Sunrise seen along the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, Great Basin National Park / Rebecca Latson

Coming right on the heels of a late-summer visit to Yosemite National Park in California, Great Basin National Park in Nevada was blissfully less crowded, with stunning scenery and clear night skies. Yes, even with wildfire-hazy days in the lower elevations, the stars were still bright. You need a little time preparing for a visit to Great Basin, however, and this Traveler’s Checklist should help you with those plans.

• There are four airports into which you can fly, but you’ll still have a bit of driving to do, and the route takes you across vast, flat, desert basins rimmed by dry, rugged mountains. The roads are very good, but it’s a long, lonely drive no matter which direction you take. I departed Yosemite National Park from the Lee Vining, California, side, and it took me about 6 hours to get to Baker, including potty and gas stops. Towns with gas stations are few and far between the route, so gas up when and where you can.
  
  
• The nearest community to Great Basin is Baker, Nevada, six miles from the park entrance, with a population of 58 (according to Google). From there, it’s almost 62 miles northwest to Ely (pronounced Ee-lee), Nevada, and 83 miles southeast to Milford, Utah. It’s a good idea to pack provisions for your trip, including plenty of water, because Baker has no grocery store and limited dining options. There is a small café attached to the Lehman Caves Visitor Center, within the park, but that’s pretty much it.
  
  
• Brick-and-mortar lodging is limited. There are a few lodging options within Baker. Beyond the town is Hidden Canyon Retreat, where I stayed, approximately seven miles from Garrison, Utah (which is seven miles east of Baker), along a twisting, graded dirt and gravel road. I loved my room, which had everything I needed (AC, fridge, small microwave, bagel toaster, small toaster oven, coffee maker, and kitchen-style sink in addition to the regular hotel/motel amenity offerings. Cell service is available around the area and the Retreat offers internet, although it is so weak that you really can only use it for email and texting, which was fine. Traveling alone as I do, I wanted to be able to let family know I was safe.
  
  Ely offers more lodging options but is about an hour’s drive away from the park. If you intend to stay more than one day in the area, then the round trip to and from Ely might feel more like a commute, and you’d need to leave very early in the morning to ensure getting a parking space at a trailhead. Milford, Utah, with a population of less than 2,000 (as of 2019), is even further. Wherever you choose to stay, make your reservations way ahead of time – even months ahead of time.
  
  

• If brick-and-mortar is not your style, there are five campgrounds currently open within the park, four of which allow reservations via recreation.gov. Wheeler Peak Campground is closed through the summer of 2021. Don’t neglect to check on the camping outside of the park, as well. If you plan on towing a trailer or are driving an RV, do your research ahead of time to ensure your campground spot can accommodate either.
  
  
• Best time to visit? Well, anytime after Labor Day means fewer people since families must return for school. The temperatures should be cooler and the aspen are exchanging green leaves for gold ones. My early-September stay produced cool mornings and evenings, but the days were still pretty toasty.
  
  
• Because the mornings and nights are cool, even during late summer, you might want to pack a light jacket. If you intend to visit the park sometime after summer, then include a heavier fleece or wool pullover or jacket. Definitely take along a sun hat and sunscreen. UV rays are stronger at higher elevations, no matter what the temperature.
  
  
• Sturdy shoes are a must. I recommend something with good tread and ankle protection. The trails I took were narrow, uneven and covered not only with loose gravel, but also with rocks embedded into the trail and snaking tree roots reaching to grab the unwary foot. It would be so easy to turn an ankle, as I saw one young girl almost do while wearing sneakers and not paying attention to the ground.
  
  
• Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive is the only paved road within the park (not counting the road to the Lehman Caves Visitor Center). It’s 12 miles of narrow road with an 8% grade (that means it’s steep) taking you up from 7,000 feet to over 10,000 feet in elevation. Along the way to the top are a couple of marked view areas and one unmarked, large pullout overlooking the scenery beyond the park (and it’s quite the view, perfect for sunrise and sunset shots). This is the road you must take to access the popular Stella Lake, Wheeler Peak Summit, and Bristlecone trails, among others. It behooves you to obey the posted speed limits in this park, and especially on this scenic drive.
  
  
• Ok, so what can you do? Hiking is a great way to see the park, and there are quite a few trails – the most popular hikes begin near the end of Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, but there are also trails accessed via the Strawberry Creek and Snake Creek gravel roads. Trails vary in length and difficulty, so one of the first things you should do is get a trails handout from one of the park’s two visitor centers. Note: Great Basin Visitor Center just outside of Baker is only open during the summer season. 
  
  
  

  A bristlecone pine along the trail, Great Basin National Park / Rebecca Latson

  
  
  A must-do hike for anybody visiting Great Basin is the Bristlecone Grove Trail. This popular 2.8-mile roundtrip hike takes you over a narrow, rocky, uneven trail up to an elevation of about 10,300 feet, where you can walk a .1-mile loop through a grove of ancient bristlecone pines. These amazing trees range in age from 1,000 – 5,000 years and survive in quite harsh environments. The Great Basin Bristlecone Pines are extremely rare and found only in California, Nevada, and Utah. This trail is not the only one where you can see groves of bristlecones, however. There are other groves within the park, accessed via high-clearance gravel roads and trails, but the most accessible grove is the one mentioned here.
  
  From the Bristlecone Grove Trail, you can hike a mile further up to Wheeler Peak Glacier, “the only glacier in Nevada and one of the southernmost glaciers in the United States.”
  
  If you really feel like stretching your legs, then hike the 8.2-mile roundtrip Wheeler Peak Summit Trail. Start early, take plenty of water, and maybe pack a light jacket to protect against the winds as you maneuver over exposed, rocky terrain near the summit.  Along the way to the turnoff for Wheeler Peak, take the short .1-mile side trail to view Stella Lake (which was more like a Stella “pond” when I visited, due to the season and drought conditions).
  
  The parking areas to the main trailheads located at the end of Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive are not very large and fill quickly, so get there early – by 8 a.m., if not earlier. Once the parking spaces fill, people will park on either side of the narrow, shoulderless road, where I’m not sure they are even supposed to park.
  
  
  

  A night sky view over Doso Doyabi at the Mather Overlook, Great Basin National Park / Rebecca Latson

• Do some stargazing. The Great Basin area has some of the darkest night skies in the United States, thanks to low humidity and its location out in the middle of nowhere, with little light pollution. Mather Overlook is a great place for sitting and staring up at the brilliant pinpoints of starlight with the gauzy arm of the Milky Way over the peak known as Doso Doyabi (formerly known as Jeff Davis Peak).
  
  That unnamed pullout along Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive that I mentioned earlier is also a great place to view the stars. If you feel adventurous and don’t mind traversing an uneven, very rocky trail during the late hours, then Stella Lake offers some great night sky viewing, too. If you are really interested in what you see in the night sky over the park, then check out Great Basin’s astronomy program offerings.
  
  

• You can fish within the park, but there are strict regulations you must follow. You can also gather pine nuts in the park, but only in the fall and subject to regulations. Imagine serving a homemade pesto made with pine nuts from Great Basin National Park!
  
  
  

  A hummingbird on the beeweed, Great Basin National Park / Rebecca Latson

• Bring your binoculars or telephoto lens with you for some birdwatching. I spent a good 20-30 minutes photographing an adorable little hummingbird flitting between the purple Rocky Mountain Beeweed and the bright yellow-gold Arrowleaf Balsamroot at the Great Basin Visitor Center.
  
  
• Explore the park on your own, from auto touring to horseback riding to wild caving. And, speaking of caving, one of the most popular things to do in the park is take a guided tour of Lehman Caves. There are two tours offered for 2021 and I chose the one-hour Parachute Tour. Our group numbered 16 and masks were required. Our intern guide Kelsey was very knowledgeable and great fun. I took the tour because I wanted to get photos and in truth, initially had a sort of “meh” attitude toward the whole thing. I ended up having a great time while learning all sorts of interesting facts for future Traveler quiz questions. The best way to reserve a spot is via recreation.gov. These tours fill quickly and the rangers recommend reserving online rather than attempting to grab a spot as a walk-in. Oh, and once you’ve reserved a spot, please take the time to review the cave rules to prevent the spread of White Nose Syndrome to the resident colony of bats. The cave passages are relatively narrow and the floors are slippery in places from dripping water. In addition to carrying a small flashlight, I recommend wearing a light jacket, since the temperature inside the cave is a steady 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
  
  
  

  Lehman Cave formations, Great Basin National Park / Rebecca Latson

• If you plan to take your pet with you to Great Basin, be aware that this will limit what you can do and see. Click Here for the regulations before packing both pet and water dish.
  
  
• Remember to pack out what you pack in, stay on the trail, take plenty of water and snacks, and give others plenty of space. As much as we would like for things to return to normal, the pandemic is not over. Bring face masks with you since they are required wearing in all park buildings, and don’t forget the hand sanitizer. Remember to “Recreate Responsibly.”