Great Basin National Park was officially established in 1986, but major portions of it have been a National Monument for the past 100 years. It was named for its location in the Great Basin region of the US. The Basin is the largest water shed with no exit to the Ocean in North America and occupies portions of six states. The park features Wheeler Peak (13K feet), the Lehman Caves, 4000 year old pine trees, mountain camping, and mountain hiking.
Due to the remote location of the park, it requires a long drive on desolate two-lane roads through desert and mountainous terrain. We drove over 350 miles of Route 50 in Nevada in our RV and were only passed by 5 vehicles. When we arrived at our campground, the Border Inn Casino, there were no other customers at the casino or the campground. It was clearly the off-season, but I don’t think they get much traffic anytime given the location. On the lighter side: the casino was also a general store, a restaurant, and a gas station. The building literally straddled the Nevada/Utah border. The casino was on the NV side (legal gambling) and the rest was on the UT side (lower taxes).
There were a handful of people at the National Park Visitor Center, primarily to tour the Lehman Caves. However, in three days of hiking we only ran into one couple on the trails. The Park itself is quite beautiful with stunning views of the Snake Mountains and Snake Valley. Unfortunately, we could not get up to Wheeler Peak because the higher elevation roads were still unplowed. Although we had a few really nice hikes, the highlight of our visit was a tour of the Lehman Caves. Our half mile tour took us through some spectacular geological features that were well displayed. As has been our experience in National Parks, our Ranger guide was very informative and entertaining.
Based on a recommendation from our friend Kris Mannino, we added Cathedral Gorge State Park to our itinerary. The park was a quick 130 mile trip from Great Basin and was well worth the drive. Cathedral Gorge isn’t a huge park, but has some awesome geologic rock formation resulting from millions of years of erosion. There are impressive spires and mini slot canyons that you can walk though and hike around. The surrounding area is also very interesting and includes other noteworthy state parks, abandoned mines, old homesteads, and beautiful visas. It was a nice stop before we started back to NY.
