Independence Day Means Hanging Out in the Woods

For Fourth of July Weekend, I headed up to Great Basin National Park. It was wayyyy too hot to do anything in Vegas, so a weekend in the alpine forest and higher altitudes sounded perfect!  Great Basin is a somewhat-small and very in-the-middle-of-nowhere park, about 5 hours north of Vegas.  So why drive all the way up there? Here's a list.

Reasons to Visit Great Basin National Park

1) Lehman Cave- limestone cave you can tour!

2) Alpine forest- pine, spruce, fir, and aspen make you want to never leave.

3) Not very busy- it's a bit of a drive, so not too many people make it. More park to play in!

4) The highest point in Nevada- You can drive almost to the top of Wheeler Peak. Hike the rest.

5) Beautiful Wildflowers!- They were poppin' this weekend.

Hiking Buddy and I started our Great Basin fun by taking a candle-lit tour of Lehman Cave. The other two people who had reserved the tour no-showed, making it a private tour for us! This---candle-lit and small group---is definitely the best way to tour it (although the normal way is cool, too).  

After the tour we headed to our camp site, which we had picked along Snake Creek Road. At 6,600 feet above sea level, it was cool, but not too cold. Our tent was staked feet from a swift running creek with plenty of small ripples and waterfalls. Shaded by cottonwoods, and far from other campers, it felt as if we were the only people along the road.  There are actually quite a few primitive campsites along the road. They are separated from each other by plenty of woods, brush, and space, which makes it quite a different experience from campground camping.

Because Great Basin is pretty far from everywhere, the night sky is devoid of light pollution.  The stars twinkled fiercely, and the milky way was really visible. Hiking Buddy and I gazed at the stars until time for sleep. It was a great way to end our first day at Great Basin!

The next day we hiked among the aspens, spruce, fir and pine for most of the day. We spent a long time taking pictures of wildflowers like these:

And these!:

That evening the clouds started rolling in as we prepped for dinner. It was fun to watch the rain over the high mountains in between us and the storm. We "battened down the hatches" of our tent with extra rope and crawled in as the rain started falling around us. Luckily, the wind was mild, and there was almost no rain! On Sunday, we hiked up Osceola Ditch, which was built in the late 1800s to provide water to a mining town miles away. It didn't work so well for water carrying, but it makes a great hiking trail now!

Morale of the story: Great Basin is a great place to visit!