Great Basin NP NV

From Berlin we drive north back to Hwy 50 and then east. While the rains have abated some the wild skies are still spectacular.  I love wide open spaces.

Bye-bye Berlin

Dirt devil under a wild sky

We stop to run errands in Ely NV, which has become one of our go-to places to get things done on the road.  By the time we're finished, it's too late to make camp in Great Basin National Park so we stay at the Ely KOA just south of town. Normally we avoid KOAs, but we're tired and it's the only game in town. It's not as inexpensive nor as scenic as the campgrounds we've been staying in, but it gives us a chance to catch up on email, showers and laundry, besides the staff are friendly and helpful.

Few lingering showers towards Ely

Exiting Ely KOA

It's only an hour's drive from Ely to the first Visitors' Center just outside Great Basin NP.  As we're walking out of the Visitors' Center, a man about our age walks up and asks if we are driving the Alaskan Camper out in the parking lot. Mystified, we shrug our shoulders and say yes, that's us. He starts laughing and motions to follow him.  He has the exact same camper on the same truck as we do and it's parked nose to nose to ours. We've all had the campers about same amount of time.  Of course, he and Peter immediately start compare notes on specs and operations etc while I start to yawn and get antsy about moving on.  Turns out he's planning to stay up at the Wheeler Peak campground to do some hiking while we've already picked Baker Creek campground. So we wish each other luck and move on.

Identical camper twins (ours is the one on the right)

On the way to Baker Creek Campground

Marmot crossing?

Yes! Marmot crossing

After securing a nice campsite, we opt to take the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive all the way to the end of the road. It's well worth driving if you're staying around the park as it offers amazing vistas of the mountains and the valleys below.

Sunlit high meadow

Wheeler Peak up ahead

Wheeler Peak After the scenic drive, we go on a short hike around the campground.  The meadows are lush with wildflowers and rushing streams. Deer and wild turkeys abound around every corner.

Meadow full of wildflowers

Mt Wheeler in the distance

CU of Mule's Ears

Baker Creek is cranking

Nice spacious campsite

Healthy looking wild turkey

The next morning we get up early to close up camp to make the 10am tour of Lehman Caves, which we had booked the day before. The Lehman Visitor Center is mostly staffed by college students from around the country and we have fun bantering with them before the tour.

Lehman Visitor Center

Limestone waterfall formation

Lots of stalagmites and stalactites

Cave bacon

Giant stalagmite

Dripping water creating a new formation

As we're leaving Great Basin, we notice a sign to the Baker Archaeological Site pointing down a graded gravel road. We figure might as well take it as we've got extra time. 

View towards Great Basin NP range from Baker Village

Turns out it's the remains of a small Fremont Culture village that was occupied from around 1220 to 1295 AD.  Since that was during the time of the mega-drought that decimated many of the southwest's Ancestral Pueblo civilizations, we wonder why they built their village so far from the mountain streams. Then we see the remains of a large and well organized irrigation system that once brought water from the Great Basin mountains to their agricultural fields. Looks like the Fremont peoples knew exactly what they were doing after all.