Trains, Stars, Cave Lake SP, Charcoal Ovens, Hwy 50

   Ely (pronounced “E-Lee”).

DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT – I’m falling behind but will catch up soon and fill in the blanks. Meanwhile, the pic albums (#59 and 60) have been created and posted and I didn’t want to keep you Readers waiting for new blog entries! So enjoy, and come back in a few days for more verbiage.

Pictures in Ely, NV (album #59)

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Great Basin National Park

          The Great Basin National Park is the least visited National Park in America.   It’s certainly not due to the many unique and interesting things to see and do here, but rather because of it’s actual location; very remote and out of the way. Yet it is only 60 miles away from Ely.
* International Dark Sky Park – Great Basin got this designation in 2016. This remote park has such clean air and very little light pollution. Its night sky offers brilliant views of planets, constellations and the Milky Way. We disappointingly could not stay in the Park too long after dark because we needed to get back to “Clark” and rest up for a Travel Day the next morning. 
* We did drive the entire Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive all the way up to the end of the road. By this time, the sun was fast setting and we were not dressed warm enough to take on the 3 mile hike (and 1200 feet elevation gain) up to view the Bristlecone Pine trees and see Wheeler Peak higher than 10,000 feet. Yet we scrambled up the trail about a 1/4 mile and scrambled back down even quicker due to the falling temperatures. Back at the Parking Lot, a distressed & crying 20-something guy from Virginia was yelling “Dakota” over and over; sadly, his hound dog had been off leash on the Wheeler Peak trail and somehow got separated from his owner, and had been missing for hours.  We can only hope that “Dakota” could smell the human scents of the nearby small campground, and hone in on that as well as realizing to remain descending from the mountain top. I don’t think the guy was going to leave the parking lot until he found him. Fortunately, some overnight campers consoled him and were helping with calls out into the woods. It was heartbreaking to know this dog/man partnership had been on the road for several weeks together and be torn apart so unexpectedly.
* Bristlecone Pines
* Lehman Caves

Great Basin NP incl Lehman Caves pics (album #60))

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