Our primary purpose of coming to central Nevada was to visit Great Basin National Park (our 43rdNP). The park encompasses the southern portion of the Snake Range. We tried to find accommodations closer to the park, but there is very little in the town of Baker, just outside the park. Even the RV parks could not handle big rigs. So if we had brought the Wanderer we still would have ended up in Ely. It’s a 1:15 hour drive each way between the Park and Ely, but we decided it was acceptable. We drove to the park this morning with the intention of going to the visitor center and driving the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive. Surprisingly, the visitor center was fully open, but it is very small. It does have a small café and store with a few exhibits. It reminded us of the Big Bend visitor center in the 1980s. We saw that all the camp grounds were sold out for the weekend, but it just did not seem like there was a lot of people. After buying our park hat and postcards, we headed out on the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive. From the town of Baker, the park rises over 8000 feet to the top of Mt. Wheeler (13,000 ft in altitude). The Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive takes you to just under 10,000 feet in altitude with majestic views of the basins below the mountains. On Mt. Wheeler, the remnants of Rock Glacier are barely visible. Rock Glacier is the furthest south glacier in the US. The drive ends at a large parking lot for trails into the subalpine forests below Wheeler Peak. We plan to come back and hike to the Bristlecone Pine Cove in a couple of days. We also took the time to drive through some of the campgrounds to get a feel for what they were like. We then headed back to Ely. After a quick stop at the hotel to check on Etta, we went to the White Pine County Fair. It was a tiny fair with very few vendors and only one play house for the kids. We arrived in time to catch the last horse race of the day. Even though it was only a small county fair horse race, it was every bit as exciting as the big races as the jockey guided the thundering horses around the track. Nevadans take their horse racing very seriously!
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| Entrance Sign |
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| Wheeler Peak from overlook. |
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| Mount Wheeler with the remains of Rock Glacier at its base |
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| Looking down into the valley from Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive |
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| As the horses come around the corner into the home stretch |
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| Deer at end of Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive |
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