Great Basin National Park, Nevada.
Heading to Great Basin National Park in Nevada today, now en route back to Berkeley, to get Kaye back home by the 20th. Kaye’s been a great travelling companion (as well as a great daughter, of course 🧡).
We headed out of Moab, first north and then pretty much due west, toward Sevier County, Utah, on the way to Great Basin in Nevada. We had a bit of adventure on the way (an adventure we didn’t really want).
Needless to say, the roads in western Utah are scenic, to say the least. And with speed limits of 80 mph, we were travelling at around 88-89 mph, and several times in the mid-90’s, and later around 105 mph for a while. The Kia drives incredibly well, even in regular (rather than sport) mode, and handles really well, with very tight and responsive steering. It’s a pleasure to drive it, and much of the way we had the sun roof open and windows down. Very noisy with the windows down, but great, even in the high 80s degree weather.
Our adventure. We almost ran out of gas. We were driving so fast, we were burning through gas, unknown to us until I got a low on gas warning, with the reading that we had 22 miles of gas left. Yikes, we were in the middle of nowhere. Kaye had said, no more than 10 minutes earlier, how bad it would be to get stuck out here. There are no gas stations. There’s nothing.
According to Google maps, the nearest gas station was 20 miles away; the gas gauge said we had 22 miles of gas left. I slowed down to 55 mph, we turned off the air conditioner, we started to immediately conserve gas. However… Google maps was wrong. By the time the gauge read 5 miles of gas left, we were 2.5 miles from the nearest exit… and it turned out, it was about another 12 or 13 miles to the only gas station anywhere around. We got off, and cruised at 45 mph along a long, hilly, and very empty single lane road. we were down to 1 mile of gas left, with 10 miles to go, then the gauge read 0 miles of gas left. We hoped it was wrong. 8 miles left to go, 6, 5, 4, and eventually we were within walking distance of the gas station, but still we were cruising.
Needless to say, we made it to the only gas station for miles and miles and miles around. Frankly, we were lucky we were even that close to a gas station at all. After filling the tank (phew!), it turned out that we actually had just about one gallon of gas left (even though the gauge had been reading 0 miles of gas left for at least 9 miles), but who knew that? Only after getting to the station and seeing the gas gauge move from empty to full did we start breathing, talking, and laughing again.
Happy again, we zipped along (at high speed) toward Sevier, Utah. I couldn’t find the signposts that Bev stood under back in 2014, but we were in Sevier County, and headed directly for Sevier, Utah.
It turns out there doesn’t seem to be an actual Sevier town, just a general township, even though it’s signposted, and we did travel along the Sevier Highway in the township of Sevier. We looked and looked, but then moved back onto route 70 west toward Great Basin National Park in Nevada.
One interesting and magical bit of Utah trivia. Sevier County is right next to Millard County (that’s Marguerite’s last name). There’s also a Rich County somewhere in the area.
The skies clouded over as we were leaving Sevier, and we passed through some heavy rain, and saw some bolt lightning action in the cloudy western skies off in the distance. But, aside from a brief period of heavy rain, and some later light rain, the weather continued to be on our side. And then, Nevada, and a time zone change to Pacific time, so we gained an hour.
We eventually reached the turnoff for Baker, Nevada, where the National Park is located, driving a long and empty one lane highway. At times, Kaye, who was driving at the time, was hitting 93-94 mph. That Kia sure can move effortlessly.
Baker really is a one gas pump town (well, two, back to back), with just the pumps and payment method, but no actual gas station. A very small town.
We came into Great Basin National Park, which is a lovely, but whoever heard of it, federal park, which amazingly has no entry fee (although I have my senior lifetime pass, so it would have been free anyway). It also seems family oriented, as they have a lot of free Ranger-led tours and talks, including for kids.
The park is pretty big, but clearly mostly for hiking as there is only one paved road going to the peak, which we drove.
The hike from the peak parking lot, which is about 12 miles from the park entrance, at an elevation of 10,000 feet, to Wheeler Peak is a strenuous several hour 8.4 mile hike, rising from 1,000 to 13,000 feet, which they warn requires stamina. There are some shorter hikes also, but we were there a little too late in the day, as we still had to get to Ely, Nevada, where we are staying the night tonight, about an hour further west. We did walk a little, however, and ran into a couple of interesting older hikers who we talked to a bit. Again, the views are magnificent, from the surrounding Snake Mountains several thousand feet above us to the plains – the great basin – 10,000 feet below.
Aside from anything else, Kaye loved the cooler weather near the peak, a real change from the sweltering weather she’s been having difficulty with.
Kaye really wanted to visit the caves at the park, but by the time we returned downhill to the visitor center the caves were closed to the public. Shame, as Kaye was disappointed.
Then about a 50 minute drive to Ely, Nevada, which is really the closest town for lodging. The town ain’t much. It’s really a bit of a time capsule, with the look of a 1940s and 1950s town, sadly with its better days behind it.
Not too many places to eat that looked appetizing. In fact, of the few places to eat, quite a few were closed for the night, or even the weekend; odd, as this is a Saturday night. None looked like anywhere we wanted to eat, anyway, with the exception of one Mexican place, but we instead bought fast food and ate at our hotel, not a bad little place - I picked it because although inexpensive, it was twice the price of some of the other motels in town, and there are quite a few - but none look especially promising, especially driving by them. And then to sleep.
Heading for Reno tomorrow as our last overnight stopover before getting Kaye back to Berkeley and her final semester begins.
