Backpacking Great Basin National Park: Day 3

I unzipped my tent to an early, dim sky.
We agreed to an “alpine start,” waking up right at sunrise. I didn’t sleep too well last night. The winds were terribly loud. You could hear strong gusts ready at the top of Pyramid Peak, then barrel their way down, across the surface of Johnson Lake, and then crash into our tent. It was somewhat fascinating to hear the entire process. Crawling out of my tent, daylight had yet to emerge upon our campsite near Johnson Lake. I threw my arms up high and slowly stretched.

It was a pretty cold at 6:30am, standing below Pyramid Peak and embracing the pure silence. The others soon were rising, and I put on a few layers, being that temperatures were probably in the low twenties. A crazy thing I’ve been aware of while backpacking through Great Basin National Park, was the swing in temperatures. Atop the saddle yesterday, temperatures were hot and not necessitating my down jacket or beanie. But once we descended to Johnson Lake to set up camp for our second night, as soon as the late afternoon sun fell behind the mountains, temperatures plummeted.

Backpacking Great Basin National Park: Day 2

The sound of crashing rockfall woke me up from inside my tent on the northwest shore of Baker Lake. It was a loud, fast, and trembling rumble. For a split second, I worried if whatever cascading boulders would reach our camp, but I was half-asleep still. Compared to twelve hours prior, I felt much better health-wise. Last night's battle with altitude sickness honestly scared the living shit out of me. Again, more details on that to arrive in a future blog post. Opening my eyes and cautiously moving around in my sleeping bag, the mix of extensive rest, water, and a handful of painkillers was the magical combination I had desperately needed.

I crawled out of our tent and stretched, Feeling more alert and conscious, I was finally able to actually admire our temporary forested abode in the belly of the rocky amphitheater above. We had pitched our tents no less than fifteen feet from the mirror-like surface Baker Lake, with water so unimaginably clear, transparent enough to see every single stone beneath. The water was brisk too, dipping my hand in it and washing it over my face to wake up. Drew had gotten up at dawn, capturing the morning light illuminating the lake and the glow cast on the surrounding members of the Snake Range. I grabbed my camera and mindfully began hiking around the perimeter of the lake. Looking south, I could see Pyramid Peak, the mountain the four of us were hoped to bag later this afternoon, and on the northern edge of Baker Lake, I could stare straight upwards and gawk at the sheer marvel of the amphitheater. Patches of still-lingering snow covered some of the rock.

Backpacking Great Basin National Park: Day 1

Our phones' alarms rang loud far before sunrise and we gathered all of our gear before heading downstairs to the hotel lobby for breakfast. We had spent the night at a Ramada in Provo, Utah where we slept two to a bed. With less than five hours of sound shut-eye, I was exhausted and devoured as much coffee, pint-sized blueberry muffins, and questionable eggs as I could before we began our 190-mile drive west for Nevada. All four of us and our gear filled Drew's Toyota Highlander Hybrid, and we followed U.S. 50 for hours as it penetrated its way into the vast openness of western Utah. The road flawless road carved around burnt red rock formations and past mirages of Sevier Lake, and the almost fictional mazes of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land.

U.S. 50 was dubbed as "The loneliest road in America" by LIFE magazine back in 1986, and it really is. As it stretches from the dry western flats of Utah into the deserts of eastern Nevada, the road is perfectly straight and for the most part completely flat. Even as a backseat passenger, it was hypnotizing. Feelings of monotony and vertigo evolved we pushed towards Baker, the gateway town to the entrance of Great Basin National Park. Cell service nonexistent, we crossed the state line into Nevada on HWY 159. The road switched from pavement to gravel and judging by my guidebook, we were accessing the park from its southern boundaries. Drew pulled over somewhere off of HWY 487 and I hopped out to stretch and orient myself with the paper map I had been resorting to. I expressed to the others I could already feel how thin the air was. It was a dry, hot air too. I gazed up at the forested Snake Range mountains on the near horizon, it had been a minute since I'd seen any minutes and it was a great, bittersweet feeling.

Pausing quietly for a few seconds, I got my bearings straightened out and explained to Drew which road we needed to head down to reach the main park entrance. We hopped back in the Highlander Hybrid and continued towards Baker. There wasn't a lot in Baker; two standalone gas pumps, a few homes to the town's 65 residents, a restaurant called Kerouac's, and a general store with groceries that doubled as a lounge at night.

We followed signs for the national park, and I couldn't contain my excitement. For years I've dreamed about exploring this place, and I was stoked to finally step foot in it. I got my camera out had Chadd take a picture of me smiling and standing in front of the "Great Basin National Park" sign, then carefully propped it on the hood of the car for a group picture. The mutual eagerness to get out on the trail was growing and we were all thrilled at the immediate mountainous scenery that filled every corner of our eyes.

Gearing up for Great Basin

Greetings, it's been a minute! August and all of its busyness is gone while the fresh month of September has now arrived. Anywho, there's an adventure on the horizon soon! Crunch time begins in less than a week I'll be hopping off the plane with three of my best friends in Salt Lake City to begin a three-day backpacking trip through Nevada's desolate Great Basin National Park. I've always strived to explore this under-the-radar, quiet national park (the only one in Nevada), and bask in its rugged wilderness.

This Thursday, three of us will be scooped up from the airport by another friend and we'll spend the night at a hotel in Provo, Utah because well... that free continental breakfast before our drive west to Nevada. When we arrive at the 77,100-acre national park located in the deserts of Baker, NV, we'll join a cave tour before strapping on our packs and heading out into the backcountry for three days.

Our plan is to loosely follow the Pyramid Loop, a 13-mile trek that passes through thick subalpine forests, groves of aspen, crosses creeks, includes a craggy exposed ascent above treeline, and stops at two serene glacial lakes. It all sounds like heaven to me. The folks at Backpacker Magazine have put together a solid overview of our rough route. Camp one will be on the shores of Baker Lake in the shadowy amphitheater below 12,298-ft Baker Peak. Saturday morning we'll begin our push up the steep, rocky alpine saddle atop Nevada's Snake Ridge that divides Baker Lake and Johnson Lake on the other side, no doubt the most difficult and risky part of the trip. If we're clear of storms and conditions allow, we'll attempt to scramble up to the west ridge of 11,926-ft Pyramid Peak. Bagging that peak, next we'll carefully descend down the saddle towards smaller Johnson Lake at the bottom, where we'll likely set up camp two for our second night. A nearby grove of aspen may be our best bet to pitch tents and cook dinner on Saturday night. Sunday morning, we'll wake up early and press forward on the Snake-Baker Pass through more clumps of aspen and flowery meadows, cross Baker Creek a few times and return to the trailhead Sunday evening. On our way back through the deserts of Nevada to Utah, we'll make a pit stop at a restaurant called Kerouac's (how perfect is that, right?) for celebratory beers and pizza. It'll be an adventure for the books, that's for sure, and I can't wait to blog about it on here.

But, there's a lengthy list to get done in the coming days before we get to Great Basin. A massive box from Mountain House arrived the other day with dozens of dehydrated meal packs that need to be sorted, last-minute studying of the map and plugging in various backcountry coordinates into my handheld GPS unit, verifying our Spot Satellite GPS beacon works to track our progress and if we run into an emergency, laying out all of my gear on my apartment's dark hardwood floor and determining what to stuff inside my 65L Gregory Baltoro pack, monitoring the weather, and of course training. Since our expedition on the park's Pyramid Peak Loop will command nearly 4,000 feet of elevation gain, much of it in altitudes past 10,000ft, I've been training as much as I can by hiking for miles with a weight vest on.


Cheers,
Robby