I’d never heard of Great Basin National Park until I saw it on our atlas.
The lesser-known parks still feel like hidden gems, as despite their mighty designation, they often get far less foot traffic. Which doesn’t mean they are not worthy of it, but DOES mean you can find more solitude– by contrast, in the most crowded of the national parks, it can sometimes feel like Nature Disneyland.
Great Basin doesn’t look like much from a distance– like a typical mountain you might spot from the roadway when driving by, but it’s much more unique than it seems. Its green-but-arid ecosystem at 10,000+ feet is a strange compatriot to the dusty, flat, desolate tumbleweeds at 0 feet that line the bottom of the valley. The park rises out of seemingly nothing.
The biggest draw to Great Basin are the Bristlecone Pine Trees– trees that are often thousands of years old– with some as old as 4,800 years. They grow so slowly, that in some difficult years, they may not even produce a viable ring for measurement. So unlike for other trees, rangers can only estimate their age– often underestimating to be on the safe side of science.
Bristlecone Pines appear in other altitudes within the park, but grow stark straight and narrow when under 10,000 feet, making them practically indistinguishable from other pines. But in alpine environments, they adapt– twisting as they grow, contorting themselves into some wild arrangements to survive the blowing wind, snow, and lack of rain.
One of the biggest surprises of these elderly trees was the way they felt to the touch– they were as hard as stone. The rangers mentioned their slow growth makes the wood exceptionally hard, and these trees also contain resin, which was very clear when running a hand over their trunks: they felt impossibly solid. Not at all like wood, but like poured concrete.
Impervious to anything in the harsh conditions, these trees have a very distinct purple pine cone (with bristles). We extended our hike upwards in altitude, heading towards a glacier.
Except, that glacier was pretty much melted.
The mighty glacier was reduced to the size of a child’s swimming pool. Seeing this really upset Moon, who worries a great deal– as we all do, about the climate changing. We had been trudging along a rocky path that had clearly been occupied by the glacier in year’s past, so we knew it had been shrinking– but were not prepared to see a glacier that was merely a small pile of snow.
The wind on this hike at the crest of Wheeler Peak was intense due to the altitude, but there were still small purple and white wildflowers peeking through the rocks, purposely crouching, not growing upward and losing wind protection.
We capped our visit to Great Basin by touring the Lehman Cave system– which had more known human history than was known about the cave’s natural history. Like almost all of our national parks and monuments, the first people who utilized these were native folks, and then inevitably, once colonizers arrived, they set out to profit from the natural beauty of the space.
This is a through line one hears again and again when visiting these nationally-significant places– the degradation or destruction of resources for profiteering was so common that every park from Grand Canyon to Niagara Falls to Great Basin has a similar story.
The Lehman Caves were impressive, but very broken– almost every visitor before the 1980s broke off a stalagmite to take home as a souvenir–nearly all the significant caverns have clear signs of damage. While the caves were pristine for about 500 million years, it only took about 50-60 years for humans to trash the place, using it as a saloon-speakeasy during Prohibition, a hall for local high school dances, and even a wedding chapel.
Also, before the park service began its focus on preservation, it also sometimes altered environments to make them more visitor-friendly. Thus, an asphalt-paved floor lines most of the caves, and even the original entrance to the cave was bypassed with easily-accessed concrete tunnels.
This– plus the bright lights the national parks had installed– meant the cave was not exactly a natural specimen, but it was interesting to hear about, and the ranger’s talk was dynamic. I was glad we partook, but look forward to hopefully seeing more natural caves in the future (domestically, they are harder to come by than abroad).
Ultimately, Great Basin was a fantastic stop to make in the fall, especially since the weather was still workable at 10,000 feet, but it was easy to feel the upcoming transition to a cold winter season.
I could easily see wanting to revisit Great Basin in other seasons, as the Bristlecones were so lovely and so full of character, it might feel like visiting old (very old) friends).
Posted by Sun
