My plan was to camp in Great Basin National Park for 4
nights the week of August 10th 2014. Due to heavy rains in the mountains, my plans
changed. Here is my story.
I left the house on the Honda Goldwing 1500 on August 10th,
around 6:45 AM on Sunday Morning. The
ride up to the Cajon pass was quiet. The
ride up the Cajon pass was unnaturally without wind, which was delightful for a
change. Once on the Highway 395, I
stopped for gas and a quick breakfast.
The ride from up the 395 was hot, even though it was only 9:00
am in the morning. I continued up and through Bishop, CA. When I got to Bishop
it was about 90 degrees. I ate some lunch downtown. I then continued up to Carson City, Nevada.
Along the way it started to briefly rain around Mono Lake.
I arrived in Carson City around 4:00 pm, after riding many
miles. I grabbed some dinner at a
Vietnamese restaurant and filled the gas tank for the next day. I stayed at the Hampton Inn, where they let
me store the bike under the front overhang in the event of more rain.
The next day I got some breakfast from the hotel and headed
out toward Grand Basin National Park on the 50.
I set my GPS for the city of Baker, that is at the base of the park. The morning was a little cool but not too
bad. I had taken the heated jacket but I
never needed it on the trip.
I got up to Silver Springs and then the GPS wanted me to go
South on the 95. I though perhaps it was
just a small short cut, so I went ahead and went along with the GPS. The GPS kept on wanting to go south, which
made me wonder what was going on with the GPS. I checked the GPS and found out
that I was heading for Baker, CA and not Baker, NV; my fat fingers. I finally ended up getting back on the 95 north
to Fallon. All together I probably wasted an hour, but the scenery was good and
the riding easy.
At Fallon, I was able to get back on to the 50. During the next few hours I went over many
passes and entered too many rain storms to count. Some rain was short and
brief, and some rain was heavy. When the
rain got heavy I layered on my yellow rain suit. At one point I also put on my rain boot
covers.
Around lunch time I hit the town of Austin, NV. This was an interesting town on the side of a
hill. Right after Austin I encountered
some heavy rain and at one point was hit by a mud clod with rocks from a
passing truck. One chunk hit my boot and the other piece took a nick out of the
windshield. The red mud stuck to the bike the rest of the trip.
I pulled into Baker, NV at about 3:00 PM and went to the
Park visitor center. I hit the rest room and got some change for my camp
ground. There is not much in Baker. There are a couple of small hotels, a
restaurant or two and an unmanned Sinclair gas station.
I wanted to make camp before it got dark, so I headed up the
mountain. The road up is a two lane road
with many twists and turns. Some of the
turns are hair pin turns. My goal was to get a campsite in the Wheeler Peak
campground at 10,000 feet, the highest of all the campgrounds. I pulled into
the campground about ½ later, at the end of the road and started looking for a
campground. I wanted one that was easy to get in and out with the motorcycle,
was fairly level and had a good area to setup my tent. About ½ of the campsites were empty and I was
able to find a good site about ¾ of the way around the loop. The loop was a small one way road that had a
number of changes up and down in the road.
I pulled in to the camp site and immediately starting
putting up the tent due to the dark clouds that were gathering in the area. The
campsite is in a valley area where you feel as if you are in a bowl. Wheeler Peak trail, to the peak starts at the
beginning of the campground. During my stay clouds were frequently swirling and
twirling around the small valley. The clouds normally appeared as they raced
over Wheeler Peak toward the camp site. As I started to setup the tent the campground
attendant appeared and asked for my site ticket, which I had purposely deferred
the procurement of the ticket until I had setup the tent. I told him that “I wanted to setup the tent
quickly due to the rapidly changing conditions, and I would pay as soon as I
finished with the tent”. He appeared to
be somewhat okay with my explanation.
Over the next three days I never saw him again, which I thought was odd.
I would walk past his campsite several times a day and his sign would always
say “off duty”.
My tent is what I would call a coffin tent, where you can
only slide yourself in and out. No
sitting up in this tent, and when you get all your gear in the tent there is
little room for anything other than a small air pocket where you can read. I had some difficulty this time with the
tent. The last time I used the tent was during a wind storm in Death Valley.
The winds were so bad on that trip that I had to lash the motorcycle to the
park picnic table. The good news is the tent is so low that winds just rush
right over it. I really never had any problem with wind while using the tent.
This time at Great Basin Park was different, The rains were seeping into the
tent from all sides, and it only had one layer and not the rain shield, which
then meant that the anytime you touched the walls of the tent then it would
rain on the inside. Since I was crammed into the coffin tent, it was inevitable
that I was pushing or touching on the sides of the tent all the time.
After I finished with the tent I walked up the road to the
pay station and deposited by $12 dollars in the slot. Even though the station
was no more than ¼ mile away it was very difficult breathing due to the
altitude. I returned to the camp site, displayed my pay stub properly on the
post and relaxed. About 30 minutes later it started to rain. I was just barely
able to get my get either under the park bench or in the tent before it really
started coming down. About this time I
noticed that I was starting to feel uncomfortable. Then I realized that it was
really cold and I was standing out in the rain. I had really not changed my
clothes since I was down at the ranger station in Baker. I then put on my
cashmere sweater, my down jacket and my full motorcycle rain suit. Even with
all this gear I still felt cold in the rain. I got out my flash stove and made
a cup of hot tea as I stood in the rain and watched the clouds fly by overhead.
About an hour later I
decided to cook some dinner. I used one of the freeze dried meals I had brought
on the trip, followed by ½ of the freeze dried blueberry cheesecake desert. The rain stopped for a bit and I read until
9:00 pm. Then I went off to sleep.
I awoke on Tuesday morning to a beautiful day, which by the
way was the last time I saw blue skies at the campground. I ate more freeze dried foods consisting of
granola, and then drank more hot tea. While sitting in the campground I was
visited by a little squirrel. The cute
little squirrel appeared to be looking for food. That was great until a pack of
squirrels arrived at the campsite. It appears that the first squirrel was just
a scout. I missed the part where he sent a text message back to the pack saying
“I have got a real sucker here at camp site 29, get here quick”. There was one squirrel that run up my leg
several times in an effort to get something to eat. I have never seen squirrels
so bold as these. They surrounded the camp site for about 20 minutes and then
departed as quickly as they came. They probably received another “sucker” text
from the scout.
At about the same time as the squirrels’ departure I noticed
a flock of birds in the field right next to me. There must have been 50 or so
checking for food in the field. What was
next? A den of skunks, or maybe a heard
of deer standing in the campsite begging for food.
Around 10:00 AM I decided to hike to the glaciers via the
Wheel Peak trail. The sign showed a total of 5 miles round trip. I was sure I
could do this hike, even at altitude. The hike turned out to be really easy,
until it got to the loose rock park after I passed the tree line. Then it was
just a case of slipping on rock as you went either up or down. The trail started in the trees, then passed
into the top line of Bristol Cone pines and then into the land of no
vegetation.
I got to the point where I thought I was seeing the glacier.
I took some pictures and then turned around to head down. As I did there were
two guys about 5 minutes apart going up. Each asked if I had gotten to the
glacier and I said “No. I think this is enough.”. After they both passed I thought to myself
“What the heck. I will just keep going to the end. How much farther can it be?”. It was not much farther being only about ½ of
a mile further. The two guys were both standing there saying “this is
it?”. The glacier was covered with dirt
and they really did not recognize it as a glacier until I pointed it out to
them. “How disappointing” one said. “This is not at all like the Sierras”. I
headed back down with them and arrived back at the campsite around 2:00
PM. I then started thinking “that was
not bad, I can do the Wheel Peak hike which is just a 8 mile roundtrip hike on
Thursday. By then I will be total used to the altitude. “
I ate lunch at then by 3:00 PM the thunder clouds started to
appear around me. It then thundered for the next 6 hours. It rained and then it
rained. I laid in the tent for a few hours and read, but I finally got tired of
being in the tent. I put on my rain gear
and went out to stand in the thunderstorm. I stood about for some time watching
other campers with their fires sitting under their large tarps that they
carried up in their cars and trucks.
Later I sat down in the thunderstorm and prepared and ate dinner. I ate
two dinners, since I really did not have anything else to do during the storm.
Finally, about 9:00 PM I went to sleep.
I awoke and started thinking about what I was going to do that
day. The sounds of rain I heard where
the where the same sounds I heard when I went to sleep. I made a decision: I did not want to sit in
the tent any longer in the rain. I was cold and tired of just sitting in a tent. I was cutting the trip short and heading out.
I packed up the tent and all the gear and headed down the
mountain. Initially, it was rainy, cold and foggy. As I descended down the mountain it became
warner and dry. I stopped at the ranger station at the bottom of the mountain. Standing there in the heat, it was almost impossible to imagine how cold and wet it was just 30 minutes ago at the top of the mountain.
I decided to try a different route going home. I took
highway 6 going South out of Ely. If you thought highway 50 was the loneliest
highway in America, then check out Highway 6. There is nothing out there! After about riding about an hour, there was a
sign that said something like “no gas for 96 miles.” Keep in mind that I had already been riding
for some time. Lucky that I filled up
back in Ely. I can do about 200 miles on a tank, and this highway was pushing
it. The road was straight, hot and dry. There were a couple of deserted towns along
the way.
I rolled into Bishop late afternoon. Got a room at the Best
Western hotel, had a nice Italian dinner with a little wine, and then relaxed
for the evening.
I got up early the next day and enjoyed the ride along the
sierras on Highway 395. The rest of the way back home was very uneventful and dry.
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