Great Basin National Park: How We Are Planning To Visit

First and Foremost: Visit the Visitor Center

As we do with all of our trips to the parks, we plan to go to the Visitor Center first. We find that the park rangers are great to talk to in order to learn more about the park.  The displays and educational resources are always on point!  Great Basin National Park has a couple of Visitor Centers that are within close proximity of one another.  We plan to check in at the Lehman Caves Visitor Center when we arrive.

Great Basin also advertises a video which is another thing that we like to partake of during our visit.  The bookstore and stamping stations (gotta get our National Parks Passports stamped!) are also usually in or near the Visitor Center.

Things We Plan to do at Great Basin National Park

There are several options of things to do (as you can see from the extensive menu of options under ‘Plan Your Trip’).  Besides checking in at the Visitor Center, here’s what we have narrowed the list down to for our half-day visit:

Lehman Caves Tour

There are two guided tour options to visit Lehman Caves, the Lodge Room Tour (60 minutes) and the Grand Palace Tour (90 minutes).  Even though we’d like to “see it all”, based on our estimated arrival time, the Lodge Room Tour is the most feasible option for us as it allows us to schedule it the latest in the day of all available tours (3pm).  This will give us a little leeway in the event that we are delayed at the airport or on our drive up. We booked tickets for only $9 per person on the Recreation.gov website and look forward to seeing some beautiful cave formations on the 0.4 mile walk in the cave.

If you plan to do a cave tour, we recommend booking them in advance.  Even though you can purchase tickets in person, this option in based upon availability.  We have found that the number of available slots on cave tours tends to fill up pretty quickly.  You cannot tour the cave without a guide, so we made our reservations in advance.

Mountain View Nature Trail

There are a number of trails that are listed on the NPS Great Basin website. Because we will be at Lehman Caves, we will likely take the Mountain View Nature Trail which is right by the Lehman Caves Visitor Center.  It is only a 0.3 mile trail, so depending on the time that we arrive, I envision that we will do this immediately before or after our cave tour.

Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive

Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive is listed as a paved, but steep, scenic drive. The average grade is 8%, and the entire road may not be open when we plan to visit.  Depending on the conditions and the perceived “scariness” of the drive, we may or may not make Wheeler Peak the third item on our itinerary.

Whether or not we make the drive, one thing that I am looking forward to seeing at Great Basin is the bristlecone pine.  This tree is one that I have never seen before.  It is an iconic image in my mind of trees that stand the test of time.  Some of them reach thousands of years in age, which is astounding to me!  When I look back over my photos from any trip, I seem to take a lot of shots of trees.  I think that this is because I like dreaming about the stories that they can tell.  I’m certain that I will have more than my fair share of shots of the bristlecone pine to write about after my visit!

An Item of Note for a Future Visit

There are so many other things to do at the park, but based on our time constraints, we will only be able to experience a tiny fraction of the activities that this vast park has to offer.

One thing that I would LOVE to do on a future visit to Great Basin is to check out one of the astronomy programs!  The park boasts some beautiful “dark skies” due to its remote location away from light emitting population centers.

I am totally looking forward to fitting in some star gazing on this trip as many of the parks we will be visiting are in remote areas and the stars promise to ease us into a trance 😊.