Great Basin Nat'l Park

We stopped & had a little breakfast in South Shore. We went & touched the lake & said good morning!

Ross & his copilot are ready to hit the road!

We saw a lot of this...

and a little of this...

We spent the first 2 nights of our trip at Great Basin National Park. It's right on the border of Nevada & Utah. Neither of us had ever been there & let me tell you, it was quite the little find! We camped at nearly 10,000 ft. elevation at the base of Wheeler Peak, The park includes much of the South Snake Range. We saw desert, alpine forest, ancient bristle cone pines, limestone caverns and glaciers...

The view from our camp site...

Rollins decided that he just had to climb a tree...

I'm sure "Senor Sappy Britches" won't be trying that move again any time soon!


Lehman Caves... it's actually a single cavern... it extends about 1/4 mile at the base of the Snake Range. It was named after Absalom Lehman (I just like to say Absalom) but of course, the natives knew of the cavern long before he did... we saw lots of stalagtites, stalagmites, columns, draperies, flowstone, and soda straws, there were also a number of circular shields which are apparently quite rare....

This is Bob, our tour guide... he started out the tour by asking where we were all from, he then proceeded to explain that he was from a small town just west of Lake Tahoe called Placerville... to which I yelled "Me too!" I think I scared the crap out of him... anyway, small world! He's worked at 5 Nat'l Parks throughout his career... He's been at Great Basin for 3 years. Bob wouldn't be our last reminder of home as you will see later on!

Bristlecone Pine Trail & Rock Glacier....

We hiked up to a Bristlecone Pine grove... these trees can live to be 4,000 years old or older, in fact the worlds oldest living tree was a bristlecone at 4,950 years... truly incredible to be able to touch these monuments of endurance, perseverance and longevity....

Awe inspiring.....

Friggin tree huggers!

We decided to continue our hike up the Glacier Trail... it's the only known one of it's kind in the entire Great Basin (the glacier, that is)!

That's where we're headed!

We thought we'd play a little game of "Find the Trail"... It's somewhat obvious to the left... but where is it on the right?

The trail quickly turned from dirt & boulders to loose rock the closer we got to the glacier... believe it or not, that IS the trail our feet are on!

We got to touch the glacier!!!! So gorgeous!!!!

On our way down the mountain I saw a rock that looked exactly like home! A little crazy, but definitely cool! Bob would have really dug it!

That concludes the Great Basin installment of our trip... Suby Roo is all packed up... next stop Moab, Utah, Arches & Canyonlands! Oh, & if you're wondering if there will be a quiz at the end of these posts... there will be... no joke! A teacher has to teach & unfortunately for you, my regular students are no where to be seen at the moment... pay attention & stay tuned!