Great Basin and Garnet Hill

Last November we did a quick visit to Great Basin National Park, visited Lehman Caves, and continued along our way to California.  We told ourselves that we would be back in warmer weather.  That was the plan, but as we've watched our summer kind of dwindle away, we started to feel like  many things that we wanted to do this summer are going to be left undone.  Justin announced the other day that he'd taken leave for my birthday.  Although he actually took it for something else, and it was just a happy coincidence that it fell on my birthday, plans changed, as they tend to do, and he ended up having the day free.  Since it was a Monday that gave us a long weekend.  We decided to put it to use by heading back to Great Basin National Park.

As usual, we planned on going, and then changed our minds, and then changed them again, and then finally just loaded up our stuff and left, later than we had planned...of course.

We arrived at the park around 6pm Friday night, and were alarmed when the first campground we checked was completely full.  We got the last spot in the second campground, at Upper Lehman Creek, and were grateful to have it.  The campground sits at almost 8,000 feet elevation, so the first thing we noticed when we got out is that it was a lot cooler up there than it had been back home at 4,800 feet.  It was also one of the nicest campgrounds we've visited.

One of the creeks that ran through the campground

On our walk back from the pay station

We got Vivian into some warmer clothes and attempted to walk down to the pay station to pay the camping fee.  We quickly learned that she wasn't getting the vision.  Every few feet she would plop down on the ground for a closer inspection of the rocks, dirt, ants, sticks, or whatever else caught her eye.  Each time she had to be dragged to her feet, and there was usually quite a bit of resistance involved.  We finally gave up and carried her.  We ended up feeling like we needed to go to bed very early that evening since the temperature dropped as soon as the sun started to set, and Justin confessed that he hadn't bothered to pack a sweatshirt.  

On the bright side that meant that we also got a pretty early start the next morning.  We had breakfast and headed straight up Wheeler drive to a trailhead that started at almost 10,000 feet.  We only made it partway before we got sidetracked by a lookout point. 

It was nearly impossible to get a picture of her looking at the camera up there.

We met, and chatted with a small family up there that was doing a "walk across America."  Although, initially it sounded interesting, after thinking about it for a few minutes I decided that I would hate such a thing.  Too much time trudging along the side of a highway, and they had to hitchhike a ride up to the overlook.  I'm not sure I see the point if you're missing all the cool things along the way.  Regardless, to each their own.  We continued on our way, and arrived at the trailhead.  

Vivian in the new backpack carrier

We finally bought an actual backpack carrier for Vivian, since she still refuses to let Justin carrier her in the ergo.  I'm fine carrying her most of the time, but for something like this, it was actually pretty nice to be able to strap her on Justin's back for a change.  

At first we decided to set off on a shortish hike to see two Alpine lakes.  We quickly realized that first of all it was even colder at 10,000 than it had been at 8, and second, this area is beautiful, and we loved how few people we saw out there.  Although it's supposed to be one of the busiest hikes in the park, we probably passed fewer than half a dozen people the entire time we were on the lakes trail.  

On the shores of the first of the two lakes.

The first part of the trip we were astonished at how much harder it was hiking in the high altitude, but by the time we got to the first lake we had already kind of gotten used to it.  

Wildflowers growing on the banks of the creek, they almost look like they had been planted.

At the second lake

After the lakes we decided to continue onto a trail that connected with ours that went out to a Bristlecone Pine forest, and Nevada's only glacier.  This trail took us even higher, and was pretty narrow.  It kind of freaked me out.  Justin is always telling me that I'm paranoid about that sort of thing, but when we watched a girl not paying attention stumble off the edge of the mountain, and barely stop herself from having a bigger adventure than she had bargained for, I felt pretty justified in feeling worried.  

This part of the trail is quite a bit wider than the part where the other hiker toppled off the trail.

Justin helped drag the hiker back onto the trail and we continued on our way to the Bristlecone forest, where we were greeted by a park ranger, who I suspect is up there to make sure nobody tries to mess with one of these trees.  They are allegedly the oldest living thing on earth.  They said some were over 4,000 years old, but then the sample in the visitor's center admitted to only having 2,200 rings, so I didn't really understand how that number suddenly doubled.  Either way, they are very old trees, and apparently even when they look dead, they are, in fact, still alive.  

This tree is one that looks dead, but supposedly it's not.

We cruised around looking at the weirdly old trees for a bit and then continued on to the glacier.  That hike was supposed to go up over 11,000 feet.  We figure we got to close to 11,000, and we could see the end of the trail, but it was also getting super cold.  We had already been informed by other hikers that the end was pretty anticlimactic since you can't actually go up to the glacier.  So we snapped a few pictures and turned back.  

Our view of the glacier from where we stopped.

Headed back down the mountain.

I didn't realize how far we had come until we were heading back.  I had forgotten to pack my hiking boots for this trip, and I could feel every rock through the tennis shoes I was wearing, which was great.  It's one of those things where you don't really notice it until you're on the descent.  It took us quite a while to get back to the car, but it got progressively warmer and warmer as we got closer to the parking lot.  By the time we were back to the car, the parking lot that had felt very chilly earlier, was feeling pretty warm and inviting.  I was also able to reclaim my jacket which didn't hurt.  I had taken it off to wrap around Vivian part way through the hike, when her little jacket had proven itself inadequate for the temperatures.

We stopped at another overlook on the way back to camp.  That snow up there is the glacier.

All together we hiked about 7 miles, and at that elevation, we were very tired by the time we got back to camp.  We made dinner, cleaned up, and were in bed just as the sun was starting to set.  

The next day was Sunday, and we had decided not to skip church for this outing.  We had done a little research ahead of time and found a place to buy showers, at the Border Inn.  We got up early, and drove into...I would say it's town, but really, it's just a truck stop, motel, shower house, convenience store establishment on the border of Nevada and Utah.  Justin went in and paid for the showers, and inquired about time limits and if there was a family shower, which would allow us to just hand Vivian in and out of the shower.  No time limit, but when he asked about the family shower he said the young kid behind the counter asked "well, how many people are we talking about?"  He told us that the three of us shouldn't be an issue.  So...there wasn't a family shower.  We decided to use the women's and Justin was in a panic the entire time I was in the shower.  I'm not sure why, it was almost like he thought some woman might come barging through the door already completely stripped down and ready to go straight into the shower.  He was relieved once Vivian and I were done and he was able to retreat back to the men's side of the facilities.  

Unfortunately, back at the house I had given our Sunday clothes to Justin, and he had been in charge of packing them, i.e. placing them in his duffel bag.  After getting dressed I found only one Sunday shoe, and the little underpants for Vivian's dress were missing.  My shower shoes were neon pink, but my dress was not, so I ended up attending church in Justin's black shower shoes, which are basically just oversized 98 cent flip-flops from Wal-Mart.  My shoe (and Vivian's underpants) was later found in the living room, right about the same spot where I had handed my things to Justin to pack.  This is worth noting, since he originally claimed that he packed everything I handed him, and I must have only handed him one shoe.  Absurd.

We attended sacrament meeting in the tiny little town of Garrison, Utah.  

This is the chapel.  Note the parking lot.  Church was still in session.

After church we stopped in at the visitor's center on the way back to camp, and were planning on just hanging out the campsite for the rest of the day.  That only lasted a few hours, before we decided to go on some sort of little nature walk.  

Vivian loved cruising around the visitor's center

The nature hike pretty much just ended up being a photo session of Vivian, because she looked so cute with that junior ranger hat.

The scenery was really beautiful as well

She was doing so good sitting on that log until she decided to start swinging her legs.  We snatched her off of there immediately.

This peering over the side of the bridge one is my favorite.

My little junior ranger

After that we spent the rest of the evening hanging out back at camp, making dinner, cleaning up and preparing to leave the next morning.  

My people, hanging out at camp.

The next morning we packed up and left to drive out to a place in Nevada called Garnet Hill.  I had read about this place online, and really wanted to go.  It's a place on BLM land where you can go mine for garnets.  It took us an hour or more to get there, and then we spent a few hours digging holes, pounding rocks, and sifting dirt.  Okay, mostly me, while Justin and Vivian watched, and got progressively more and more bored with the whole observing, and not participating thing.  

Garnet Hill

Justin finally had it with the whole thing, and once I had a collection of small stones, he said it was time, and we started the drive home.  We didn't make it very far down the road before we saw a sign for Cave Lake State Park, which sounded very interesting, so we turned off to check that out.  We ended up driving for miles down a dirt road, before we determined that something wasn't right, and turned around to find the turnoff for Cave Lake.  I wish we had one more day to spend camping there.  It looked amazing. 

Cave Lake.  The pictures doesn't do it justice.

We finally headed home, and Monday evening arrived back in Riverton.  As always, it waskind of nice to be home after a long drive.  Great Basin is one of our favorite camping spots thus far.