Nevada: Great Basin N.P. and Cathedral Gorge
June 2021
Eastern Nevada was unlike the hot desert near Las Vegas. It was uncrowded and a little cooler. We wondered why the national park in Nevada is called Great Basin, and we learned that most of Nevada is in the Great Basin, which basically means any precipitation in that geographic region either evaporates, sinks into the ground, or runs into lakes. There is no outlet to any ocean.
Our first stop in Nevada was Cathedral Gorge State Park. It has rock formations that look like a child took lumps of clay and dumped them on top of each other. There are lots of small slot canyons running between the formations. They are not colorful like Antelope Canyon.
The water tower, constructed by the CCC, is no longer used. The odd rock formations are in the background.
Then we went to Great Basin N.P. We had to stay about an hour away in Ely, because there’s only a very tiny town near the park entrance. It’s pretty isolated. However, the isolation means there’s no city lights nearby, so it’s an International Dark Sky Park. We went to an evening program in the amphitheater where we could see SO MANY stars and the Milky Way. They had a couple telescopes for us to look through, as well.
It’s a small park. We drove the winding scenic road (hardly any guard rails) 4000’ up for a view of Wheeler Peak. At the top of the drive, 10,000’ up, there are hiking trails. We took one trail past an alpine lake, then up to the bristlecone pine grove, and beyond that to a view of the glacier on Wheeler Peak. The glacier is small, and it has what’s called a rock glacier below it (big pile of rocks with water between them that freezes and thaws).
This bristlecone pine is 3200 years old, as determined by 5 core samples of its growth rings taken from different sides of the tree so that the tree wouldn’t be harmed.
While we were staying in Ely, we visited Ward Charcoal Ovens State Historic Site. It’s a very tiny spot, but has interesting local history. There are 6 beehive-shaped ovens that were used from 1876-1879 to process silver ore. Filling one oven required 6 acres of trees! Each oven held 35 cords of wood which burned for 12 days.
