On Monday we left Salt Lake City and headed a little south and a lot west through the Great Basin. It held up to my expectations: dry, desolate, and flat. Pretty basic Basin stuff I imagine.
The Spot
When we finally arrived at the park, we hauled up to the Upper Lehman Creek Campground because all the campgrounds showed vacancies on the manual sign coming in.
This is generally not our style. Showing up without a reservation that is. In this case, it’s not because we were throwing caution to the wind, throwing our hands in the air and saying, “Let’s roll the dice on this one! Hahahaha!” Nope. Turns out there are no reservations taken in any of the Great Basin campgrounds. They are all first come first serve. Yech. I need a plan.
However, according to all the literature, ehem, the internet, “the campgrounds rarely fill up before late evening, and usually, not at all.” So, we rolled in pretty sure we would have our pick of spots. Driving into the actual upper campground though told a different story: full. The campground host said we could try the lower campground. Or another one across the ridge. Or setup on some BLM land which surrounded the park.
We checked the lower campground, but it too was full. My medium-level nightmare coming true. The uncertainty of where we’d be staying overnight was making me grumpy and anxious. I just knew that the other campground would be full too. Why couldn’t I be in the backseat watching Scooby-Doo with the blissfully unaware boys? Jason, ever the long-term optimist kept saying we’d be fine.
Generally speaking, I am a very optimistic person short- and long-term, but occasionally my anxiety creeps in and I have acute moments of worst-case-scenarioism. Jason on the other hand likes to describe himself as a “short-term pessimist/long-term optimist.” However, he does very well when in acute stress. I guess that’s what makes us a good team: one of us is always looking on the sunny-side. Just usually not at the same time. I digress.
Yay! Bakker’s Creek campground had an opening!! The world would not end. But choosey-mc-chooserson (Jason) didn’t like the spot because it was across from the bathrooms. Really? I told him to wait and I’d walk ahead to see if we had any other choices. Turns out there were two more spots just around the bend. We selected spot 17 based on, well basically it wasn’t by the bathroom and it was open. It also had no shade, which wasn’t all bad because it meant our solar panels were drinking in power all day, and at night, WOW!
The Night
Great Basin is known for a couple of things. One is being one of the least visited National Parks. And the other is it’s position in the United States as one of the least light polluted places for viewing the night sky. Which makes sense, because it’s quite literally in the middle of nowhere.
While we knew about the star viewing before we got there, the actuality of being there and witnessing it was incredible. What a weak adjective. Stupendous? Miraculous? Otherworldly. There are some things that you can read about and see pictures and videos of, but nothing really does it justice except being there. This was one of them.
There were so many stars I had trouble picking out the Big Dipper. All of the other stars in the sky, normally not visible, filled in the entire space in and around the dipper so that you had to really look for it. Even after I’d found it and knew it’s position, I would occasionally lose sight of it in the vast field of white pin pricks.
So that was how we spent at least a few minutes of our nights: necks cranked back, mouths slack, and our eyes drinking in the moonless, star-studded sky. There was a lot of, “wow. There’s so many stars,” as though we weren’t all seeing the same thing.
The Hike
We arrived on Monday and decided to do a hike on Tuesday. Jason was pushing for a 13,000 ft summit hike to which I said, “yeah, no. We have a smallish child.” With his dreams crushed, he agreed to what was to be a much easier hike: Bristle Cone Pine Tree/Rock Glacier. The round trip would only be about six miles with an 1,100 foot elevation gain.
Lunches and gear packed, we drove from our campground at 8,000 feet to the trailhead at about 9,500 feet. As soon as we started hiking I felt weird. I couldn’t walk normally, I was breathing heavily, I felt foggy, and I inexplicably felt afraid. It wasn’t a panic attack or an allergic reaction. It was just strange. I reasoned that I just needed more fuel and we stopped so I could drink water and have a snack. I don’t know how far along the trail we were, because I don’t really remember that part of the hike, but I knew we weren’t far. We sat long enough that things became clear again and I said I wanted to continue.
Unfortunately, we didn’t make it far before I felt the same way. We sat down again, ate lunch, drank water, and I stubbornly said that I wanted to see the Bristle Cone Pine Grove. This time I felt fine when we continued our ascent.
We made it to the grove and did the loop through what were possibly some of the oldest known living things on earth. We’re talking thousands of years old, all gnarly, smooth, peculiar, and beautiful at the same time.
We decided that the Glacier trail was a go because it wasn’t “much farther.”
Soon we were walking on loosely packed stones ranging in size from fist to adult torso. We could now see the peak that Jason had wanted to hike and below it, we reached the rock glacier. It was, like everything else in the park, amazing. We ate again and headed down the trail.
Right after we began to descend, every step I took felt like my pack weighed more and more, and my feet were stuck in sand or mud. Or snow. Take your pick of plodding terrain. I was in it. But it was just me. Everyone else was merrily gliding down the trail.
We rested a few times, but I was never able to regain my strength or my composure. Tears and snot flowed freely down my face from both the fatigue and the pain that seemed to radiate from my entire body. Plus, I was angry at my body for giving up on me. I knew that I was stronger than it was allowing me to be. Dumb body.
Finally, we arrived back at the car. By the time we drive the half an hour down the mountain and back to our camper, my pain had subsided, and I could move and think freely. Turns out my dumb body couldn’t do the things I wanted it do because it didn’t have the oxygen it needed. According to Web-MD I had had a typical case of altitude sickness.
I hate worrying my boys. That’s the inverse of how it should be. But thankfully, all four of my guys had my back and helped me in various ways. Plus we got to see the pine grove and the rock glacier!
Wednesday
The day after long hikes is always a little bit grumpy. People are tired. And sore. And just want to be left the heck alone. Wednesday was no exception. Lots of boy bickering. Lots of parents snapping back over little things. Jason and I thought that maybe if we left the camper things would settle down a bit.
This led is to the visitor center where our souvenir circus took up quite some time.
Later in the day we took a tour of Lehman Caves, which is actually just one smallish cave. Nonetheless it was a beautiful cave and the cool cave temperatures were quite welcome. Also, there were no fights during the entire 90 minute cave tour, so that was nice.
The rest of the evening was spent reading with the knowledge that we were pulling up the proverbial tent stakes in the morning to head to Yosemite.
Friday is the day that we set out on an overnight backpacking trip. Yikes!!
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