The park is outside of a little town called Baker, NV, it is in the middle of nowhere. The drive into Baker is on a two lane road for hundreds of miles through little towns along the way. There are many markers for the Pony Express on the highway, it is a strong word for the road. The park itself is know for Lehman Cave and the large mountain basin. Lehman Cave was first used by the Indians from the area but then Lehman who owned the land and was farming “found” the cave by mistake. He would charge $1.00 in the late 1800’s to explore the cave. Lehman would give you a candle and say that if you are not out in 24 hours he would come find you. Great customer service by Lehman. The cave is only 2 miles long and is about 200 feet below the mountain at the lowest point so not the largest cave in the park system. The hiking in the park is limited but what it does have is nice hikes and with the park being over 6,000 feet you will feel even a short hike. There are some cool things like the Bristlecone pine which has its own trail however I did not choose to take that trail. Stella lake and Teresa lake on the Alpine Lake Trail is something to see as well. The park has many glaciers and part of this park reminded me of glacier with the snow coming right up to the lake. During my time in the park the day time temperature at the visitor center was in the mid 70’s in the afternoon but at the top of the park it was in the mid to lower 50’s. Bring warm clothing if you are coming here as in the AM when I got up at 6:00am it was in the low 40’s. The park is out of the way but well worth a day or two here in the park. You can hike and do a cave tour in the same day allowing you to do multiple hikes and cave tours in a few days. Another draw to the park is the night sky as there is little in the way of light pollution so seeing stars, Milky Way and planets can easily be done. If you have a telescope bring it along to enjoy the night sky. Ranger talks on the night sky are only 3 days a week when I was there on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday and I was not there during that time so I was not able to have the Ranger talk. I would say if you have the chance to have the Ranger talk do it as the sky is a big draw into this park.
Osceola Ditch – As the name would suggest it is a ditch but this one was hand dug in the late 1800’s to support gold mining. It took 1,500 men and 2.2 million board feet of wood troughs to build this ditch of over 18 miles long. Building of Osceola ditch was to support the mining operation on the other side of the mountain which did not have the necessary water. Well the ditch did help but in the end it was not enough water nor enough gold to continue to support the mining operation. There were other factors that helped shut the mining operations down like a drought in 1901, water being taken by others and all of those board feet allowed water to slip through in the troughs. The hike to the ditch is short and it is down hill so up hill on the way back. The trail head is a stop on the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, but could be missed if you have other things planned.
Mather Overlook – Stephen Mather is one of the founding fathers of the National Park system and this overlook is named after him. The overlook is off the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive and it is down a gravel road ending at the overlook. The overlook has a vault toilet and a viewing platform. It was great to sit at the overlook and hear the wind in the trees and looking up at the peaks in the distance. Mather overlook is above 9,000 feet. When I was at the overlook only one car did a “fly by” and I had it all to my self, listening to birds, watching the clouds. Worth the stop if you are on the scenic drive.
Wheeler Peak Overlook – The overlook is just off of the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive. The parking is not big but there is a little deck area you can go out and look out on Wheeler Peak. The deck has a couple of telescopes for your viewing pleasure. It is worth a few minutes to stop the drive get out of the vehicle and enjoy the beauty of Wheeler Peak and the Great Basin.
Alpine Lake Trail – When the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive ends you are at a parking area that supports a few trail. The Bristlecone Pine Grove Trail and Rock Glacier Trail are two that I did not choose. My choice was the Alpine Lake Trail and it is a 3 mile loop trail that has 600 feet of elevation gain. I choose to go in a counter clock wise loop and was welcomed with a little creek running down the hill and it sounded so nice. The trail is somewhat steep at times but not the steps kinds of steep just an incline as you go up toward the lakes. At one point during the trail before you come to any lakes there is a marker saying parking one way and Stella Lake the other. I did not want to end so off to Stella Lake I went. Not much further along the path you will come upon a lake at the bottom of a glacier. The lake is not a kettle pond but is on the smaller side and is the smallest of the two lakes on this trail. Continue around the lake and not far you will come upon a little stream that is feeding the second lake. Walk beside that stream and you will come to a viewing area of the lake with a bench to enjoy the view. The second lake is called Teresa Lake but I did not see any signs saying the distance to Teresa Lake. The overall trail is rocky and there are a few bits of water to go over but that is done via bridge, log or in one case a simple rock. The overall trail is a nice hike but remember you are starting at close to 10,000 feet above sea level and that extra 600 can be hard on the lungs.
Gothic Palace Tour – I will start by saying that the tour is 30 minutes in length. The group on the tour had 18 people and I was the 5 youngest person on the tour today. First off anything that has been in another cave, tunnel, mine etc. has to be disinfected and if it your shoes you have to dunk them for 5 minutes in a solution. We don’t want white nose bat syndrome to come into this cave so please be smart about the disinfecting before you enter. The tour will take you into a few different rooms within the cave. You will also pass by the “Natural Opening” and most of the time you can see many bats hanging and sleeping. I went it was baby birthing season so we stayed quiet as to not disturb mom and her baby. Side note about bats is that they can live for 30 years. During the tour you will also go into a room that has many formations that look like organ pipes so it is called the music room. There are many cool things to see in the cave and one of them is called a disk. That is something that has two sides and a middle like an Oreo but it is water and rock in the middle not creamy filling. On most cave tours, like this one, the guide will put the cave into darkness and it is amazing to be in total darkness with zero light. A cool thing the guide did was he shown a black light on a formation and when the light was released the formation continued to show light but in a different color/wavelength.
Grand Palace Tour – This tour is 90 minutes in length. Today’s ranger was Sareena and good. She is an Astrophysicist by schooling and is in Great Basin National Park in order to see the wonderful night sky but she has found a love for the caves. The tour starts and ends at the same place as the Gothic Palace Tour. The tour takes us to other parts of the cave and it was a bit tight for me to get through some of the spaces. There was a large room where the roof had all kinds of initials on the ceiling from people coming into the cave and putting their candles up on the roof letting the smoke “carve” their initials on the ceiling. We were able to see many of the disks and even some standing water in the cave. Lots of little drops of water could be seen and these drops are forming new formations or trying to regrow the formation that was damaged. The regrowth is commonly referred to as “soda straws” due to their small size and having a water droplet off their end. An inch takes 100 years to form so looking at these huge formations you can understand how it took 10 million years to create the cave in its current form. The tour we were able to see a bat hanging from the ceiling at our first stop, the same first stop as the previous tour. If you have to do only 1 tour I would suggest this tour as it explores more of the cave than Gothic Palace.
Lower Lehman Campground – The campground is small with only 11 spots. There is a couple of vault toilets in the middle of the loop and at the start of the loop that is the campground. The sites seem to have enough space for some privacy. My site and many of the sites in the campground had a little creek/stream running just behind the site allow you to hear the wonderful sounds of running water all night. Being in the middle of nowhere you were also able to see the stars out when it got dark, it was after 10pm so I was going to sleep. It also was very cold when I was there so I stayed in Dundee. Each of the sites had large parking pads with many sites being pull through. A picnic table and fire ring were also provided but no fires were allowed during my time within the park. With only 11 sites and all of them filled it was still very quiet in the campground during the day and at night. Staying in the park again is something that I plan on doing to enjoy the night sky.
