The sky island of Great Basin National Park

West face of Wheeler Park, core of Great Basin NP

 I could see Great Basin National Park long before I could approach the isolated preserve. Try as I might, I could not temper the excitement at hitting a national park I dreamed of visiting for decades. I was far from anywhere in eastern Nevada, but that's what it takes to reach Great Basin. 

A lone white-capped mountain rising from greener foothills becomes visible shortly after Pioche, where the already-desolate U.S. Route 93 becomes the Great Basin Highway, dropping all civilization except for the pavement and the occasional farm or ranch. There’s the ghost town of Atlanta, a failed mining camp populated only by a caretaker. That's not worth a bumpy ride off the paved road. 

Wheeler Peak is the pinnacle of the Snake Range, a 13’er and Nevada’s second-tallest mountain (albeit its most prominent). Wheeler hides Nevada’s only glacier, a shrinking slab of dense ice embedded in a cirque’s steep walls. With the warm winters plaguing the west, its future is dim, and that lonely ice might no longer qualify as a glacier within a decade or two. 

Just its appearance on the horizon urged me forward across these empty miles. After many miles of relentless brown mountains with minimal vegetation beyond sage, juniper, and Gambel oak, such lush mountains provide a welcome respite. 

I finally left U.S. 93 at the junction for U.S. 50, which cuts across the valley west of Wheeler Peak. The path across or around the mountains was unclear until the road swung into the foothills and unofficially signaled another mountain pass to cross. A short, windy stretch carries drivers through a pass in the Snake Range. 

By the time anyone enters Great Basin National Park’s via its main road, a good acquaintance has already been made with Wheeler Peak. Great Basin National Park only protects a tiny portion of the Great Basin, which runs from east of the Wasatch Range only the way to the Sierra Nevada in California.

Blooming aspens, Wheeler Peak Drive

Wheeler Peak and the Snake Range

But the national park definitely protects one of the most delicate, important chunks of real estate in that vast area. During the last Ice Age, much of Utah sat beneath Lake Bonneville, which counts the Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, and Sevier Lake as remnants. 

The national park lands cover a sky island, a series of high-elevation ecosystems wildly different from their surrounding lowlands. In Great Basin’s case, the lowlands don’t support much life at all, as few plants grow in the salt flats to the east. The Snake Range has proven important for other Lake Bonneville remnants – the Lake Bonneville cutthroat trout, a species that had nowhere to go as the lake dwindled into smaller salt lakes, found refuge in the headwater springs of streams that emerge from the Wheeler Peak and the Snake Range. 

Great Basin is a double-edge sword – with virtually no light pollution, it has some of the Lower 48’s darkest night skies. But it also lies hundreds of miles off the beaten path. There are no services for 50-80 miles in any direction outside of Baker, Nevada, the small town at the park’s base. Millions of visitors descend upon the Utah Five national parks. 

With its remote location, Great Basin rarely crests 200,000 visitors annually. With the park visitor center in Baker, five miles from the actual park, you could stop and never set foot in Great Basin. I couldn’t bear that thought after a full day of Nevada wilderness. 

This trip came with a major fault - I visited too early in spring. 

Before I got in the car, I knew that. Wheeler Peak Drive stays closed at the three-mile mark until May. Lehman Cave tours do not open till May. Usually there would be snow on the road, not just the thin amounts on the park's highest elevations. The dry winter did not change those start dates. Still, I would take what I could of Great Basin. It took me years to get here, and who knows when another trip might coalesce. 

Great Basin turkey crossing

Turkey encounter

 

End of the road till May. 

This park felt like an ecstasy of riches, and I just touched upon the edges. But I think I would have to convince someone else of that to return. Upon the Wheeler Peak drive, I spotted movement – a turkey ambled across the road and back into the pine forest. I couldn’t glimpse any of Great basin’s other elusive wildlife. That would require some extensive hiking and full access to the Wheeler Peak Drive. 

Even with the Lehman Caves were closed, I decided to visit the area. The cave visitor center’s small café reopened for April. Chicken fingers sufficed this afternoon, and I grabbed a few Nevada beers for the hotel room that night. 

As Nevada’s longest cave system, Lehman Caves were the initial conserved area in the region, protected as Lehman Caves National Monument in 1922. Local tribes visited the caves, and a homesteader offered tours as early as 1885.  

 Next to the cave visitor center sits the Rhodes Cabin, a cabin from 1928 built by early park rangers to accommodate visitors to Lehman Caves. It has been moved from its original sight, but it represents a different park era, when a 19X11 wood cabin passed for lodgings. 

In 1986, Congress approved rolling Lehman Caves into the new Great Basin National Park, protecting the northern part of the Snake Range. The move was easy enough, since the U.S. Forest Service already covered the Snake Range; the Wheeler Natural Area simply joined the new national park. The southern sections are protected as the Highland Ridge Wilderness. 

From the cave visitor center, one can look down into the past. Lake Bonneville’s waves would have lapped upon shores now covered in salt flats that extend to the next mountain range. That range would have been an island. 

But that was 10,000 years ago. I suspect if I can return to Great Basin in its prime season, I can explore more. The only urgency is to see the glacier, which is already struggling. The Bonneville trout have recovered, and Wheeler Peak seemed to fare better than many Colorado mountains in the snow it received. 

At least the groves of bristlecone pines will still stand and easily outlast most modern visitors to those montane heights.  

Looking downhill at old Bonneville shorelines. 

Eastern Nevada’s lonely road

Nevada and Utah have plenty of contenders for the title of loneliest road, even if U.S. 50 across Nevada earned the name decades ago. 

I knew that awaited me as I took a last walk around the refuge with my friend, said goodbye, and dropped back into the outer edge of Las Vegas for 20-some miles. As soon I as turned north, the city dropped off again. U.S 95 and U.S. 93 connect Vegas to different parts of Nevada, but they compete for which route is more desolate. 

Headed northeast, my drive was all U.S. 93 which connects the state’s population center to a handful of hardscrabble towns and mining ghost towns in Nevada’s vast rural regions. With the impenetrable mountains of Desert National Wildlife Refuge to the west, my only company was satellite radio and fields of Joshua trees. 

Being in such a empty place, I cringed when Lindsay Buckingham’s Holiday Road came on the satellite radio, fearing the National Lampoon’s Vacation song might bode poorly for the many miles ahead without services. Along some drives, I have to hunt for the flourishes. Eventually they arrive. 

 After an hour of high desert, the land suddenly turned green, leading to a pair of reservoirs forming the core of the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge. Taman Spring, which runs behind the visitor center, was dry this morning, but lizards scattered through the underbrush with constant birdsong in the trees. 

Willow flycatchers come to Pahranagat to nest. Others pass through their longtime migration routes. Hope as I might, the golden eagle on the Pahranagat sign was the only one I saw. On the drier hills above the refuge headquarters, Joshua trees grew tall with many arms. I wanted to stay longer, but I arrived way to early for the visitor center to open, and could not hang around. 

 But the green did not last. The little towns faded and the dry vegetation moved back in. The Joshua trees gave way to juniper and other hardy western trees. Crossing passes became a matter of course. Time and mileage stopped mattered; I just moved in my rental car. 

Caliente passes for a big town in this part of Nevada, with restaurants, parks, and a stately train depot from the town’s busier days. Panaca barely registered as two miles north lies one of Nevada’s best-kept secrets, a state park where nature has carved stone temples, spires, and columns from canyon walls. 

 The clear pinnacle of this quiet road lies just off it in Cathedral Gorge State Park. Anyone could miss it, even though it almost hugged the road. Even on a Saturday, it didn’t feel crowded, although an impressive volume of children flowed from every SUV and minivan that parked around the rock formations. After a campground, a dirt road travels a mile or so into the gorge and its unforgettable rock constructs. 

While not a big state park, Cathedral Gorge could pass as a cousin to the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks in Utah. The formations stem from sediments of a freshwater lake that covered the larger valley more than 5 million years ago. Few plants thrive in the gorge’s clay formations. 

That starkness makes them stand out, and the gorge walls feel as if an architect designed them more than natural elements. A stone water tower from the Works Progress Administration stands near the formations; it was capped and closed when the water proved too alkaline to drink. 

Cathedral Gorge deserves far more time than I gave its signature formations. I didn’t hike a trail but wandered around the easily accessible areas of intricate red rocks. 

 A day use area at the park’s north end takes visitors to an overlook atop the canyon where raptors stare for prey and other birds soar. U.S. 93 between Las Vegas and Ely spans many lonely communities. Pioche was the last of any size, set in a series of mountains and mostly blocked from view. 

 It took me many years to take a drive like this, but Nevada truly has a setup unlike any other state. One large massive market (Las Vegas) disconnected from its second-largest (Reno), a suburb-sized state capital, and nothing but tiny towns from its mining days sprinkled elsewhere. 

You have to cross Nye, Lincoln, and White Pine counties to feel how slight the influence of humans can become. I have no regrets for driving that pavement. 

Yet the loneliness on this road became palpable at times. Cathedral Gorge was a good salve. At least a cure was not far away.

Death Valley's expanse to Ash Meadows' pools

Looking south through Death Valley

Pupfish in Kings Pool

A morning trip into Death Valley National Park became unavoidable. But other treasures of the Mohave Desert proved just as spectacular.  

Initially I had no plans to revisit after an epic day from January 2011 took Ben, Jeff, and myself through the park. 

Near Golden Canyon

We took our time and hit all the highlights. Dante’s View and Golden Canyon gave us tremendous views. We visited the rocks at Zabriskie Point and along the Artist’s Point drive. Thanks to torrential January rains, we stood at the edge of an ephemeral lake at Badwater Basin, the lowest natural point in the U.S. We bonded with some surprisingly tame coyotes at the south exit to the park. 

How could I top that? I didn’t even try. But when staying less than two hours from Death Valley, I couldn't rationalize skipping it.  

This trek to Death Valley came due to closeness - Desert National Wildlife Refuge was less than two hours away and the route bypassed Pahrump, passing no towns of any size. 

The drive into Death Valley was still entrancing. Plenty of roadside wildflowers bloomed. The leadup into Death Valley is the Amargosa Valley, which offers its share of stunning vistas. There was no temporary lake this April, although there had been enough water earlier in 2026 for the park service to issue warnings that launching any boat or kayak in the Badwater Basin area was illegal. Mostly I enjoyed seeing the famous Furnace Creek temperature gauge at 70. 

Golden Canyon

No Sand People

No jawas

Wherever I could, I tried to soak in the atmosphere. Soak might be the wrong word in such an arid place, but Death Valley feels otherworldly. If you know there to look, Death Valley presents very familiar alien worlds. 

I hiked in Golden Canyon, this time knowledgeable about its role in the original Star Wars. Here the Jawas stalked the lost R2D2, eventually immobilizing him with a stun gun and hauling him to their Sandcrawler. The slots along the canyon walls provided hiding spots. It was used in a later Tatooine sequence where Luke and C-3PO find R2 after he wanders off to find Obi-Wan. 

Hearty purple flowers

In a hike through the Golden Canyon, it is not difficult to see what appeared into the film. Not a single Jawa could be seen, but they are good at hiding. 

I hoped some of the winter/spring superbloom remained in Death Valley, although most plants had gone to seed already. 

Those that flowered were mostly hardier desert plants a few inches tall but built to withstand the brutal summer heat striking Death Valley. Despite its massive size, Death Valley did not compare to the day’s second stop, the largest cluster of natural springs in the Mohave Desert. 

Just past the California-Nevada border and the obligatory hotel-casino from another era, a little brown sign marked the dirt roads of Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. Had my friend not alerted me, I would have sped past. 

Ash Meadows was off my radar during the 2011 trip through the Amargosa Valley. After learning about its rare treasures, Ash Meadows could not be skipped. 

Ash Meadows covers 23,000 acres of alkaline desert and numerous natural springs. It protects more than two dozen plant and animal species found nowhere else. Among the animals, most are small – insects and fish – but it’s a rare level of biodiversity and endemic species. 

For all its stunning contrast with the dry surrounding desert, Ash Meadows almost went condo. In the early 1980s, developers were already clearing land for houses that would herald the end of the local springs. 

Fortunately, nonprofit conservation groups bought the site and conveyed it to the federal government, creating the national wildlife refuge. 

The refuge also includes the Longstreet cabin, a stone structure built by Old West figure James Longstreet, and its neighboring spring. A house next to a natural water supply allowed people to live quiet well in this scorching desert. 

The first glimpse of Ash Meadows majesty comes at Crystal Spring. A boardwalk loop behind the visitor center travels a one-mile route through salt flats to Crystal Spring, which takes you past the stream running from Crystal Spring. 

Reeds cover the spring, making it virtually impossible to spot the rare pupfish that inhabit those waters. That thin ribbon gives life to the desert with a gentle roll of water, but its reed-covered waters cannot prepare you for the natural beauty of Crystal Spring. 

Upon seeing the majestic blue waters of Crystal Spring, I can’t imagine how anyone could see this as a place for development. I have always tended to side with nature instead of profits at any cost. But there’s a purity to the water in such an inhospitable place that I could not shake. 

Devil's Hole lies somewhere up there

Crystal Spring is notably smaller than a century ago, as some of its waters funnel to the Crystal Reservoir, which allows swimming and kayaking. But the water keeps flowing out at 2,800 gallons a minute. They call it fossil water because it likely fell on the Mohave Desert many thousands of years ago only to resurface with the desert drier than ever. 

Within Ash Meadows boundaries lies Devil’s Hole, a detached unit of Death Valley, a uniquely deep pool with 90-degree ancient water, an unknown depth, and the ability to register waves when earthquakes occur thousands of miles of away. It has a unique resident in the Devil’s Hole pupfish, which exists only in the pool and is critically endangered. 

Due to past trespassers, the overlook of Devil’s Hole has heavy restrictions and does not provide the best views, especially for translucent fish less than an inch long. Although I was tempted, the rough road to Devil’s Hole and limited visibility led me elsewhere. 

Fortunately, Ash Meadows has much better viewing spots for rare pupfish found only in its pools. The desert plants around Crystal Spring make fish viewing difficult, but they reveal themselves readily in the springs in Kings Pool at Point of Rock Springs. Surrounded by mesquite trees and many bird species, a short boardwalk runs through this collection of springs.

Point of Rock area

King Pool at Point of Rock

Pupfish habitat

From a hilltop above Point of Rocks, viewing scopes under a canopy allow visitors to scan the Devils Hole Hills for desert bighorn sheep. I didn’t see any, but the pupfish are the chief attraction here. 

The pupfish are tiny, barely visible but they come in a variety of colors including green and deep blue. I watched them far longer than I expected as the sunlight caught their scales and occasional stiff winds blurred the King Pool’s surface. 

North of Desert NWR and east of Death Valley lies the infamous Area 51, the supposed holding area for UFOs. As a top-secret military installation, Area 51 has no actual visitor center, but a few businesses around the region snapped up that mantel. 

Amargosa Valley is not much more than a rest area and a few gas stations, including the so-called Area 51 visitor center, a giant tourist trap with scores of T-shirts and other alien-related souvenirs. Next to the visitor center Alien Cathouse, a strip club that never closes. 

I doubt anything extraterrestrial was in a hurry to beam down there. If alien visitors travelled as far as the Death Valley region, hopefully they would have the sense to spend their time at the rare springs at Ash Meadows.

The unforgettable pupfosh

Friend of the Desert

Approaching Corn Creek below the Sheep Range

After hustling through Albuquerque with no traffic and a full moon descending, I was not prepared for Las Vegas rush hour. A typical 4-6 evening rush hour felt unlikely, but traffic crawled through town. 

Before I dove into the stream of cars, I stopped off at the Lake Mead overlook, where the bathtub ring of past shorelines and dry bays dominated one of the West's most critical water sources. I walked in the small desert gardens around the visitor center to stretch my legs after having barely left the car since Ash Fork, Arizona.  

Lake Mead

Occasional glimpses of the Strip were as close as I got to gambling. After an hour of grinding along, all the cars vanished, as did the Vegas sprawl. 

I crossed an Indian reservation boundary, then turned toward an isolated path of green in a broad valley hemmed by brown, craggy mountains. Only a simple sign indicated I headed in the right direction, while other signs urged me to drive like a tortoise. that gave me hope I might run into an endangered desert tortoise (I didn't).

The Desert National Wildlife Refuge preserves the green patch, the mountains, and everything between, forming the largest national wildlife refuge in the Lower 48. Its 1.5 million acres cover dusty roads, recluse cabins, bristlecone pines at its highest elevations, and everything east to Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge. To the east, the striped mountains of the Sheep Range offer visitor s a glimpse back in time, those belts of rock developed in past geologic eras. 

Beyond Corn Creek, the backcountry roads are strictly for high-clearance, 4-wheel-drive vehicles. One can journey 70 miles without sight of civilization. Sometimes even those primitive roads are impassable. The desert bighorn sheep protected by the refuge rarely appear near Corn Creek, sticking to the mountains and often living off water sources there (water is flown to backcountry bins during dry years). The refuge headquarters its share of delights. 

The visitor center stands adjacent to Corn Creek, the rush of spring water that makes life in this desert possible. Several trails run through the oasis. Birds, lizards, snakes, and more resided here. I didn’t see a desert tortoise, but they have been known to amble through, as have coyotes. Standing in such an arid place and hearing the healthy gurgle of Corn Creek just gives me a little hope in this world. 

After all, this place survives against the odds. Protection has kept the water running, as development has sapped the waters of springs around the southwest, the best known being the springs around which the original Las Vegas settlement formed (they ran dry in 1960). The reeds, mesquite and other trees brought surprises around each corner. 

Corn Creek contains Pahrump poolfish, a tiny species of critically endangered fish who could no longer survive in its native springs due to the introduction of goldfish. They thrive in Corn Creek, which has pushed them back from extinction. In one slower stretch along the creek, they numbered in the dozens. 

An onsite refugium provides tanks to poolfish populations before they are reintroduced to the wild. Even in a safe place, the poolfish face threats The refuge must be vigilant against people dumping goldfish – how this is a thing, I’ll never understand. But people do it, and goldfish could quickly wipe out the Pahrump poolfish. The refuge also maintains a small reservoir pool to keep introduced crayfish from entering the creek, as crayfish are difficult to remove once introduced and prey upon poolfish. 

Railroad tie cabin, early 1900s

Before it became a refuge, a family homesteaded the property. Evidence of the Richardson family’s years on the land runs strong. The cabin they built from railroad ties from the failed Las Vegas-Tonopah Railroad still stands and looks livable after a renovation. 

The family’s bigger impact lies in what they brought with them - they planted fruit trees, including pomegranates, that still produce fruit. 

Pomegranate blossoms

The pomegranate trees were orange with orange blossoms in early April. The native plants grow tall along Corn Creek, a sharp break from the sage and Joshua trees that dominate the refuge’s lower elevations. Prickly pear cacti popped with brilliant pink flowers across the Corn Creek area. 

After a recent heat spell, the surprises did not include any snakes although lizards were plentiful.

This week, temperatures settled in the 70s but quickly plummeted to the low 40s after sunset. The cold was refreshing so long as I wore enough layers. One night the wind rushed all night, the other was still. Both were cold, I woke up recharged from sleeping in such a peaceful place. 

Visitor center pond

The modern visitor center also served as a break from heavy driving. My friend served as a volunteer and artist-in-residence. On Fridays she hosts a watercolor journaling workshop. We looked out onto the Corn Creek oasis, then drew and painted. I sat in front of the desert plants and trees, although my painting a crystal spring at their bases that doesn’t exist. The creek runs there, but the foliage is too dense to see the water there. 

Visitors came and went through the day until its sunset closing. A family from Illinois came to see the place they walked regularly when they lived in Vegas. Young lovers found a bench from where they planned to watch the sunset. 

Full moon, Vegas haze

The only influence of the Las Vegas everyone knows was the light pollution along the southern horizon. The dark skies still popped with stars and the Milky Way glow, at least until the full moon rose from the southeast. By morning the moon began its steady descent over the western mountains. Once first light broke, the birds began to pipe up. 

Each morning, I woke, then raced out to enjoy the calm moments before sunrise. On the last day, the sun emerged a little too fast, as I wanted to keep the chill in my bones along Corn Creek as long as I could. But it would fade as the oasis came to life in bird song.