National Park Guide: Nevada's Great Basin
It's one of the remotest national parks in the nation. But once you get to Great Basin National Park, you'll find an oasis in the desert.
The park's geography of extensive caves, streams and alpine terrain rising to 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak offers a striking contrast to visitors after traversing hundreds of miles of rocky sagebrush.
"It's gorgeous, beautiful country, but it takes a long time to get there," says Tammy Freeman in Reno, 380 miles of two-lane highway to the west.
The park's beginnings, according to its Historic Resource Study, date to 1921 when promoters of the Grand Central Highway, now U.S. Highway 50, pushed for creation of Lehman Caves National Monument as a "veritable oasis" for motorists between Salt Lake City and the West Coast.
Congress approved the national monument in 1922, but it took 64 years to attain park status encompassing Lehman Caves as well as the surrounding 77,000 acres under the Great Basin name.
Bob Goodman, of Reno, was camping there on Oct. 27, 1986, the day then-president Ronald Reagan signed legislation creating Great Basin National Park. "I remember thinking, what a wonderful gift to the nation," Goodman says. "But I also remember thinking, 'Darn it. Now everybody's going to know about it.' I had the whole place to myself that day."
Superintendent Andy Ferguson says the park is named for the region covering most of Nevada and portions of California, Oregon and Utah where no rivers or streams reach the ocean.
"People who come here really want to be here," he says. "It is a difficult place to get to. But the experience starts well outside the park."
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Size: 77,180 acres
Visitors: 91,451 in 2011
Established: 1986
History: Originally Lehman Caves National Monument, created in 1922. The first efforts to expand to a national park, including nearby 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak and 5,000-year-old bristlecone pines, came in 1924. But strong opposition by grazing interests staved off proposals in Congress until the early 1980s, when the state saw it as a tourist attraction for struggling White Pine County.
When visiting: Two visitor centers, one on Nevada Route 487 in Baker, 5 miles east of the park, and another inside the park entrance on Route 488. Visitor information: 775-234-7331.
Of note: 11 new species have been discovered in the park in the past few years, including a tiny shrimp, smaller than a fingernail, found in pools inside Lehman Caves and determined to be unique to the park.
