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Great Basin - Nevada
Descriptive:
Rising a mile above the desert floor, the glacier-carved peaks of Great Basin National Park comprise much of the Snake Range mountains. The Park is almost 80,000 acres out of a geologic region which goes by the same name, the Great Basin, and stretches from the Wasatch mountain in Utah, to the Sierra Nevadas in California, reaching into parts of Idaho and Oregon. A group of many enclosed basins and ranges with no drainage to the sea comprise the Great Basin. This is part of even larger region known as the Basin and Range province, which is an endless undulation of alternating basins and range.
The legendary Bristlecone pine inhabits the Park, and are believed to have lived for 3,000 years. One Bristlecone pine was determined to be the world's oldest living thing, clocking in at 5,000 years old; unfortunately, this tree was cut down in order to determine an accurate age reading before the land became a National Park. It is fascinating to note that the longest living of the Bristlecone pines grow near the tree line, where weather conditions are more extreme. The Bristlecone pine also grows at lower elevations, where the weather is less adverse; however, these seem to die at 300 to 400 years of age. These trees are mythical-looking, with gnarled, twisting branches, like living driftwood.
Geography/terrain:
The Snake Range is a mountain range which sits like an island in the middle of a vast desert. From the 13,000 feet peak of Wheeler summit, vast panoramas across the desert range spread out toward the flat line of the distant horizon.
Vegetation:
Bristlecone pine
Sagebrush
Ponderosa pine
Limber pine
Douglas fir
White fir
Engelmann spruce
Utah juniper
Wildlife:
Mountain lions
Bobcat
Marmot
Mountain sheep
Shrew
Ermine
Skunk
Rabbit
Pronghorn antelope
Coyote
Fox
Key locations:
Peak overlook gives spectacular views of Wheeler Peak and Jeff Davis Peak, with a glacier, the only one of its kind in the Great Basin, about 1,800 feet below the summit of Wheeler Peak.
Bristlecone Pine-Glacier Trail provides close access to these ancient trees, along with the southernmost glacier in the country. Along the way, enjoy Wheeler Cirque, a valley enclosed by sheer cliffs.
Lehman caves is not to be missed. Although not a very large cave, the extent of the formations here are impressive, with a great hall draped in stalactites so it looks like an old calliope in the Gothic Palace. Lake Room, Cypress Swamp and the Grand Palace all offer stunning formations of flowstone. A narrow passageway takes one further into the Talus Room, before beginning the return trip in a parallel passageway. A ribbed fanlike formation, called cave shields, occurs at Lehman caves, and is extremely rare in other caves in the U.S..
Osceola Ditch is a manmade addition to the Park. Dug in the 1880s, the ditch channeled water for hydraulic mining -- this was, after all, gold country. Despite the effort put into building this ditch, a number of problems, including legal hassles of water rights, the ditch never delivered the return it was intended to.
The Park has two lakes, Stella Lake and Teresa Lake, which are both idyllic settings couched in glacial hollows.
Activities:
Backcountry hiking
Spelunking
Fishing
Mountain climbing
Trails:
Alpine Lakes Loop Trail
Baker Creek Trail
Big Wash Trail
Bristlecone Pine-Glacier Trail
Johnson Lake Trail
Lehman Creek Trail
Lexington Arch Trail
Wheeler Peak Summit Trail
