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The
Trip: When you visit the Great Basin, there are limited choices to stay. The park has four developed campgrounds; the small town of Baker, NV, is only five miles from the park entrance; and located on the Nevada-Utah border is the Border Inn, offering food, gas and lodging. Otherwise, the nearest cities are Ely, NV, 70 miles to the west and Delta, UT, 100 miles to the East. For our trip, we are using the town of Baker as our base. Baker is limited in the services because of its size. But, it does offer unmanned gas pumps, a small motel and T&D's Country Store and Restaurant (which features a diverse menu and great food). The town of Baker was founded in the 1890s and named for George W. Baker, one of the earliest settlers in the region. During the early 1900s, Baker served as a service town to local ranchers and area travelers and was populated by colorful characters known for their all-night dances and gambling. Today, Baker serves many of the people and travelers coming into the area to explore Great Basin National Park.
Great Basin National Park encompasses the famous Lehman caves, bristlecone pine groves, campgrounds, a multitude of hiking trails, 13 peaks above 11,000 feet and Nevada 's one and only glacier. The Great Basin National Park was established in 1986, but the story of the park actually goes back to the 1920s. The discovery of the caverns of Lehman Caves dates back to 1885 when local rancher Absolom Lehman stumbled across a natural opening to an underground labyrinth. Later in 1921, the Rhodes family, took over the management of the caves, and began offering local residents and hardy travelers trips into this underworld paradise - for a price. A scant 80 folks visited that first year. Then in 1922, President Warren Harding signed a proclamation making the caves a national monument and paid admissions jump to 287 visitors!
The best way to explore the park is by hiking. It has spectacular scenery, hiking trails, and backcountry adventures that will knock your socks off. Great Basin National Park has a wide variety of hiking trails. They range from leisurely walks to fairly strenuous hike with some elevation. One thing they all have in common is the breath-taking scenery. And, for those who don't want to hike, there is the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive . This 12-mile drive takes you through ecological zones ranging from the sagebrush foothills to the sub-alpine forests as you go from about 7,000 feet elevation to more than 9,900 feet elevation. And along the way, there are a number of scenic overlooks where you can enjoy the views.
We meet Ranger Sarah Remec at the Timber Creek Trailhead. At the beginning of the trail there are a series of small footbridges to aid in the creek crossing. But, during our visit, the water rushing beneath it is extremely strong. This year's hard winter has now, with the spring, turned into excessive run off throughout the park. In fact during our trip, some places, like the Lexington Arch Trail, are closed to visitors due to washed out roads. If you are visiting the park for some hiking, checking both weather and trail conditions with the Great Basin National Park Visitors Center can help you choose which trail you are going to tackle.
The Lehman Cave is the next stop on our trip. We meet Roberta Moore who will guide us through this spectacular cavern. Guided tours of Lehman Cave take about an hour and a half and are arranged through the visitor center. It is a .75 mile walk on a paved trail with stairways and indirect lighting. If you are visiting the caves, dress warmly as the cave is a constant 50°F year round.
Next, we head to one of the most overlooked areas near the Great Basin Park — the modest Baker Fremont Indian Archeological Site.
The village consisted of adobe structures and pit houses. More than 15 of these were excavated. The adobe outlines that we see today were actually built in 2002. The actual structures and foundations were reburied to protect the cultural features and preserve them for future study. Once again, we've had a fabulous trip at Great Basin National Park. And were only able to experience a small fraction of the things that can be done here! Thanks to the advisors and contributors of Wild Nevada, Program #302:
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This trip features Great Basin National Park. Located in the eastern Nevada, the park offers a wide variety of activities and experiences. We have had the opportunity to visit the park previously. Find out more about our first caving and hiking trip in Great Basin National Park in 
Great Basin is the only national park to be totally contained within the state of Nevada. The 77,000 acre park was designated in part to protect a small part of the vast area of unique natural beauty known as the Great Basin, which though centered in Nevada also extends into four other states.
Senator Key Pittman got into the act in 1924 when he tried to establish the Lehman Caves-Wheeler Peak Area National Park. But his bill failed to garner any support from his eastern colleagues. And so this spectacular wilderness area languished as a tourist destination. There was a second push to establish a national park in the 1950s but it was met with resistance from mining and grazing interest. With the help and lobbying of Wheeler Peak aficionados, the Great Basin National Park was finally established in October 1986.
If you want to experience true solitude in nature, Great Basin will deliver — which is exactly why we start this trip with a bit of hiking.
Our next stop is the Grey Cliff pictograph site. This is located just off the Baker Creek Trail road near the Grey Cliffs Primitive Campground. This pictograph site is just one of 17 known rock art sites in the park. Most pictographs are found on light-colored rock surfaces in protected areas such as caves, rock shelters or beneath overhangs protecting them from the weather.
Lehman Caves is a limestone cave filled with a multitude of intriguing formations. The cave is one of the best places to see rare Shield Formations. In fact, there are over 300 shields known in Lehman Caves , more than any other cave. The cave is decorated throughout with stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, popcorn and other formations on almost every surface of the cave. It is an amazing place to experience! 
The site was excavated in the 1990s, and today it offers a solid self-guided tour. The Fremont were contemporaries of the Anasazi. Early studies of the Fremont showed a culture of small subsistence villages. Because of this, archeologists considered them the hicks of the early people. But the Baker site has illustrated that the Fremont may have been just as complex as the Anasazi neighbors. The layout of this site suggests a complex and planned community.