Great Basin National Park

Want to know a secret? I never intended to learn anything on this trip. That sounds dumb, I know. But I only ever wanted to visit places I hadn't been, just to visit them. I wasn't trying to get smarter or learn anything about them.

Alas, I have. Many times over, in fact.

For example, upon our visit to Great Basin National Park, I learned that a large section of the southwest is known as the "great basin," and it's known as such because any water that falls there is stuck with no way to reach an ocean. Its only way out is through evaporation. This is how we end up with things such as the Great Salt Lake.

What I didn't learn upon our visit to the park is why a park called "Great Basin" consists of a number of mountains whose prime attraction is a cave. I assume there's a reason, but I sure don't know what it is.

It was fun to drive to this park. The drive from our campsite was about an hour, and it was almost board flat until the last few miles. That meant we could see the park's mountains from a long way off as we approached. It was only at the very end that we left flat ground and ascended into the park.

Because the park is composed of mountains surrounded by flat ground, it made for some spectacular views off of the mountains. And it was only upon typing that sentence and searching for an associated picture that I realized we took exactly zero pictures of said spectacular views, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Some national parks feel small. Generally, they are not small at all. Rather, they are huge but only have drivable roads in a very small section, making them feel small.  This is the case with Great Basin. There's really only one road. It runs to the top of one of the mountains, with a short spur going off to the visitors center. As opposed to a park like Yellowstone, where it feels like you are visiting with a million of your closest friends, you only run into a handful of people at a park like Great Basin. Personally, I prefer that.

I mentioned that there's a cave at the park. In fact, the visitors center mentioned above is the Lehman Cave Visitors Center. I was skeptical, to say the least. First of all, we're in Nevada. Is Nevada known for its caves? If so, that was news to me. Second, the park is called Great Basin National Park, not Lehman Cave National Park. If your cave is so awesome, name the park after it! Finally, because the park felt so small and out of place, I couldn't shake the feeling that they had to come up with something to get people to come. "Well, we have a cave out back. How about that?"

I was wrong.

This was our fourth cave on this trip, and it was arguably the best of the lot. It was small, that's true, but it was full of formations. And let's be honest, formations are the interesting part of caves. Without them, you are really just in a hole in the ground.

The kids loved this cave

In addition to our cave tour, we also did a hike up near the top of the mountain (but not the summit hike; that one requires proper gear and preparation). During the hike, we got caught in a hailstorm... twice. They say mountains make their own weather, and this was proving to be the case. While this brought back unpleasant memories of getting caught in a hailstorm on Kilimanjaro for me, the kids didn't seem to mind too much.

The weather did clear, and we were able to see the target of our hike, a bristlecone pine forest. These are trees that grow only in a handful of places at high elevations and contain some of the oldest living organisms on earth. In fact, the oldest living organism on earth used to grow at Great Basin! I say "used to" because a dude cut it down. Oops.