Ely, Great Basin Nat'l Park, Cathedral Gorge

Sep 28     Miracle Hot Springs, ID - Ely, NV     264 miles     6 hours

We had a long day of driving but the scenery was pretty nice. We took a couple of breaks and just took our time. One of the stops were on the Pony Express Trail so they had some exhibits.

We're staying one night at the Prospectors Hotel

Joe got Jan & Joel to help clean the front of the RV

& Casino.

The RV park has full hook ups for $23.00 per night. The casino here is very small with only machines, no table games.

We went to the Nevada Northern Railway Museum. It's a living, breathing, operating historic railroad. We were not able to do the train ride due to our schedule but we did a walking tour of the engine house, main yard and museum. This is an amazing place where you can watch and talk to people who not only knows trains but restore them. We enjoyed our time there.

For dinner we went to Margarita's located inside the casino. It was very, very good. Pretty reasonable with large portions.






Sep 29     Ely - Great Basin National Park     70 miles     2 hours

We drove to Great Basin National Park and we're camping at Lower Lehman Creek Campground. It's dry camping for $12.00 per night. There's only 11 sites here so we got lucky and got one of the last sites. The first site we pulled into was pretty awesome. There was a creek right alongside the site but we couldn't get the RV level. Luckily right across from us, someone left so we moved there.






Great Basin National Park protects the world's oldest living trees, bristlecone pines. In this remote Nevada landscape dark night skies display millions of stars and clear days offer exceptional visibility with views for over 100 miles.

After setting up we took a drive on Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive This drive offers very good views on a very winding mountainous road with no guardrails. Our campground is located at 7000 feet. On this drive, in a few miles we gain 3,400 feet in elevation, showing varied habitats.

The trees highest up in the Snake Range the limber and bristlecone pines, appear between 9,500 and 11,000 feet. Both are hardy, but bristlecone pines are masters of longevity enduring not centuries but millennia. On rocky slopes past Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive's end there are trees 2,000 to 3,000 and more years old.


We attempted to see older trees up to 5,000 years old on the Bristlecone Trail. This trail leads to the Bristlecone Pine Grove. Its a 3 mile hike starting elevation 9,800 feet and elevation gain of 600 feet. There was snow and ice on the ground when we started but we still could make out the trail so we began our hike. As we got further along, it got very icy and slippery. I think we were almost there but had to finally turn around. It was just not safe to go any further. Kind of a bummer but hey...there's always next time and we got a great work out.

Snow & ice all over the trail

Hot chocolate anyone?

Right outside our window

Sep 30   Great Basin National Park - Cathedral Gorge State Park     135 miles  2 hours 30 minutes

On the way out of Great Basin this morning, we stopped at the visitor's center. We were asking about collecting pine nuts and the ranger gave us some valuable information. First of all, she said we were kind of late in the season. This season was kind of slow and next year will be the same. The following year should be a very good year to collect pine nuts. So it seems, every three years is the time to go. Then she told us where to go to buy pine nuts straight from the distributor. So Jan and I took off in the Kia and our husbands drove the rv and waited for us in the area. We went down 6 miles, turned on a dirt road and started looking. There were no signs around so we didn't know where we were going, plus this area was kind of deserted. We actually we to the wrong house but the guy there directed us to the right place. He said look for the smoke in the field.

Burning burlap bags in the field

Unbelievable, we wouldn't have thought or pictured it to be like that. There was a whole family with small kids working in the field. The old man there was very nice. Jan and I both bought 5 pounds each, $9 per pound. We're so happy!

Cathedral Gorge State Park is located in a long, narrow valley in southeastern Nevada, where erosion has carved dramatic and unique patterns in the soft bentonite clay. Great walking trails abound for exploring the cave like formations and cathedral like spires that are a result of geologic processes from tens of millions of years ago.

This park is pretty nice but only got electric and it's $25 per night. When we arrived we paid our $25 then Joel was looking at their website on his phone and found that today, Sept 30th all state parks have free camping. Jan went out to the pay box and dug out our envelope. So free camping, awesome!

We did a three mile hike on Juniper Loop, sidetracked to the Caves which turned out to be a slot canyon. Pretty cool, we had fun trying to fit everywhere.

Beautiful sunset