Adventuring {Great Basin National Park}

We had a grand adventure to a new-to-us national park, Great Basin, the last weekend of August (24th-26th).  Our goal was to be on the road at noon on Thursday.  While Gregg worked, the kids and I gathered gear, packed the car, did a quick grocery trip to get last minute essentials, ate lunch and we were driving out of the garage at 12:30.  Whew!  One five hour (non-stop!! the kids were so amazing!) drive later, we found ourselves driving through a full (but absolutely gorgeous) campground at 10,000 feet.  Plan A was to camp at said campground, but since we couldn't make reservations, we were banking on luck to find a spot.  No luck.  On to Plan B, the next campground back down the mountain.  No luck there either.  Plan C was the last campground at the bottom of the drive.  No luck. (Ack!) Things were getting a little tense.  There were two more campgrounds left and hope was dwindling.  (And stomachs were growling.)  Plan D.  Luckless.  Plan E?  Please?  And yes!  Success!  There were multiple open spots in the Baker Creek Campground, so we got to pick our favorite.  And we did.  Number 19 was the winner.  Gregg started setting up the tent (our giganto tent is too long to fit most tent pads, so we ended up camping in the parking area, with the car parked behind us - not the softest tent site, but at least we were mostly level).  I worked on dinner, and thanks to the marvelous Dinty Moore and his delicious beef stew plus some quick and easy grilled cheese sammies, we were chowing down in no time.

Happy camper Cal (who didn't have her hair
combed all day) happy to be out of the car and
eating some grub.

This one was happy, too.  He did not sit still
for any meal, and we had to chase him around the
campsite with food to ensure he got enough.

Campsite number 19.  Quite lovely.

See those little legs sticking out of the foam
pad?  Yeah, Sam was helping, too.

Evening stroll down the campground road
and we spotted turkeys!

Turkeys headed up the hillside.

My walking buddy.

Sunset in the east.

Dessert!  (My new fave combo: perfectly
toasted mallow + reeses pb cup + ritz crackers.)

He's a fan.

The kids were begging to go in the tent, so we
put out the fire and headed inside . . . for games.

Pre-bed go fish for the win.

Friday morning we woke up early (local time = Pacific), but it was actually mostly a normal wake-up time, and even though we were tired, it definitely could have been a lot worse.  We played in the tent then had some breakfast.  The Lehman Caves Visitor's Center opened at 8:00, and we were plenty ready, so we got there as the door opened and got our passport stamped first thing.  Our reservation for the cave tour was scheduled for 10:00, but luckily we got it changed to 8:30, which felt like 9:30 to us, and was actually a much better time for our nap and lunch needs.  (I didn't think about the time change when I booked the tickets.)  The cave was great!  It was similar to Minnetonka, which we had toured in June with the Elwood clan, but had even more formations and was a bit more snug to walk through (nothing that caused any sort of claustrophobia or anything, but some skinnier little hallways and more times ducking.  Our guide was a geology major, so she had a ton of interesting info about how the formations were created, as well as history and trivia about the cave and rocks and such.  We learned a lot.  After the tour, we drove into Baker to check out the other visitor's center (and get another stamp in our passport).  (This is also where we found out that the park actually does not have an entrance fee - we guessed as much since we never saw any signage or anywhere to pay; we partially picked Great Basin as our destination to use our national parks annual pass purchased earlier this year "to get our money's worth" - ha! Oh well.  It really was worth the money ;) and the trip.)  After the visitor's center we found a little park to play on before heading back to camp for lunch and naps.

Good morning!

Sunrise in the east.

Inside the cave.

This is a "shield" - there are over 300 of these
formations inside this cave, which is a pretty
rare and cool.  These are formed from hydro-
static pressure forcing water against gravity
between two very close rocks, and then depositing
minerals into a shield form.

Family photo op outside the exit (we went in a different door
than we came out of  and neither were natural openings to the cave).

Cool little lizard guy on the wall outside the cave.

Baker park time.

Everyone tried the slide!
(Except mom, who took pics from the shade,
naturally.)

Lunchtime faces.

Site #19.

I took a little walk while the rest of the fam
napped.

Baker Creek flows through the campground
and it provided some nice sleepy-time white noise.

Some late-summer wild flower blooms were
quite lovely.

Cute fire ring at the group fire spot.

Big buggy.

Sam ended up snoozing in my lap while I sat in the shade
and read.  Not a bad afternoon for me, that's for sure.

After everyone woke up (Gregg and Cal were in the tent and it got too hot for them to handle), we drove back to the top of the scenic drive, to the parking lot at 10,000 feet, where we started our hiking adventure.  We wanted to see both alpine lakes and the bristlecone pine grove (we'll have to come back for the glacier since that was just too far out of our hikeable range for this trip) so we planned to hike to Teresa Lake and then backtrack a bit to take the fork for the bristlecones.  The lake was beautiful, though much smaller than I had expected (and than it had been earlier in the summer, I'm sure).  The trees were awesome to see and the interpretive signs were super interesting, though they felt a lot further away than I had expected.  And to top it off, we got caught in a hail-turned-rain storm for the last mile-ish of our hike as we descended.  The kids, again, were awesome (even with pooping in the trees (Cal) and getting creative with a poopy diaper change with no extra diapers or wipes (whose parents forget those essentials on a 3+ mile hike? Sam's do!  We owe that ranger intern guy a ton for giving us his wad of squished toilet paper from his pack!)).  We raced the storm back down the mountain, but luckily it avoided our campsite at 7500 feet.  The signs say Wheeler Peak (over 13000 feet elevation) creates its own weather and I believe it now.  Hot dogs on the fire were for dinner, followed again by s'mores and games in the tent.  All in all, a grand day.

Trail map.  We hiked the short way to Teresa Lake and then back
tracked to the fork to head up to the bristlecone grove.

Lots of roots and rocks to climb and step over
on this hike.

Lots of rocks inside this hollow log.

Sam is trying to throw a rock into the hollow
stump on the other side of the trail.

Lots and lots of rocks.  This is the trail.

Teresa Lake is a bit smaller than I was expecting.  (I think
she'd be bigger in the spring.)

Making our way out to the puddle.

Wheeler Peak is in the background.

Crystal clear water.

Me: "Are you making a cairn?"
Cal: "No, I'm making a stack of rocks."

It was really cool terrain - a lot different than
most of our Utah hiking, for sure.

Resting and snacking before the last haul to
the "top".

I took a picture of every sign.  You're welcome.
;)

The kids loved going from sign to sign.
Must be related to their mom. ;)

Warning: the next four pictures look almost identical, but
if you pay attention you'll see how goofy Sam and Callie were
being.

I really love this one of Sam's smile, even though you can't see
it full on, you can tell by his cheeks and eyes that he's grinning
big.

It started hailing on us just after this.
We hung out under a tree for a bit, but it didn't
seem to be letting up, and we were already wet,
so we decided to just haul the kids down the
last mile in the rain (it had luckily stopped hailing
for most of the journey).  Wet, but memorable!

bonus video!

hail on the trail!

Dinnertime!

We spent Saturday morning driving back up the road to check out the Wheeler Peak overlook spots.  Callie and Sam loved running around on the little decks and looking through the telescopes.  We loved soaking in the sunshine and basking in the beauty of the mountains around us.  We parked at the top trailhead parking lot again and took the 0.4 mile nature walk loop at Cal and Sam's pace.  It was shady and cool and lovely.  Then we ventured over to the other side of the parking lot to check out the amphitheater, where Cal and Sam gave talks (Callie was practicing her part for the primary program), sang songs, and performed other such shenanigans at the podium.  We checked out one more trail that follows the Osceola Ditch, but it was getting hot and we were getting hungry, so we didn't go too far.  We got back to camp in time for packing up and lunch (at the same time because we're cool like that), and then we hit the road for home.  We told Cal we would stop at a fun, new restaurant for dinner on the way home.  We tried Culver's in Spanish Fork and were underwhelmed, but Cal had fun, and that's what counts.

The view from the first overlook (it had a name,
but I can't remember it).

Those tippy toes!  :)

bonus video!

racing at the overlook

And another view from the second overlook.

Gregg getting fancy with the telescope-tography.

Tippy toes again!

Nature trail loveliness.

More signs - Cal was in heaven.

Frolicking amongst the trees.

Giving a talk in the amphitheater.

One more view from the parking lot.

Homeward bound.

We had such a fun trip.  After we got home we kept saying how amazing the kids were for such a long drive and for sleeping in a different place.  They were amazing.  It really got me excited for future explorations with our little crew.