Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Day 20 - Great Basin National Park, NV



Day 20:
October 16, 2015
David's hike up Wheeler Peak in Great Basin NP
We got up early today to see the sunrise from wheeler peak parking lot @ 10,000 feet.  The road is restricted to vehicles 24 feet or less and we just made that cut off.
We departed at 5:30 am (dark) and did a slow crawl up the mountain to keep the transmission from overheating (and issue that David has plans to remedy with a transmission cooler when we return).  This also prevented a line of cranky drivers behind us (we will probably find them behind us on the way down…brakes overheating become and issue so we go in low and pull off the road as needed).

The altitude isn’t giving me enough oxygen for an 8.2 mile hike with 2900 feet of elevation gain so David is hiking Wheeler peak by himself.  Sometimes I am winded just existing, no kidding.

David’s hike afforded him excellent views.  A large portion of it was above tree line.
Some of the directional signage was not the best; he didn’t have a map.  The hike took him about 7.5 hours but he spent time on the summit oogling the views.  The ride down from 10,000 feet to the valley floor was uneventful.  We went slow and pulled off for cars behind us.  We drove by our campsite only to find a newer class A motorhome squeezed in there!  They had to have gotten some dings procuring that site!





After dumping our tanks and taking on fresh water we were off aiming for Illipah Reservoir for a free overnight.  We arrived after dark and neither of us was happy about driving in the dark.  With signs on route 50 warning of big things (like free ranging cattle/no fences and Elk) that might cross the dark roads and do serious damage to us and them, we were counting the miles until we arrived at the reservoir.   There appears to be only two other campers here out of potentially 14 sites and its Friday night.





Leaving Great Basin we saw this windmill farm...need
to have more of this!




The End

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