheeler Peak Road was closed beyond the Upper Lehman campground due to snow. We parked near the gate and assessed the situation.

The plan had been to snowshoe up the road but we saw only a few patches of snow higher on the north oriented slopes. We knew as we climbed in elevation and around to the north side, the road could be knee deep in snow.

We took a chance and left the snowshoes behind. We set off with a goal of making it to Mather Overlook, 4.5 miles away and 1,600 feet higher.

The road immediately pitched up. It was a steady 6% to 8% grade most of the route. It was a perfect workout!

The road was dry for almost two and half miles till we approached the Osceola Ditch. The Ditch was an eighteen mile aqueduct that was built in 1889 to bring water in to make large scale gold mining possible in the Dry Gulch area. It was abandoned in 1901 and only remnants can be seen today along the Osceola Ditch Trail.

Snow now covered the road. As we crunched through the snow, we heard rustling and chirps in the woods below us. We looked closer and saw several turkeys. Soon they scampered across the road right in front of us. We estimated that there were 50-60 birds.

The snow was spotty the rest of the way up the road and only a foot deep in the worst spots. We were able to navigate without a problem.

Less than a mile from the pass, we heard the gurgling of several tom turkeys. We froze in place. They stopped 20 feet away from us.

We were amazed to see the birds lower and raise their heads in unison and do a well-chorused gobble. The choir of turkeys did this several times. Another group of turkeys further down the hill responded. We felt so special to witness this so close!

At the pass, we saw a few isolated bristlecone pines. There are several groves in Great Basin but they are up at 10,000 feet near Wheeler Peak. We would not make it that far.

We finally made it to Mather Overlook. The wind assaulted us as it whipped around Wheeler and Jeff Davis Peaks.  We watched clouds of snow swirl around the peaks.

We paused long enough to grab pictures of the incredible scenery and have a quick snack. We also took the time to thank Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, for “defining and establishing policies under which its areas shall be developed and conserved unimpaired for future generations”.

It was a special experience as we never saw anyone else all day. It was as if we had an entire National Park all to ourselves. It was just the two of us… and many turkeys.

   

Hike route to Mather Overlook  /  Stephen Mather memorial, one of our heroes

   

Snow on the road at 8,000 feet.  Notch Mountain is almost 50 miles away!  /  Lots of snow at 9,000 feet

   

We saw 50-60 turkeys  /  Turkey tracks

Jeff Davis Peak, 12,771 feet, in the center.  Wheeler Peak, 13,063 feet, further back on the right.

We love walking or cycling on closed roads!  We are 3,000 feet above the valley.

On 7 April we toured the Baker Archeological Site and the Lehman Caves Visitor Center…

The Baker Village site is only a mile out of Baker. We learned that it was excavated from 1991 to 1994.

We were disappointed to find out once they were done, they backfilled it to preserve it for future generations. All that is left now is impressions of the buildings in the flat semi-arid soil.

The Fremont natives lived in the area 700 years ago. Ariel photos of the site in 1994 show a complex village with a big house and several smaller houses.

Archeologists gleaned some important facts from this excavation. This quote from the walking tour pamphlet cracked us up: The Fremont “were treated as the ‘hicks’ of southwest archeology. More recent work, including the Baker Village excavations, has shown that the Fremont were probably every bit as complex as their ‘flashy’ neighbors, the Anasazi.”

The Baker Archeological Site uncovered a Fremont Indian village occupied roughly 1220 to 1295

       

Click the pictures of ancient Baker Village to see better detail

Our timing was good to tour the Lehman Cave Visitor Center…it was nearly empty.  We learned quite a bit. 

At this time of year, there are four cave tours each day.  Each person that asked about a cave tour was told that they were all full.  Make reservations well in advance!

The story and pictures of the old Winchester rifle were very interesting.  In November 2014, archeologists found the 135 year old weapon leaning against a tree in the Park.   Very little is known about its history, but the intriguing story caught the nation’s attention and went viral. 

Like we do in every national park, we watched the introductory film.  We learned about the area’s history, geology, flora, and fauna.  We appreciated the section about the ancient bristlecone pines the most.  Uncharacteristically, we had the little theater all to ourselves.  It was nice to watch the informative movie with no distractions!

            

The visitor center flag flies high over the Snake Valley  /  The bat entrance to Lehman Cave  /  This 135 year old Winchester rifle was found leaning against a tree in November 2014

On 8 and 9 April we hiked the road for exercise…

We so enjoyed the aerobic workout, we went back two more times to walk the two miles to the Osceola Ditch marker. Both times there was fresh snow with new animal tracks. It was peaceful walking the empty road in the empty Park and we felt like birds flying 3,000 feet above the Snake Valley floor.

   

We had this closed road to ourselves and walked it two days in a row for exercise

On 9 April we toured Lehman Caves…

The caves were found in the 1870s by Absolom S. Lehman, a rancher.

“It is said that the native people warned Lehman and others that a little man with a blue beard would bring dire consequences to anyone who entered this sacred cave of the dead. The entrance to the cave had been used as a burial site

However, the discovery caused a great sensation, and soon people were coming from all over the state to climb the wooden ladder down into the cavern where they toured using only candles for illumination. They broke off formations as souvenirs and for profit and often inscribed their names and the date on the walls and ceiling.

Soon, Lehman was charging $1 for adults and 50-cents for children 12 and over to tour the caves.

Lehman died in 1891 and subsequently his ranch at Lehman Caves was sold to Charles W. Rowland. Mrs. Rowland guided visitors in the cave until the early 1900s.

In 1922 President Warren G. Harding issued presidential proclamation establishing Lehman Caves National Monument. On October 27, 1986 President Ronald Reagan signed the Great Basin National Park Act creating a 76,000-acre park that included what was the Lehman Caves National Monument.

Lehman Caves is one of the most richly decorated limestone caves in the United States. Underground streams carved the caves over millions of years. The water dissolved the natural limestone rock and the liquefied calcium carbonate slowly precipitated into forms such as stalactites, stalagmites, helectites, shields, and many other unusual formations.

Small creatures have recently been found in the cave that haven’t been observed anywhere else on the planet.”

We took the Grand Palace Tour and saw Gothic Palace, the Music Room, the Lodge Room, Inscription Room, and the Grand Palace. We were most impressed with the Shield formations that we had not seen in any other caves.

       

The cave tour route  /  Me and Ranger Becca  /  About to enter the cave

        

Lots of interesting formations in Lehman Cave

            

We liked Lehman Cave!

Next…

Our next stops are Elko NV, Reno NV, Lassen Volcanic National Park CA, and Crater Lake National Park OR.  Then we’ll spend the summer in eastern Oregon and central Idaho.  The adventure continues!

Parting shots…

   

“Post Impression” art on fence posts  /  Old car back-dropped by the Snake Mountain Range

The ranching exhibit near Baker NV

   

Now that’s an adventure!  /  IS THAT SASQUATCH?!?

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