https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R07cCydCeY |
...recounts the retirement travels of Mark and Vicki Sherouse since 2008...in Asia and the Pacific, New Zealand, Europe, South America, and Africa, as well as the US and Canada. Our website, with much practical information, is: https://sites.google.com/site/theroadgoeseveron/.Contact us at mark.sherouse@gmail.com or vsherouse@gmail.com.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Great Basin National Park, 2015
We visited Great Basin National Park way back in 1990, not long after it opened. I climbed Wheeler Peak while the girls did the Alpine Lakes Trail. Obviously, it was much earlier in the summer, as our photos show considerable snow, even down to 10,000 feet. Thus: http://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2012/02/wheeler-peak-nevada-1990.html. Among memories of that visit were the bugs that descended--at 10,000 feet--on our camper then and devoured all the bug guts accumulated in our drive from Dallas. In 2015, Vicki and I contented ourselves with a couple of 3 mile hikes from the Wheeler Peak campground. At 10,000+ feet, that was plenty for us just now.
The night before visiting Great Basin we camped at a nice, new BLM campground at Sacramento Pass |
Wheeler Peak from the east |
Fall color well underway |
Shorter, more rugged half of the mountain |
In the bristlecone pine forest |
Bristlecone pines are among the oldest living things, some in this forest clocked (dendrochronology) at more than 5,000 years |
With the harshness of location and altitude, they have to be pretty rugged, adaptive specimens |
This one, I think, was rated at 3,200 years old |
Terrain about 10,400 feet |
Note the bristles |
More of the terrain |
Ditto |
Looking down to the basin...smoke arriving from the disastrous California fires |
Artsy view from a rest stop |
Next day, Lake Stella, a fragment of its 1990 self; there was barely enough water in Lake Teresa to photograph; both will be dry lakes in the near future |
But the color was grand, especially the orange quakies |
Hickison Petroglyphs
Some miles down the road and over the pass from Austin are the Hickison Petroglyphs, a BLM interpretive site. Unfortunately, the pamphlets from the self-guided trail were all gone, so we just walked the trail and gathered what we could. The petroglyphs are thought to be some 10,000 years old, which is indeed impressive.
Perhaps it all looked differently 10,000 years ago or more... water in the lakes and rivers, abundant game, little competition, milder climate... |
Austin, NV
We drove through Austin as the sun went down, continuing on up the hill, looking for an NFS campground. But we resolved to drive back the next morning to have a look at this living ghost town of note. 10,000 prospectors and other frontier-types were in this valley at one time.
Seen all over town, nearly all of whose businesses were closed |
Street scene, mostly original frontier, which is not actually all that old... |
Detail |
Saloon, left, library, right |
Up closer |
Episcopal church, built 1878, said to be one of the finer specimens of frontier church in NV |
Masons and Odd Fellows Hall |
Frontier spirit |
Going concern |
Unfinished frontier structure |
Favorite daughter/operatic star of the later 19th century, Emma Nevada; America's answer to Lola Montez/Lili von Shtupp? |
More frontier spirit; I guess he provided his own clean air and water, safe food, transportation and communication infrastructure, law and order, security from foreign aggression... |
More frontier spirit |
Trump's favorite insult is calling someone a loser; interesting how many of his supporters are obvious losers, misfits, and ne'er-do-wells |
I think we'll just drive right on through Austin next time, if there is a next time |
The Loneliest Road
US 50 bills itself as "The Loneliest Road," and, I would add, also the ugliest, and not just the scenery. After stimulating the local economy in Carson City, we drove 50 all across Nevada and through Utah all the way to Provo. I'll have a couple or three posts on sights along the way but wanted to add these from the road itself.
Not the official signage |
Salt flats |
Writ in sand... |
Sand Mountain...reminiscent of larger, more extensive dunes in France, the North Island, etc. |
Hundreds and hundreds of largely uninhabited miles, basin and range, basin and range, basin and range.... |
Savage-camping on a pass east of Austin, NV |
Sculpture on a spur from 50 to Great Basin National Park |
Fence sculpture |
Somewhere east of Baker, NV, now probably in Utah, a GoogleEarth street-view car passes us at a very high rate of speed... |
Evidently photographing this gorgeous terrain |
Let's see, last time I photographed one of these was in 2010, I think, on El Camino Real, in Palo Alto... |
Just west of Hinckley, Utah, one of the better shoe trees |
Nearby shoe stripling |
A few that didn't stick... |
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