Artichokes? Yeah, we have a festival for those!

Castroville Artichoke Festival happens the weekend of May 19-20, 2012 in the little town of Castroville about 16 miles north of Monterey. This is the 53rd festival. Looks to me like the festival started in 1960, the year I was born not too many miles away from Castroville across the fields of Monterey County. Though back in 1960 some of those fields between Castroville and Monterey were artillery ranges at the former Fort Ord Army Base. Read More…

Big Sur is a place, a region, a destination, a mindset, a way of life.

Big Sur is Highway 1, the Santa Lucia Mountains, hairpin road turns and crumbling rocky hillsides where cliffs drop to the sea; sometimes taking the road pavement in the process. Read More…

Spring weather along the central California coast is one of the best times of the year to visit the beach towns.

Harbor seal pups on the beach at Hopkins Marine Station, Pacific Grove, CA (4-19-12)

April and May are the months for seeing seal pups. These little pups are survivors and start feeding on their own after just a few months. Read More…

The Truckee River is a place I swam on sweltering summer days in the middle of the city of Reno as a teenager. Paiute Indian friends took me camping a couple of times in large boulder outcrops hundreds of yards from the shore around Pyramid Lake, the Great Basin desert sink where the Truckee River terminates at the end of its journey down the Sierras from Lake Tahoe.

There was little recognition happening when I drove by places where I think I once lived in Reno, Nevada. Freeways, shopping malls, and new business parks did nothing to stir memories of places from when I lived in the ‘biggest little city in the world’ for a few months in 1978.

Water was a running theme of my summer road trip from Monterey to Denver. Sitting in bed at the Holiday Inn Reno Sparks with a AAA Guidebook and Maps and Google to look up highway drive reviews aided my search for the most desirable route across the Sierra Nevada for our trip home.

Interstate 80 and U.S. Highway 50 around Lake Tahoe both lead to Sacramento. We really did not want to drive through Sacramento on our way back to Monterey. Besides, U.S. Highway 50 and Interstate 80 are the only roads I had driven across the Sierra Nevada prior to driving Tioga Pass Road in Yosemite National Park for the outbound route to Denver on this road trip.

I wanted to drive one of the other Sierra Nevada road crossings. There are very few roads crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California over its 400 miles north-south range and 70 miles in width. The southern end of the range has Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the lower 48 states at 14,505 ft.

Heading out of the Holiday Inn Reno-Sparks

Driving from Reno south are three paved, mostly two-lane state highways crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains between Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park with California Highways 88, 4 and 108. Every east-west road has a summit pass and they are all high elevation and relative to each other are higher the farther south you go to cross the mountain range.

There is nearly a 200 mile stretch of mountains in the southern portion of the Sierra Nevada Mountains where no east-west roads cross the range between Highway 120 Tioga Pass at Yosemite National Park and Highway 178 Walker Pass by Lake Isabella northeast of Bakersfield where the highway crosses near the southern end of the range. Kings Canyon National Park offers a road deep into the western canyons of the Sierra Nevada in the middle of this wilderness and I described the Highway 180 drive last May.

North to South Sierra Nevada Highway Crossings

• Interstate 80 – Donner Summit = 7,259 ft.
• U.S. Highway 50 – Echo Summit = 7,377 ft.
• California State Highway 88 – Kit Carson Pass Highway = 8,573 ft.
• California State Highway 4 – Ebbits Pass Highway = 8,730 ft.
• California State Highway 108 – Sonora Pass Highway = 9,624 ft.
• California State Highway 120 – Tioga Pass Yosemite N.P. = 9,945 ft.
• California State Highway 178 – Walker Pass – 5,250 ft.
• California State Highway 58 – Tehachapi Pass – 4,065 ft. (route to Las Vegas from central California)

The mountain passes increase in elevation heading south with no roads over the high mountains in the southern portion of the Sierra Nevada range south of Yosemite. Here is a map showing only Sierra Nevada highway roads. Walker Pass and Tehachapi Pass are the southern end of the Sierra Nevada.

 

Highway 88 – Kit Carson Pass Highway

The Sierra Nevada physical geography is a gradual rise from the central valley of California to foothills and mountains from west to east. The highest peaks in the eastern portion of the range suddenly drop off into the Great Basin desert of eastern California and Nevada. The geological landscape of the Sierra Nevada creates unique weather conditions resulting in huge snowfall amounts in winter and strong wind currents year round.

The strong wind currents create ideal glider thermal soaring conditions in the area south of Carson City. Barron Hilton, grandfather of Paris Hilton and son of Hilton hotel chain founder Conrad Hilton owns the Flying M Ranch in Nevada. The ranch is a popular location for glider competitions and located about 60 miles south of Reno with its own airfield.

Steve Fossett took off from the Flying M Ranch the day he died in a 2007 solo crash about 65 miles south of the Nevada ranch and five miles west of Mammoth Lakes, California. A documentary I saw on the accident investigation showed extreme wind conditions were likely the cause of the crash in the high mountains of the Sierra Nevada.

 

Who was Kit Carson and why is a mountain pass in California named after him?

Seeing the name of Kit Carson got me wondering what the guy was doing in California. Carson River was one of the main water routes into the Sierra Nevada along the California Trail that pioneers reached after crossing the Forty Mile Desert from the Humboldt River that flows east to west in Nevada.

Wikipedia is my friend.

Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson truly was a legend in his own time. He was born in Kentucky in 1809 as the eleventh child of his father and the family moved to Missouri when he was one year old. They purchased land from Daniel Boone’s son. Kit’s father died when he was eight and he was apprenticed to a saddle maker at the age of 14 in Franklin, Missouri on the north bank of the Missouri River.

Franklin, Missouri’s location was the terminus of the newly created Santa Fe Trail used as a trade route between the United States and Mexico. The Santa Fe Trail followed the Arkansas and Cimarron Rivers across present-day Kansas and Colorado through Comanche Indian territory to reach Santa Fe, Mexico at that time and now present-day New Mexico.

Kit Carson signed on to tend livestock with a caravan heading to Santa Fe when he was 16 and stayed in Taos. In his twenties Kit lived the wild west mountain man life as a fur trapper/trader traveling across much of the western U.S. including Arizona and as far west as Sacramento, California and north into Montana and Idaho. He learned to speak Spanish and several Native American tribal dialects. Throughout the 1830s he trapped beaver throughout the western U.S. from Idaho to Colorado until the beaver became scarce and the economy hit recession reducing beaver pelt value.

In 1842 Kit Carson met John Fremont, son-in-law of Missouri U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton. Fremont worked with the Corps of Topographical Engineers and had spent several years mapping the Mississippi, Missouri and Des Moines Rivers. Fremont needed a guide for an expedition into the South Park region of the Colorado Rocky Mountains and searching the source of the Arkansas River. My Loyalty Traveler post ‘Driving by the 14ers South Park to Aspen, Colorado‘ has pictures and a description of Colorado’s South Park.

The five-month journey into the Colorado Rocky Mountains was written up by Jessie Benton Fremont, wife of John Fremont. From what I have read, Jessie Benton Fremont was the woman who elevated John Fremont’s political standing as her writing of her husband’s travels is what Congress received as John Fremont’s American West exploration reports.

Fremont received another commission to explore the American West for territorial expansion and with Kit Carson as guide they explored the Sierra Nevada of California and Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest as far as Washington state from 1842 to 1846.

Jessie Benton Fremont’s Congressional reports made the two men national heroes.

Fremont’s reports were published by Congress and used as guides for the emigrant migration west in the 1840s and the routes to California during the Gold Rush era.

Kit Carson Pass on what is now Highway 88 in California was mapped in 1844 when John Fremont and Kit Carson attempted a winter crossing of the Sierra Nevada in February against the advice of local Indians. Fremont is reported to be the first white to see Lake Tahoe. The party successfully crossed the Sierra Nevada in about five weeks over what is now called Kit Carson Pass reaching Sutter’s Fort near Sacramento in early March 1844 with no loss of members from the exploration party. In 1849 Mormons heading back to Utah from California built a trail across Carson Pass. This route was the most traversed route across the Sierra Nevada during the California Gold Rush.

John Fremont headed out to California in 1845 and helped initiate the Mexican-American War of 1846 in California by establishing a camp with an American flag on a mountain peak overlooking Monterey Bay and Monterey, which at the time was the Mexican political capital of Alta California.

Fremont was evicted and headed north to Oregon Territory, but soon returned after the war officially started and as a lieutinent colonel in the California Battalion he led assualts on San Diego and Los Angeles.

Kit Carson was dispatched east to report the conquest of California by Fremont and Commodore Stockton to Washington D.C. In New Mexico Carson met General Kearney who ordered Kit Carson to lead his army unit across Arizona and back to San Diego, California. The Mexicans had recaptured San Diego and Los Angeles and Kearney’s unit helped recapture these towns for the Americans and end the war in California.

The Treaty of Cahuenga in January 1847 ended the California war and Fremont was appointed military governor of California by Commodore Stockton.

Kit Carson, having never made it past Taos, New Mexico the year before, was sent back to Washington, D.C. a second time to report the conquest of California to Congress and the President. He made it to D.C. and after briefing political leaders Carson was ordered back to California. The guy earned a lot of frequent rider miles before settling in Taos, New Mexico in 1849.

Fremont refused to turn authority over to General Stephen Watts Kearney in 1847 who was officially designated Governor of California by President Polk and the War Secretary. Fremont was eventually arrested and court martialed. President Polk commuted the sentence to a dishonorable discharge from miltary service. Fremont returned to California, settling near Mariposa and he was elected as one of the first two senators in California.

In 1856 John Fremont was the first presidential candidate of the Republican Party running on the anti-slavery and manifest destiny platform of ”Free Soil, Free Men and Fremont.” The election of anti-slavery candidate John Fremont could have sparked the Civil War. Senator Benton, Fremont’s father-in-law and a powerful Democratic Party leader backed James Buchanan who won the Presidential election of 1856. Four years later Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln, who lost in his bid to be the Vice Presidential candidate on the Fremont 1856 ticket, was elected U.S. President and the Civil War ensued.

History lesson over.

There is far more historical information than travel information in this post. I found it interesting upon returning home to read how these historical figures played major roles in the places I drove all across the western states on this trip from Monterey to Denver.

This road trip helped me connect geography with political history in California and the western states. Road tripping gives a person plenty of time to observe and think.

Brokeass Mountain Road Trip, July 2011

Monterey, California – Denver, Colorado

• Yosemite’s Tioga Pass Road across the Sierra Nevada Mountains
• Westin Monache Resort Mammoth for year round vacations
• Even Lonelier than the Loneliest Road in America
• Earth’s Oldest Trees in Great Basin National Park Nevada
• Less extreme than 127 Hours in Utah
• Brokeass Mountain Tour eastbound – Hotel Value at High Elevation
• Brokeass Mountain Tour visits Starwood in Denver
• Driving by the 14ers South Park to Aspen, Colorado
• Top of the Rockies on the High Road to Aspen – Independence Pass 12,095 feet.
• St. Regis Aspen – Too Late to Cancel
• Aspen, Colorado to Park City, Utah: Ghost lands of Buffalo Soldiers, Utes and Dinosaurs
• The California Trail across Nevada
• Homeward Bound – Carson Pass Highway 88 over the Sierra Nevada to Monterey

 

The drive across Nevada I-80 is a drive I’ve made about a dozen times in the past thirty years. More than once I shared the joke with strangers along the way during this Brokeass Mountain Tour that 12 years had passed since Kelley and I drove Interstate 80 across Nevada and time fades away memories, especially when washed down with intervening years of beer.

Salt Lake City to Monterey, California is 830 miles and a stopover in Reno is a convenient and generally cheap hotel place to rest before venturing up the Sierra Nevada Mountains into California. The drive from Salt Lake City to Reno is 520 miles on Interstate 80 with very few places to stop for gas and food. Wendover, Wells, Elko, Battle Mountain, Winnemucca and Lovelock are the six locations for services over the 500 miles of Great Basin desert and mountains ranges.

Leaving Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City is located on the southeastern edge of Great Salt Lake between the lake and the rugged peaks of the Wasatch Mountains at 9,000 to over 11,000 feet dominating the eastern skyline of the city.

I read an article as we drove out of Salt Lake City about Utah’s restrictive alcohol sale laws. The realization came to me that I spent about 42 hours in Utah, but never once tried to buy a beer. I bought a case of beer at Costco before leaving Monterey and I had a 12 pack of beer from Denver while driving west across Utah. Bar hopping in Park City might have been more of a challenge than biking down a ski slope.

The I-80 freeway rides up right against the Great Salt Lake for several miles, but highway concrete dividers were hard to see over for good views of the lake.

Those hotel commercials for “I should have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express” actually worked in our case. Kelley was back to her normal lovable self after two rough days as a couple driving in the mountains. She kept repeating to me as we drove across the Great Basin deserts, “Remember, I don’t like the mountains.”

Interstate 80 out of Salt Lake City is flat.

There are some mountains on the southwest side of the Great Salt Lake in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Deseret Peak is 11,031 feet.

And on the other side of the mountains back to flat in the Great Salt Desert. This is home to Bonneville Salt Flats State Park in Utah.

Kelley actually drove all 500+ miles on the way to Reno, so I had the chance to take plenty of photos of Nevada desert lands. But looking at my phone pictures I see I didn’t.

West Wendover, Nevada

West Wendover, Nevada at the Utah state line is 120 miles west of Salt Lake City on Interstate-80.

A rude awakening results after crossing a hundred miles of Great Salt Lake Desert and physically flat miles and miles of salt flats to the blue horizon sky to find a poltical creation of commerce in the center of the desert replace the natural environment. The liberal laws of Nevada create an environment where for a couple of minutes deep in the desert the salt flats and mountain scenery are overshadowed by casino lights, hotels, fast food places, billboards and a neon flashing Strip Club sign visible from the freeway. Lap dances are just dollars away from the freeway.

Hotels, food and lapdances have kept West Wendover a bustling dot in the wild west for more than a century. AAA Guidebook says the area around Wendover is where US Air Force pilots trained for dropping the atomic bombs in WWII. The AAA map actually has large all cap font locator GREAT SALT LAKE DESERT, and in a smaller font shows Wendover Air Force Auxillary Field across the same desert lands of western Utah, south of Interstate 80. North of Interstate 80 is Hill Air Force Range.

And all this science I don’t understand
It’s just my job five days a week

     -Elton John – ‘Rocket Man’

In August 1983 Kelley and I drove back to Monterey from Denver on Interstate 80 leaving Salt Lake City at night after a rough day trying to sleep in a tent as we camped in the 100 degree heat of downtown SLC. We recall that trip as one of our stupidest travel ideas ever. The logic for our 1983 road trip in her Honda Civic with no air conditioning was to drive at night when it was cool and sleep during the day in a tent.

I recall every place we camped that trip as a sweat lodge endurance test.

The point of bringing up the 1983 trip is we saw a multi-million dollar light show crossing the Great Salt Lake Desert that night under Reagan’s watch. I estimate we saw missiles frequently shooting across the night sky for more than an hour in a display of fiery light I say rivaled any fireworks show I’ve ever seen. I think you need to have been in a war zone to have seen anything else like it.

Seeing the Air Force Testing Range on the AAA Utah map brought back that memory of a past desert crossing.

Pequop Summit

The highest point of Interstate 80 in Nevada is located in the sixty mile stretch between West Wendover and Wells where the road crosses the Pequop Mountains and Pequop Summit sits at 6,987 feet. Kelley had one day respite from the oxygen deprived air at 8,500+ feet. The Sierra Nevada still awaits as pioneers heading west to California for the gold fields discovered 160 years ago.

Since I mislabeled some photos in Utah in yesterday’s post, I will state that I am not certain this photo is Pequop Summit. It was taken at one of the summits on I-80 in eastern Nevada.

The California Trail

Humboldt River in Nevada begins as Humboldt Wells at a spring in the eastern Humboldt Mountains. These desert places are named for 19th century German scientist Alexander von Humboldt. I find it interesting to see so many western state place names for a man who primarily explored South America. The guy spent time with President Thomas Jefferson in 1804 in Washington D.C., but never traveled north of Mexico City in the North America interior. I studied several years at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. I have also seen Humboldt University in Berlin.

The California emigrants in the mid-19th century traveled to Idaho and then headed south from Fort Hall on the Snake River near modern day Pocatello, Idaho. The objective was reaching the Humboldt River and following the river west from the Ruby Mountains for 300 miles where the river ends in the Humboldt Sink.

The Great Basin rivers all terminate in the basin region. Bear River is the largest and terminates in the Great Salt Lake. Humboldt River crosses much of Nevada, but terminates almost 100 miles from Reno.

The big story of the day while driving across the Nevada desert was a judge’s order stating the wild Mustang horse roundup could go ahead. Kelley and I saw wild horses when we drove east across Nevada on Highway 6, about 200 miles south of Interstate 80.

The roundup started as we were driving through Nevada and went through the month of August to round up 1,300 horses from a population estimated to be 2,200 horses in the region around the Ruby Mountains between Elko and Ely, Nevada. That is around 15% of the total wild horse population of Nevada. BLM says the area can only sustain 500 to 900 wild horses. 12 horses died in the six week roundup.

A federal judge refused to halt the roundup, but issued a temporary restraining order in the last week of the wild horse roundup banning mistreatment of the mustangs. An RJG.com piece on the Wild Horse Freedom Federation federal lawsuit against President Obama’s Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar has YouTube video link with a 10-minute video showing a contractor working the BLM wild mustang roundup chasing horses in a helicopter August 5, 2011. One of the horses seen in the video was one of the 12 roundup deaths.

“I have my freedom but I don’t have much time
Faith has been broken, tears must be cried
Let’s do some living, after we die”

     -Rolling Stones – ‘Wild Horses’

Forty Mile Desert

Modern technology propelled us 500 miles across the desert stretches of Utah and Nevada in a mere eight hours with time to eat a fast-food meal and fill up the gas tank. The pioneer emigrants on the California Trail were doing well to make the journey in a month.

Traveling with oxen, mules, cows and horses required plenty of water and grass to maintain the animals. The emigrant trails west followed river sources. The most treacherous section of the California Trail journey was just one hundred miles from Reno. A few miles southwest of Lovelock, Nevada on I-80 is where the Humboldt River ends at the Humboldt Sink. Forty miles of desert with no water sources separate the end of the Humboldt River from the Truckee River that flows east from Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada through Reno to drain into the Great Basin’s Pyramid Lake. Another more southerly route required a different forty mile desert crossing to reach the Carson River. Wagons had to be hauled across these forty mile stretches of desert that were lined in the  1850s with carcasses by the thousands before the railroad crossed Nevada.

Forty Mile Desert, an alkali wasteland, was the most dreaded portion of the entire 2,000 mile California Trail journey according to a place marker at the rest area at the intersection of Interstate-80 and US Route 95.

A trail survey from 1850 counted:

• 1,061 dead mules
• almost 5,000 horses
• 3,750 cattle
• 953 graves

The California Trail route was most heavily used from 1849 to 1859. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 opened the west to far more emigrants.

Emigrant pioneers still required another month of travel from Forty Mile Desert across the Sierra Nevada into the Central Valley of California.

Kelley and I checked into the Holiday Inn Sparks-Reno on a PointBreaks night about 90 minutes later.

After a good night’s sleep we had one more off-the-interstate road journey remaining before arriving home in Monterey as I planned to take us over Carson Pass on Highway 88 over the California Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Brokeass Mountain Road Trip, July 2011

Monterey, California – Denver, Colorado

• Yosemite’s Tioga Pass Road across the Sierra Nevada Mountains
• Westin Monache Resort Mammoth for year round vacations
• Even Lonelier than the Loneliest Road in America
• Earth’s Oldest Trees in Great Basin National Park Nevada
• Less extreme than 127 Hours in Utah
• Brokeass Mountain Tour eastbound – Hotel Value at High Elevation
• Brokeass Mountain Tour visits Starwood in Denver
• Driving by the 14ers South Park to Aspen, Colorado
• Top of the Rockies on the High Road to Aspen – Independence Pass 12,095 feet.
• St. Regis Aspen – Too Late to Cancel
• Aspen, Colorado to Park City, Utah: Ghost lands of Buffalo Soldiers, Utes and Dinosaurs
• The California Trail across Nevada

 

There truly are few roads crossing the canyonlands and mountains of Utah besides Interstates 80, 15 and 70 in the west and east directions. Historic transportation routes across the Great Basin deserts are relatively close to present-day Interstate 80 and Highway U.S. 50.

Getting off the interstate for much of the road trip across the deserts from Colorado to California was one of my objectives during the July 2011 road trip I dubbed Brokeass Mountain Tour.

After one night at the St. Regis Aspen we drove Interstate 70 for 27 miles west from Glenwood Springs to Rifle, Colorado where I headed north on two-lane Colorado State Highway 13, rather than drive Interstate 70 west into Utah.

Colorado Highway 13 travels through high country cattle grazing land loaded with elk crossing signs, although we didn’t see any elk, only cattle on this drive.

My objective was connecting to US Route 40, the major east-west highway across northern Colorado. Forty miles north of Interstate-70 is Meeker, Colorado and we turned onto Colorado State Highway 64 and followed the White River flowing west. The road had recently been scraped clean of mud and Flood Warning signs were still posted along the road. Record breaking rainfall had hit the Rocky Mountains just two days before in places like Breckenridge and Aspen. The road looked like the rains had washed mud from the mountains right across the road for several miles.

Meekeris one of those small towns with a significant history. A battle between the Union Army and the Ute Indians in September 1879 resulted in the tribal lands being confiscated and the removal of the White River Utes of Colorado to the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in northeastern Utah. This reservation is located in eastern Utah between US Route 40 and Interstate 70.

The historic Colorado Hotel in Glenwood Springs has a Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Suite.

Apparently T.R. also did some mountain lion hunting based out of Meeker, CO.

An aerial view of the White River Valley around Meeker and the “China Wall” reveals the ruggedness of the western Colorado outback.

Highway 64 follows the White River through the western Colorado outback. This is the wild west where there aren’t many towns or people or paved roads. The realization that there are thousands of miles of paved road connecting small towns dozens of miles apart across the western U.S. created an alluring appeal for me to explore these sparsely populated places of hidden beauty that are bypassed by the vast majority of travelers on an interstate journey through Colorado and Utah.

Throughout my life I learned plenty of history from song references and one of the songs that connected with me during this drive from Colorado to Utah is Bob Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier”.

Buffalo soldier in the heart of america

If you know your history

then you would know where you coming from.

~Bob Marley – Buffalo Soldier

Buffalo Soldiers were involved in the 1879 relocation of Utes from the White River region of Colorado to the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in Utah. Henry Johnson was a Buffalo Soldier recipient of the Medal of Honor for actions at the Milk River Battle in Colorado 1879. Here is a fascinating historical lens to the Indian Wars and Colorado from an October 3, 1879 New York Times article describing the White River 1879 problems with reference to a buffalo soldier military unit in Colorado.

Kenney Reservoir on Highway 64 near Rangely, Colorado.

Future western states road trips will likely be solo since exploring the remote west is not such an alluring trip ticket for my wife who would much rather be exploring the historic cities of Europe.

The Colorado Plateau

The Colorado Plateau extends from the Grand Canyon region of Arizona in the southeastern portion of the Plateau to the Green River canyons of northeastern Utah and Yampa River in northwestern Colorado where the rivers converge at Dinosaur National Monument park.

The Green River is the largest tributary river to the Colorado River from its source in the Wyoming Rocky Mountains where it drains the high plateau on a course through Utah.

Driving I-70 east into Colorado Kelley and I figured Fruita, the first city where we drove adjacent to the flooded Colorado River, was a place for growing fruit, but why was Grand Junction, named Grand?

The AAA guide suggested Grand Junction’s name was due to its transportation junction location. Turns out the Colorado River from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to where it joins the Green River in Canyonlands National Park, Utah was named the Grand River up until 1921 when Edward T. Taylor, U.S. Representative from Colorado  introduced a resolution to rename the headwaters section of the river in the state of Colorado as the Colorado River.

The Green River has a much larger watershed than the Colorado River before they converge at Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah. The Yampa River is the second largest river in Utah and primarily runs west from Streamboat Springs, Colorado to where it joins the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument.

Dinosaur National Monument

The area north of US Route 40 in northwest Colorado and northeast Utah is dinosaur country. The Dinosaur National Monument Quarry Visitor Center has been in a temporary structure since 2006 when the main center closed for safety reasons. The new Dinosaur Quarry Center rebuilt using funds from the Obama stimulus package American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will reopen next week on October 4, 2011.

Traveling from Dinosaur, Colorado to Vernal, Utah reminded me of the economic divide we used to experience when living in Downeast Maine and crossing the border into Canada where the standard of living was visibly higher. Vernal, Utah has money, lots of major chain hotels, restaurants and fast food joints and the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum for a chance to see dinosaur fossils and full size replicas without having to drive to the Dinosaur National Monument.

There were several good dinosaur models I saw in Vernal, Utah while driving through town, but no pictures. The photo above was taken outside the Field Museum during my trip to Chicago in October 2010.

The Uintah Basin, Utah

The Uintah Reservation of the Ute Indians runs through the Uintah Basin south of the Uintah Mountains where the highest peaks in Utah are located. This part of Utah is still sparsely populated and while predominantly a white citizenry, the largest town of Roosevelt was founded by homesteaders and not Mormons. The Uintah Basin was developed beginning in 1906 by homesteaders  with paid claims who bought land within the Uintah Indian Reservation at $1.25 per acre allowed by the Dawes Act as a way to integrate Native Americans with the American emigrant population.

Fort Duchesne is the current administrative center for the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation, the second largest reservation in the U.S. Fort Duchesne was originally built and manned by Buffalo Soldiers for 25 years from 1886 to 1911. An article by Robert Foster from Wild West magazine February 2000 provides some history of Buffalo Soldiers in Utah Territory.

I never realized Utah had places with such green land in late July. This region of Utah is a strong contrast to the canyonlands of the southern regions of the state. Looking north to the Uintah Mountains provided some striking views of mountainous terrain that looked to be wild west wilderness to my eyes. Since I was driving west on US 40, I did not get any good photos of the high mountains to the north.

My plan was to hang around Park City for about three hours taking photographs of the major resorts, but Kelley vetoed that Loyalty Traveler assignment. She asked me to take her to our hotel and then I could ride a bike down a ski slope by myself and bar hop all over Park City if I was still feeling like an Olympian.

 

Kelley was under the impression we were staying at a resort in Park City when I parked the car downtown and took her to the lobby of the Marriott Vacation Club Summit Watch. When she realized I was just taking pictures of resorts and I told her we would stay at the Holiday Inn Express in Salt Lake City she was relieved, and so was I that she wasn’t disappointed about not staying in a Park City resort hotel. She wanted to be out of the 7,000 ft. high altitude mountains of Park City ASAP.

All I can say to my readers who would have liked to learn more about Park City is that I was disappointed at being in one of the great ski resorts of the USA and unable to properly tour the town. I am planning to drive another road trip at my leisure and likely will pass through Park City, Utah again next June when I travel to Keystone, Colorado for Travel Blog Exchange 2012 Conference.

Feeling kind of miffed about my aborted tour of Park City I proceeded to drive the road up the mountainside from Park City with every intention to drive Highway 190 across the Wasatch Mountains to Salt Lake City and bypass Interstate 80. And I might have made it too if there was better road signage on those mountain slopes. At about 9,000 feet I hit unpaved road with huge potholes and abandoned my mountain road route to Salt Lake City.

Any locals to Park City reading this blog? Give me a clue in the comments as to where I missed Highway 190 when I was at Empire Pass above Park City.

I backtracked down the mountainside to Park City and drove the Interstate-80 freeway to Salt Lake City.

Kelley really liked those Holiday Inn Express breakfasts on this trip so it is probably best we didn’t stay at the St. Regis Deer Valley or Waldorf Astoria in Park City where the price of breakfast would not fit my brokeass mountain budget. In retrospect, I think the Hyatt Escala Lodge breakfast, complimentary as a Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond member, would have likely impressed her more if she would have been feeling well enough to eat in Park City. Her appetite was much better the next morning in Salt Lake City once we dropped back down a few thousand feet from the mountain slopes of Park City.

For readers I guess the thing to keep in mind is be prepared for some queaziness when you decide to travel to a ski resort at 7,000 feet or more if that is not an altitude you are acclimated to function in.

We had a decent stay at the Holiday Inn Express Salt Lake City. While swimming in the outdoor pool we met a couple from Nova Scotia who had driven cross country to Vancouver and down the Pacific Northwest coast to Eureka and back across I-80 to Salt Lake City on their journey home. They were asking for travel advice for Indiana. Sorry, not my expertise.

We shared stories of northern California with Kelley and I having lived in Eureka for nearly a decade and also Downeast Maine tales from our two years around Acadia National Park when we also had the ability to travel a bit around the Canadian Maritime Provinces.

Salt Lake City was under a smog alert for the day we headed west out of the city. What a shame that a city in such a remote location has air pollution reminiscent of Los Angeles. We packed up and headed out to the clear air of eastern Nevada, just another 30 hours from getting home to Monterey.

 

Brokeass Mountain Road Trip, July 2011

Monterey, California – Denver, Colorado

• Yosemite’s Tioga Pass Road across the Sierra Nevada Mountains
• Westin Monache Resort Mammoth for year round vacations
• Even Lonelier than the Loneliest Road in America
• Earth’s Oldest Trees in Great Basin National Park Nevada
• Less extreme than 127 Hours in Utah
• Brokeass Mountain Tour eastbound – Hotel Value at High Elevation
• Brokeass Mountain Tour visits Starwood in Denver
• Driving by the 14ers South Park to Aspen, Colorado
• Top of the Rockies on the High Road to Aspen – Independence Pass 12,095 feet.
• St. Regis Aspen – Too Late to Cancel
• Aspen, Colorado to Park City, Utah: Ghost lands of Buffalo Soldiers, Utes and Dinosaurs
• The California Trail across Nevada

 

First rule for two people driving a 2,500 mile road trip is “Do not criticize the other person’s driving!”

I broke that rule about one hour out of Denver when Kelley tried to accelerate up a steep grade by pushing the pedal to the metal to pass a truck. I watched the RPM gauge almost touch red as the car struggled in the high altitude of the Colorado Rockies to muster all its V-6 power going uphill with little acceleration effect.

The first exit she saw placed me in the driver’s seat for the next two days of driving back to California.

The driving effort meant double duty since Kelley refuses to take photos when I drive, or actually triple duty since motion sickness inhibits her ability to read a map as a car passenger.

South Park is about 1,000 square miles of grasslands in the high elevation basin valley beneath the high peaks of the Rockies. The land is gorgeous viewing during a car drive, even when the weather is ominously closing off the mid-day sky in darkness. The mountain storms had wreaked havoc on Aspen just the day before and flash flooding had been a persistent problem for the previous three weeks in the Colorado Rockies and Great Basin region of the west during the month of July.

At one point I hit a rain downpour so intense I couldn’t see out my car window at all with the windshield wipers on full speed. The rain puddled up on the pavement within seconds to create hydroplaning conditions and there was no shoulder on Highway 285 to pull off the road. Fortunately the road was straight and no other vehicles barreled down on my car as I dropped the speed from 60mph to about 25 mph. I drove out of the hard rain in about a minute.

The lack of a navigator resulted in my missing the Highway 24 cutoff road to Aspen and having to backtrack ten miles north along Highway 285. The sky was still filled with dark storm clouds all around the mountains as we headed to higher elevations.

The small town of Buena Vista, Colorado on Highway 24 is aptly named for its beautiful view of the 14,000+ ft. mountains of the Collegiate Peaks. The Best Western Plus Buena Vista hotel sits at 8,000 feet in elevation and provides a good stopover place for outdoors activities in the rugged mountains nearby or white water rafting on the Arkansas River.

Highway 24 north of Buena Vista goes to Leadville, the historic silver mining town at 10,152 feet elevation with the distinction of being the highest altitude incorporated town in the U.S. In the late 19th century Leadville had a population only exceeded by Denver, Colorado in the state. The inclement weather and late afternoon hour kept Leadville off our itinerary.

Highway 82 is the road to Aspen and Glenwood Springs with one terminus on Highway 24 about midway between Buena Vista and Leadville.

The weather turned brighter as we drove the road to Aspen. There was no better time for the rain clouds to dissipate as we entered the rugged valley and climbed Highway 82 to Independence Pass where the Continental Divide marker at 12,095 feet designates the east-west geologic feature where rivers originating in these mountains flow east to the Gulf of Mexico (Atlantic Ocean) or flow west to the Pacific Ocean.

As we drove Highway 82 I mentioned to Kelley that this road would be ideal for a cycling race. Low and behold, the USA ProCycling Challenge 2011 did exactly that August 24, 2011 in Stage 2 from Gunnison to Aspen in the seven day race August 22-28 around the state of Colorado.

 

The USA ProCycling stage description of this road states cyclists have only 60% of the oxygen at Independence Pass compared to sea level. Kelley and I live at sea level here in Monterey and she felt poorly at Independence Pass. The altitude made me feel high on several levels, but not too high to drive downhill to Aspen.

We watched the USA Pro Cycling Challenge in August and I saw several miles of gravel road I drove downhill just outside of Aspen was a temporary road condition since Highway 82 was newly paved when cyclists came down the mountains from Independence Pass at speeds over 50 mph in places. Congratulations to George Hincapie, winner of Stage 2 USA Pro Cycling Challenge Aspen finish who may become the all-time Tour de France longevity racer next summer if he races his 17th Tour.

This post includes some of the photos I took with my Droid phone camera since my primary camera broke on the second day of this 12 day road trip.

Brokeass Mountain Road Trip, July 2011

Monterey, California – Denver, Colorado

• Yosemite’s Tioga Pass Road across the Sierra Nevada Mountains
• Westin Monache Resort Mammoth for year round vacations
• Even Lonelier than the Loneliest Road in America
• Earth’s Oldest Trees in Great Basin National Park Nevada
• Less extreme than 127 Hours in Utah
• Brokeass Mountain Tour eastbound – Hotel Value at High Elevation
• Brokeass Mountain Tour visits Starwood in Denver
• Driving by the 14ers South Park to Aspen, Colorado
• Top of the Rockies on the High Road to Aspen – Independence Pass 12,095 feet.
• St. Regis Aspen – Too Late to Cancel
• Aspen, Colorado to Park City, Utah: Ghost lands of Buffalo Soldiers, Utes and Dinosaurs
• The California Trail across Nevada
• Homeward Bound – Carson Pass Highway 88 over the Sierra Nevada to Monterey

14ers.com is an interesting website I came across when writing this piece for a list of the tallest peaks in Colorado with photos.

I watched the movie 127 Hours this week. This is the story of Aron Ralston who went canyoneering in Utah in 2003, had his hand trapped by a boulder when he fell deep into a narrow slot canyon and with little hope of rescue, due to the remoteness of the accident location, amputated his own hand to save himself. The movie 127 Hours is worth watching just to see the slot canyon imagery prior to his accident, if nothing else. Or you can read the book by Aron Ralston – Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

The movie reinvigorated my desire to finish a piece about traveling through Utah on the Brokeass Mountain Tour road trip I made in July. I attempted several drafts of this post since July and for some reason I kept getting bogged down in Utah history, state facts and stories that had little relevance to my 42 hour experience traveling through the state. Here are some notes from my eastbound road trip.

The Brokeass Mountain Tour plan had been to drive to Arches National Park and possibly Canyonlands National Park in Utah, but time and heat were factors for our road trip in July from Monterey to Denver. Five days or 127 hours would make a great excursion trip possible into the canyons or mountains, but remember to tell people where you plan to be when you wander off the main roads. There are some remote places in this part of the country.

There is Nothing Between Here and There except a whole lot of beauty.

The road sign in the opening scenes of the movie 127 Hours shows “Next Services 100 miles”. My memory of the actual road sign on Interstate 70 East at Salina, Utah read “Next Services 110 Miles” which refers to the next town with gas, food and hotels at Green River, Utah. This is the longest stretch of Interstate in the U.S. with no services. Interstate 70 passes through the Fish Lake Mountains as the road crosses Summit Pass at 7,923 ft. in the Utah high desert Wasatch Plateau. The rock formations are enchanting.

 

We crossed Utah on a mid-July afternoon with the temperature in the 90s when we had been hiking through forests at over 10,000 ft. elevation on Wheeler Peak in eastern Nevada just six hours before.

 

My destination was Moab, but with the remarkable ability of cell phones I saw the temperature at Moab was near 100 degrees and the rates were in the $150 to $200 per night range for most hotels. I changed my plans and booked a hotel room at the Holiday Inn Express Green River, Utah while stopped at a gas station in Salina, Utah where US Route 50 joins Interstate-70. Cell phone reception is really spotty when crossing the long stretches of no services areas between towns.

The San Rafael Swell and Ghost Rocks

The construction of Interstate-70 across the San Rafael Swell  was considered an engineering marvel. There are no gas or food services along the 110 mile stretch between Salina and Green River, but there are two rest stops. The Ghost Rocks rest areas are located about 40 miles west of Green River on both sides of the freeway. These are the highest points of I-70 in the San Rafael Swell.

Rather than trying to explain the geological features of the San Rafael Swell, I’ll direct readers to Wikipedia. This is an area where water erosion has created slot canyons like the one where Aron Ralston was trapped between a rock and a hard place.

Green River, Utah was a smaller town than I expected. The place was loaded with tourists; some heading to the National Parks, and others heading east to Colorado or west to Nevada and California. Several chain hotels were located near the river about two miles off the Interstate.

Holiday Inn Express Green River at 15,000 points was my pick for the night. There was also a Comfort Inn (Choice Privileges) and a Super 8 (Wyndham Rewards) and the River Terrace Inn, across the street from the Holiday Inn, that looked to be the most upscale and popular of the lodging choices. The lowest room rate for the Holiday Inn Express was about $120 after tax.

We bought a pizza at Cathy’s Pizza & Deli in town and it was quite good. I stopped to take a photo of the swollen Green River, but the bugs at dusk were so intense that I couldn’t bear to walk over the bridge for a photo opportunity.

July had seen many days of heavy rain across Utah. We delayed the start of our trip by one week to avoid rain storms over Nevada and Utah. The town of Green River was actually under Flood Watch Advisory as we drove the bridge across the swollen Green River. The bridge had a dozen or more pedestrian onlookers photographing the fast moving water under the bridge. Part of the lawn of the River Terrace Inn was flooded. The Holiday Inn Express was just about 100 yards from the river bank and I wasn’t so sure a ground floor room was in our best interest, but the receptionist kept going on and on about how I was getting an upgrade based on my Priority Club Platinum elite status. The room was a good size room with two Queen beds, a table and a cushioned chair with ottoman.

Nearly every day of the road trip I read in papers and heard news stories about people drowning in flash floods in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. Some of these people even died while driving their cars when they unexpectedly ran into flood waters.

Utah has remarkable geologic beauty in the southern regions of the state. There are also vast stretches of road with few or no services  between towns. This is a rugged land that requires a plan. My plan is to get back to the canyons when the temperature is a little cooler and the weather not so precarious.

 

Brokeass Mountain Road Trip, July 2011

Monterey, California – Denver, Colorado

• Yosemite’s Tioga Pass Road across the Sierra Nevada Mountains
• Westin Monache Resort Mammoth for year round vacations
• Even Lonelier than the Loneliest Road in America
• Earth’s Oldest Trees in Great Basin National Park Nevada
• Less extreme than 127 Hours in Utah
• Brokeass Mountain Tour eastbound – Hotel Value at High Elevation
• Brokeass Mountain Tour visits Starwood in Denver
• Driving by the 14ers South Park to Aspen, Colorado
• Top of the Rockies on the High Road to Aspen – Independence Pass 12,095 feet.
• St. Regis Aspen – Too Late to Cancel
• Aspen, Colorado to Park City, Utah: Ghost lands of Buffalo Soldiers, Utes and Dinosaurs
• The California Trail across Nevada
• Homeward Bound – Carson Pass Highway 88 over the Sierra Nevada to Monterey

 

Hotel value for this frequent guest

Some people plan out every aspect of their vacation prior to leaving home. On this road trip I tended to book hotels on my iPad while sitting in some roadside McDonalds a few hours before arrival. Or in the case of Ely, Nevada and the Ramada Copper Queen I booked the hotel five minutes before arrival.

McDonalds free internet is a great marketing scheme. Those $1 McChicken sandwiches and $1 drinks provided cheap stops for food, hotel reservations, ice and toilets. I found the internet connections in McDonalds more responsive than several of the hotels where we stayed.

Fortunately, I accumulated hotel loyalty points and free nights over the past few months to apply for the major expense of travel lodging for several weeks of summer excursions recently with my road trips from Monterey to Vancouver, B.C. and Denver, Colorado. The Vancouver trip was nearly three weeks and the Denver road trip was 11 days.

Hotel loyalty programs reduced the cost of ten hotel nights on this Denver trip to about $300 for three nights of paid rooms.  The other nights were paid with points accumulated over the past year. These are the future hotel rebates I refer to in Loyalty Traveler posts when analyzing hotel promotion value.

Buy Low, Redeem Later

Over the past year I have purchased some 60,000 to 80,000 points from Priority Club when booking Points & Cash reward nights. I almost always use Points & Cash reward nights when redeeming hotel rewards with Priority Club for the opportunity to buy 10,000 points for $60. These purchased points help me maintain sufficient points for the option of booking nights at InterContinental Hotels Group properties like Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express and Crowne Plaza hotels.

We stayed three nights this trip in Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express hotels on one standard reward (15,000 points) and two PointBreaks reward nights (5,000 points each) spending 25,000 Priority Club points in all ($150 in points for three hotel nights).

DiscoverUSA Daily Getaway Points Sale in spring

In May 2011 I spent about $300 for 114,000 Wyndham points from the DiscoverUSA Daily Getaway sale in May offering discounted points in several hotel loyalty programs. Even the most remote towns we passed through tended to have a Wyndham Rewards hotel option at the 14,000 points or 16,000 points level. I ended up using 16,000 points for the Ramada Copper Queen Casino in remote Ely, Nevada.

Starwood Free Resort Nights

Two nights in Starwood Resorts rounded out the free nights redeemed this trip with stays at Westin Monache Mammoth Lakes, California in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains and St. Regis Aspen in Colorado. Denver consisted of paid nights at three Denver suburban Starwood Hotels on cheap rates to earn another free Starwood Resort night.

Day 1 - Westin Monache Mammoth Lakes, California = Free Starwood Resort night equivalent to 12,000 points.

• Upgraded to one bedroom suite with preferred view. (Room value = $250)

High elevation of the day = 9,945 ft. at Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park (Highway 120 across the Sierra Nevada.

 

 

 

Day 2 - Ramada Copper Queen Casino, Ely, Nevada = free night for 16,000 Wyndham Rewards points.

• Hotel room value = $120 (many of the highway motels in Nevada and Utah cost as much as a major city upscale hotel.)
• Hotel elevation = 6,437 ft.
• Unique aspects of hotel: First time I ever saw a swimming pool surrounded by slot machines. After checking us into the hotel, the receptionist’s other duties included calling BINGO numbers. Kelley loved this place for Americana Nevada kitsch.

High elevation of the day – Sagehen Summit (Highway 120 California) 8,139 ft.

Loyalty Traveler post – Highway 6 Nevada, Even Lonelier than the Loneliest Road in America (July 15, 2011).

 

Day 3 – Holiday Inn Express Green River, Utah = free night for 15,000 Priority Club points.

• Hotel room value = $120 at a sold out hotel.
• Hotel elevation 4,079 ft.
• Hotel receptionist went on and on about my upgrade as a platinum member. My observations over the past year indicate major effort by IHG staff at hotels to promote Priority Club. I’d put Best Western as number two this past year for hotel  loyalty talk by staff in hotels. Not really sure about the upgrade since the room size looked fairly standard, but bottled water in the middle of the flooding desert was appreciated. Green River had been under a flood watch as recently as four hours before our arrival at this hotel in a small town 100 miles from anywhere except the popular outdoors location of Moab, Utah some 50 miles away south of the I-70 interstate and the Green River some 200 yards away with visibly high water. Photographers walked the town concrete bridge near the Holiday Inn Express to photograph the actually greenish color swiftly flowing river pushing high up the riverbanks.

 

High elevation of the day = 10,167 ft. Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive in Great Basin National Park, Nevada

Loyalty Traveler post – Earth’s Oldest Trees in Great Basin National Park (July 17, 2011).

The fourth day of our trip we reached Denver.

High elevations of the day: 10,617 ft. at Vail Pass where we stopped and hiked around a little and photographed some mountains.

Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70 is the actual high elevation we drove in our car at 11,158 ft.

 

Brokeass Mountain Road Trip, July 2011

Monterey, California – Denver, Colorado

• Yosemite’s Tioga Pass Road across the Sierra Nevada Mountains
• Westin Monache Resort Mammoth for year round vacations
• Even Lonelier than the Loneliest Road in America
• Earth’s Oldest Trees in Great Basin National Park Nevada
• Less extreme than 127 Hours in Utah
• Brokeass Mountain Tour eastbound – Hotel Value at High Elevation
• Brokeass Mountain Tour visits Starwood in Denver
• Driving by the 14ers South Park to Aspen, Colorado
• Top of the Rockies on the High Road to Aspen – Independence Pass 12,095 feet.
• St. Regis Aspen – Too Late to Cancel
• Aspen, Colorado to Park City, Utah: Ghost lands of Buffalo Soldiers, Utes and Dinosaurs
• The California Trail across Nevada
• Homeward Bound – Carson Pass Highway 88 over the Sierra Nevada to Monterey

 

 

Here are photos from Independence Pass Highway 82, Colorado about 20 miles from Aspen. We drove Highway 285 across the Rockies rather than I-70 traveling from Denver. This route is much prettier for mountain scenery in my opinion. The worst section of road is from Independence Pass to Aspen where the road was gravel for several miles and quite narrow.

There are several hundred yards of paved paths at Independence Pass and a bathroom structure. Walking around the paths offers vantage points for taking photos of the numerous 13,000 and 14,000+ ft. peaks.

Poor Kelley stayed in the car feeling the effects of altitude sickness. I know how bad that can make you feel. Fortunately I didn’t suffer from altitude this summer like I did last summer when we stayed in Beaver Creek near Vail at 8,500 feet. The high altitude mountains invigorated me this trip.

I read that this spot has one of the best views for seeing multiple high Rocky Mountain peaks. The wildflowers are intense colors at these elevations in the alpine tundra climate.

The weather in the Colorado Rockies  has been stormy for over a week. We hit one section Tuesday afternoon on Highway 285 when driving the flat high plains road just west of Jefferson where a menacing dark cloud opened up and suddenly dumped rain so hard that I couldn’t see anything when driving 60 mph. Nobody was behind me and I could slow down to about 20mph. No place to pull off the road and the water puddled so quickly I was hydroplaning. Fortunately I drove out of the rainstorm within one minute.

Aspen airport received over 1 inch of rain in 30 minutes on Monday evening. The Rio Grande paved bike trail from  Aspen to Glenwood Springs had several mudslides and one section was buried in up to 3 feet of mud.

Highway 82 over Independence Pass is definitely a road to be driven in good weather. My luck was good and the weather was pleasant at the pass with temperature around 60 degrees. What a relief after 100 degrees for the weekend in Denver!

The directions listed on these pictures are my best guess based on the direction of the sun in late afternoon. The mountain views are spectacular from this vantage point. The road between the Pass and Aspen is the worst part of the drive with several miles of narrow gravel road. I’m glad I was going downhill. Remarkably though, my car had the highest gas mileage ever on this drive.

My car likes the thin air and high altitude driving better than my wife.

Independence Pass Colorado wikipedia

Independence-Pass.com

Brokeass Mountain Road Trip, July 2011

Monterey, California – Denver, Colorado

• Yosemite’s Tioga Pass Road across the Sierra Nevada Mountains
• Westin Monache Resort Mammoth for year round vacations
• Even Lonelier than the Loneliest Road in America
• Earth’s Oldest Trees in Great Basin National Park Nevada
• Less extreme than 127 Hours in Utah
• Brokeass Mountain Tour eastbound – Hotel Value at High Elevation
• Brokeass Mountain Tour visits Starwood in Denver
• Driving by the 14ers South Park to Aspen, Colorado
• Top of the Rockies on the High Road to Aspen – Independence Pass 12,095 feet.
• St. Regis Aspen – Too Late to Cancel
• Aspen, Colorado to Park City, Utah: Ghost lands of Buffalo Soldiers, Utes and Dinosaurs
• The California Trail across Nevada
• Homeward Bound – Carson Pass Highway 88 over the Sierra Nevada to Monterey

Bristlecone pine groves with the oldest living trees on Earth, the southernmost glacier in the U.S., one of the darkest places in the lower 48 states at night and the cleanest air in the continental U.S. are attributes of Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada.  Created in 1986, Great Basin National Park  is one of the least visited national parks in the United States and offers visitors an amazing contrast to the arid desert landscape most associated with Nevada. The remoteness of Great Basin set my mind to making this destination part of our western states road trip on our way to Denver, Colorado.

Great Basin National Park is about 80 miles east of Ely, Nevada on Highway 6/Highway 50 near the Utah border. The small town of Baker, Nevada has a gas station and the Great Basin National Park Visitor Center.

Another attribute of the Great Basin desert is water from rain and snow melt does not flow to the ocean, but instead remains trapped in underground reservoirs in the arid bowl of the Great Basin desert. Thus, the name Great Basin.

There were about a dozen cars in the Great Basin National Park visitor center parking lot. Kelley and I were the only tourists in the visitor center. The park rangers said we had time to make the next Lehman Caves tour. Great Basin National Park has no entrance fee, but the 90-minute cave tour is a $10 fee.

After 29 years living with Kelley, I realized for the first time she has a fear of caves stemming from a childhood trip to caves in  Pinnacles National Monument near our home in Monterey, California. In contrast to Kelley, my childhood experiences as an 11 year old living on the high security desert military base of White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico while my father was in Vietnam included many hikes in the Organ Mountains to visit caves.  And touring Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico is one of my most vivid childhood memories.

Since the Lehman Caves tour was out, the other activity was driving Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, a well-paved road rising from the desert floor at nearly 6,000 feet to almost 10,200 feet on the face of 13,065 ft. Wheeler Peak, the second highest peak in Nevada. There are even more things to do at Great Basin National Park if you are adventurous.

A visitor center display at Great Basin National Park indicated each 1,000 ft. rise in elevation is equivalent to traveling 600 miles north in terms of climate. This is a general rule used to describe the climate change with elevation in the high mountains of the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada ranges in the western U.S.

Keep in mind though that the rapid elevation change can be hard on the human body. I drove the road and therefore had limited opportunities for taking photos, but suffice to say that the views are incredible as the road winds up the mountainside.

Bristlecone Pines – Earth’s oldest living trees

Great Basin bristlecone pines live in the sub-alpine forest range at the edge of the alpine arctic environment nearly 11,000 feet in elevation on Wheeler Peak. At the end of the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive road there is the Bristlecone Pine Trail for a 3 mile roundtrip hike to the site of the oldest known trees in the world. There is also a campground located at the end of the paved road at 10,200 feet. with a bathroom structure and water.

Back in 1964, before the Wheeler Peak area was designated a national park, a university student researching bristlecone pines was given permission by the U.S. Forest Service to take bristlecone pine tree core samples and cut down one of the trees. The tree known as Prometheus was cut down and revealed to have 4,900 growth rings making it the oldest known living tree in the world at the time it was removed from Wheeler Peak.

The temperature dropped from 90 to a comfortable 63 degrees as we climbed from the Great Basin valley floor to nearly 10,200 feet on Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive.  Hiking at this altitude is challenging and the snow melt muddied the Bristlecone Pine trail making most of the walk through shallow streams of downhill flowing water. The trail runs through forest of aspen and pines and alongside alpine lakes.

Spending the night here would certainly be an adventure and there were probably 25 people or so camping at the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive summit campground. We met people from Germany, England, Arizona and Massachusetts on the trail.

We did not pack camping gear for this trip for the experience of sleeping high up on the mountain in a place known for its dark night skies and clean clear air.

Maybe next time.

Related links: A description of hiking Wheeler Peak on summit.org with photos of bristlecone pines.

NationalParksTraveler.com story about Great Basin National Park. This site is a valuable resource for National Parks information.

 

Brokeass Mountain Road Trip, July 2011

Monterey, California – Denver, Colorado

• Yosemite’s Tioga Pass Road across the Sierra Nevada Mountains
• Westin Monache Resort Mammoth for year round vacations
• Even Lonelier than the Loneliest Road in America
• Earth’s Oldest Trees in Great Basin National Park Nevada
• Less extreme than 127 Hours in Utah
• Brokeass Mountain Tour eastbound – Hotel Value at High Elevation
• Brokeass Mountain Tour visits Starwood in Denver
• Driving by the 14ers South Park to Aspen, Colorado
• Top of the Rockies on the High Road to Aspen – Independence Pass 12,095 feet.
• St. Regis Aspen – Too Late to Cancel
• Aspen, Colorado to Park City, Utah: Ghost lands of Buffalo Soldiers, Utes and Dinosaurs
• The California Trail across Nevada
• Homeward Bound – Carson Pass Highway 88 over the Sierra Nevada to Monterey