Day 48: Great Basin National Park
National Park #18
When we planned this trip, we knew we were rolling the dice with mother nature. February through April are not exactly high season in most national parks, many of which cover extreme elevations and get fully socked in with snow and ice during winter months.
To our surprise, this really wasn’t much of an issue along the way. Other than Kings Canyon, most of the major attractions at the parks we visited were open - even if they did require a little snow shoeing to get around.
Our luck finally ran out at Great Basin National Park, located in the vast and remote stretches of eastern Nevada. With their lowest trail (Mountain View Nature Trail) still clocking it at 7,000 feet above sea level, and their highest (Wheeler Peak) at over 13,000, the roads to all of the major trails were closed due to winter conditions. Another major attraction, the Lehman Caves, were also closed to due to COVID. Womp Womp.
Not wanting to write the park off as a complete loss, we did throw on our snow tracks and hiked as far up the Lehman Creek Trail as we could get - which was about two miles before we started sinking up to our waist in snow.
So yeah, go here in the late spring and summer. I’m sure it will be quite lovely.
What you need to know:
Don’t go during the winter months!