Great Basin

Day 41 was a travel day to Great Basin National Park.  (The day number refers to our planned itinerary of 112 days.)  On the way we passed through Twin Falls, Idaho, and stopped to see the huge Snake River gorge that was carved out 17,000 years ago when Glacial Lake Bonneville let loose in one of the largest floods in earth’s history.  We also stopped at a highway rest area with a nice display of the history of the Pony Express.  Horseback riders rushed the U.S. mail across the country in as little as 7 days (typically around 10) in the early 1860s, but telegraph soon put the Pony Express out of business.

Day 42:  The Great Basin is very arid.  Its broad, flat, open valleys are interrupted by numerous north/south oriented mountain ranges.  We hiked from about 10,000 feet up to the 13,063-ft summit of Wheeler Peak, Nevada’s second highest mountain.  This was certainly one of the most scenic trails we have ever hiked.  Wheeler Peak is impressively big, rising steeply about 7,500 feet from the valleys on the east and west sides of the Snake Range, and the glacial cirque on its northeast side is one of the largest in North America.

The trail ascends gently through aspen, pine, spruce, and fir at first, then through open meadows to a ridge top.  We saw several mule deer up close (they’re pretty tame compared to our eastern whitetail deer), and lots of high elevation wildflowers.

The upper half of the trail is above treeline and moderately steep, but well graded with switchbacks.  We had to hold onto our hats firmly in the very strong wind.  Amy’s sister Barb joined us at the end of the afternoon to camp with us for the next two nights in the national park.

Day 43:  We hiked to a grove of bristlecone pines.  These trees grow at high elevation just below treeline and can live for hundreds, even thousands of years.  This one was dated at 3200 years old (though much of the tree is dead, the part on the left is living):

Even the remains of long dead trees last a long time.  We also took a ranger-led tour of a large limestone cave with very intricate formations.