Master Plan Adventures: Great Basin National Park

Greetings!

With our last post, we were leaving the Tetons and heading south to Utah. Our next destination was Great Basin National Park - one of the least visited park in the country. It is a spectacular park for its natural beauty and diversity of offerings (more on that below) and it was very refreshing to not fight the crowds. One of the main reasons it is least visited because it really is in the middle of nowhere and a decent distance from any airport, but it was so worth the trek for us - we loved it.

On our way to Great Basin, we stopped for the night at another fabulous Harvest Host destination called The Partridge Family Farm (and no . . . Keith wasn't there - LOL). It was a peaceful and beautiful setting in Spanish Fork, Utah, just south of Salt Lake City. Before we got to the farm, however, we had to stop at the country's largest Costco - 235,000 square feet - WOW!

When we got to the farm, we parked next to another Airstream (and funny enough - we saw them on the highway earlier that afternoon) and became fast friends with Drew and Debbie from Washington state. We walked around the farm - cattle, horses, and bee hives and lots of hay! It was a lovely evening and we enjoyed a nightcap after between our rigs sharing our stories of our adventures. We love being part of the Airstream community for this very reason!

The setting was stunning and Paul captured yet another amazing video of the overnight sky including a fabulous moon rise. Note that the Airstream in the video is not ours - but Drew and Debbie's.

The next morning, we headed southwest to Great Basin National Park and it was a beautiful ride along vast fields of not much . . . but stunning nonetheless. As we got closer, the mountains of Great Basin came into view.

We arrived about 3 hours later and settled into our campsite. We stayed at Baker Creek Campground inside the national park and our site was awesome - very picturesque and private. We dry camped this week - meaning - no connections to power, water or sewer. The conditions could not have been more perfect - the weather was glorious and not too warm so we did not need the air conditioning. However, the sun was strong fueling our solar panels each day. Such a peaceful and beautiful site. Here are some pics to include a few turkeys visiting our area as well as a hummingbird moth. We were super active during the day (more on that below) and the campsite was a peaceful place to put the feet up and relax after our explorations.

The last photo is of the valley that we drove across to get to the park, taken close to our campsite.

After getting settled in, we headed to the Visitor Center and enjoyed meeting the rangers as well as a small hike around the area. They also had a really nice lunch cafe spot there, which surprised us, given the low key and remote nature of this park.

Our first overnight, Paul captured another amazing night sky. All of these videos are so incredible, but this one is by far my favorite - enjoy!

The next morning we got up early and got tickets for the Lehman Caves tour. This is a "must do" in this park - it is one of the oldest caves on earth and has a great history (click here for more info). What started off as a big tourist attraction in the early 1900's became protected by the National park service - thank goodness! The only way you can go into the caves is via a ranger-led tour and it was super interesting and beautiful. You do head way down into the earth to explore and it's VERY cool (temperature-wise too!). As part of the tour, they turn off all the lights (just briefly) and wow - it was SO DARK. They checked with everyone first and I'm glad all were in agreement because it made you really appreciate those who first visited the caves with nothing but a wax candle and a few matches.

After the cave tour, we headed up the main road of the park to hike its most popular trail - the Bristlecone Pines trail - and it was fantastic. The weather was lovely and we were at about 10,000 feet elevation at the start of the trail and we felt it going up the hills! Bristlecone Pines are the oldest living things on earth - some we saw were over 3,000 years old and they only live at an elevation of 10,500 feet or higher. With the views of the great basin, the glacier and mountains in the background, there were beautiful views and vistas throughout. You can learn more about these amazing trees here. This is also home to the only glacier in Nevada and the most southern in the United States.

The next day we hiked the Alpine Lakes Trail, which is very close to the Bristlecone Pines trail - more beautiful vistas including the start of the fall foliage.

Another thing that Great Basin is known for are its incredible dark skies and stargazing (which Paul captured so incredibly above). One evening, we went to a ranger-led program that offered a few presentations in an outdoor amphitheater as the skies darken. It's very cool as they only use red light so it doesn't interfere with your night vision. And then after the presentations, you look at the beautiful skies and they point out constellations - the milky way was in its full glory. They also have two telescopes set up so you could see a few things up close - including Saturn. It was a wonderful evening.

On our final day, we hiked the Osceola Ditch. This was built in the late 1800's to provide water for gold mining operations, but ended up being a failure and money-loser. More info can be found here. It's a great story and it was a lovely hike - much flatter than the previous two with great views of the valley below and some interesting vegetation.

The next morning, we left the beauty and solitude of Great Basin National park and headed to southern Utah. It was a beautiful ride! We loved our campsite in Great Basin so much; we drove over 3 miles of dirt road each way to get to it, therefore got a lot of dust on the truck and the Airstream. Paul found a random self-service car wash in Milford, Utah - the halfway point of our 3-hour drive and we were able to give both the truck and the rig a good rinse! When we arrived in Utah, I cleaned the inside of the rig top to bottom as everything had a thin layer of dust on it! But totally worth it! After all, we are camping!