Great Basin National Park Day 2

After I accepted the fact that we would be driving approximately 8 extra hours in order to visit Great Basin (according to Brian that’s not really true because we had to go south anyway… whatever, we’ll just stick with Sage’s math on this one), I decided to read a little about it to find out what we should do there. I found out that Great Basin has a cave to tour, perfect! We’re always up for a cave tour! Since I had never heard of the cave at Great Basin, I wasn’t expecting much. Prior to the trip, I scheduled the Grand Palace tour, which is a 90-minute tour for ages 5 and up. Great timing, since Dax turned 5 the day before!

The Ranger let Trent unlock the door to the cave, pretty exciting! They limit the tour to just 20 people, so Trent and Dax had lots of opportunities to volunteer and assist the Ranger when he asked.

Lehman Caves is known for its shield formations, apparently one of the more rare formations found in caves. Once we entered, we were completely in awe. The cave was magnificent! It was a smallish, narrowish space with so many amazing formations.

I realize the pictures look kind of spooky, but in real life, it’s not spooky at all (well okay, maybe just a little creepy).

The tour was great, the Ranger was informative and wonderful with the kiddos, and we all just really loved Lehman Caves!

And now we know that Dax can’t go more than 75 minutes without having to use the bathroom! He was a trooper and held out, and I was happy to carry him because he was keeping me warm. Fifty degrees gets cold after 90 minutes!

After the cave tour, we wanted to go on another hike. We really wanted to do the Wheeler Peak hike, which goes to the summit of the tallest mountain at Great Basin at over 13,000 feet. Of course we knew we wouldn’t complete it – the boys are good hikers but not THAT good – but we figured we would just do a bit of the trail, which starts at 10,160 feet. We wanted to see the Bristlecone Pines that Great Basin is known for. Unfortunately the road to the trailhead does not allow vehicles over 24 feet. At 28 feet, we weren’t willing to take the risk. Instead we chose to take the Lehman Creek Trail, which honestly, wasn’t very exciting. But we made the most of it and still had fun. Right away, we saw a mother turkey with her babies!

Throughout the hike, the boys loved playing in the little creek that followed the trail and making new dams in the water. They were also searching for gold since this was a gold mining area back in the 1880’s.

We walked, played, took pictures, and just enjoyed the views.

We were planning on staying at Great Basin one more night, but made the last minute decision to make the 4 hour drive to our next location instead. We did something right today, because both boys ended up falling asleep for part of the drive, woo hoo! Score one for the parents! The adventure continues…