Time to leave the Grand Canyon National Park; it was a wonderful five days. We left at 6:00 am and the first order of business was to dump our waste tanks and fill up our fresh water tank at the camper services station. While filling up with water, a group of two elk mothers and two calves came by to share in the water that was dripping from the pump. Once they started, they wouldn’t stop, preventing Bill from turning off the water which caused the RV tank to overflow onto the road. Eventually, a ranger came out to help chase them away by shaking a garbage bag at them. He said it works every time.
Next, an eight-hour drive to Great Basin National Park, Nevada. Because we were coming from the Grand Canyon, we took a route that is hardly traveled. We were driving through the Great Basin area, an area which is mostly centered in Utah and Nevada, but which reaches from the California Sierra Nevada to Utah’s Wasatch mountain range. It is a vast area of valleys and narrow mountain ranges; because its rivers do not have an outlet to the sea, water collects in shallow lakes and marshes and evaporates in the dry desert air.
During the drive we passed the beautiful Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam.
Our stay at Great Basin National Park was great. Upon arriving at the park, around 2:30 pm, we went straight to the visitors center to see if there was any availability in the campgrounds. Immediately, a bystander offered us their campsite as they were leaving early. (Sometimes, things are meant to be.) It was a beautiful site alongside some grey cliffs which was the campground’s name. We were there for one night; we took a short walk before dinner and enjoyed the splendid quiet. An additional bonus was the abundance of wildflowers all over, even the cacti were in bloom and their flowers only last about a day.
As we wanted to stay a second night, the ranger suggested we look for a new site first thing in the morning; we did and found one with no trouble. Since we have a National Park Seniors Pass card, the site was only $7.50; national parks are a good deal.
After securing the site, we went back to the visitors center and watched a film on the park. We find that, without exception, the national park films are informative and interesting and, because we cannot see or read nearly enough, we enjoy hearing and watching the background material.
We then went on a ranger-led tour of Lehman Caves. American Indians knew of it long before the rancher and miner Absalom Lehman explored it in 1885. A single cavern despite the name, Lehman Caves extends for 1/4 mile and goes 150+ feet below the surface. As you walk through the various rooms, there is an unworldly-looking display of stalactites, stalagmites, columns, draperies, flowstone, soda straws, and cave-popcorn, -turnips, and -bacon formations throughout. (We have said before that the National Park Service has a sense of humor when naming things.) The cave also hosts shields, a rarity, which are two roughly circular plates fastened like flattened shells, often with stalactites and draperies hanging from the lower plate. There is also a wedding room (seven weddings were performed there; not recently) and a lounge, among other “rooms.”
It was chilly in the cave, a steady 55 degrees. When the tour was over, the first thing we wanted was hot coffee.
After a brief lunch, we drove along a 12-mile winding road, the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, that rose in elevation from 6,800 feet to 10,000 feet (the summit of Wheeler Peak is 13,065 feet). We stopped at two overlooks, Mather (again Mather) and Wheeler Peak, and then drove up to a trailhead called Alpine Lakes.
From the trailhead, we took a two-mile walk to Stella Lake. The trail was stunning, and different. Early in the walk, we trudged through mud and snow (yes, still snow on the ground in July). We were told that this winter Great Basin received twice the amount of snow as is usual, and the crews – both park service employees and volunteers – are still clearing some of the trails. As we got higher, and the trail was more open to the sun, it became drier. Stella Lake, below a snow-topped mountain with snow drifts on some of its edges, was the reward.
We are writing this blog entry at our campsite, in the middle of the woods in Baker Creek Campground. It is totally quiet, except for the sounds of birds and running water of a stream close by.
Tomorrow we start on a two-day drive to Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.