Top 2 Things to Do in Great Basin National Park

After three fun but busy weeks in San Diego, we are back on the road! It was great to see our friends and family! We love you all! One of the main reasons we were back in San Diego was to turn in the Fiat as the lease was up. We needed a new car and decided we wanted a Jeep. They are easy to tow, we would no longer need the tow dolly since it can be flat towed, and they are fun! After weeks of searching, we finally found a 2014 Wrangler Unlimited Sport. The color name is Amp’d, but depending on the light it varies between yellow, gold, and orange.

Our first destination was Great Basin National Park in Nevada. One great thing about this park is that it’s FREE! Looking for things to do in Great Basin National Park? We share our top two things to do including driving Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive as the views are stunning and hiking to Bristlecone Pine Grove to learn about these ancient trees including one that is 3200 years old and still living. Don’t have time to read this now?

Great Basin National Park

This was our eleventh national park. See our National Parks page for the park list by state. The drive to Great Basin National Park was beautiful. We expected Nevada to be a dry desert so we were surprised by the number of green mountains and plains once you get north past Las Vegas.

Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive

Once we got to Great Basin we decided to drive the Jeep up Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive. The top of this 12-mile scenic drive is over a 3000 feet elevation gain from the Lehman Caves Visitor Center. The views were stunning of the surrounding areas that you can see for miles.

After the drive, we headed to the Ranger talk on Astronomy, but due to a spontaneous monsoon rainstorm, the presentation was canceled after only fifteen minutes. We were bummed as they had quite a few large lens telescopes that auto-track objects in the sky. It has been a while since we had a chance to look through a telescope and I was looking forward to seeing what different constellations we could see.

Bristlecone Trail

The next day we hiked Bristlecone Trail which ended at Bristlecone Pine Grove. There were signs that explained the lives and significance of the ancient Bristlecone Pine trees. We were amazed at how old these trees were. There are four pictures below with some interesting facts from these signs.

From Bristlecone Trail we continued a little way on the Glacier Trail. This lead us to the only glacier in Nevada, nestled beneath Wheeler Peak. It gets to be a glacier because it snows more in the winter than it melts in the summer so there is snow year-round. I was shocked that yes, there was still a little bit of snow left and it’s September!

One of the unique things about Great Basin National Park is that it’s free. It is out in the middle of nowhere and from what we read it never gets busy. One day we didn’t see another person on our hike. Another thing we liked about this park was the cool temperature. After hiking in Utah during the summer it was nice to hike in the fresh, cool air.

Looking for things to do in Nevada? Take a look at our Nevada articles.

Great Basin National Park Pictures