Great Basin National Park
Date: 06/25/2007
This photo really captures what Great Basin National Park is all about. There is almost an 8,000 foot difference in elevation between Wheeler Peak (the highest point in the park) and the desert valley floor. Great Basin National Park allows you to experience the solitude of the desert, the smell of sagebrush after a thunderstorm, and hiking in the shadow of 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak. Top it all off with 5,000 year old bristlecone pine trees growing on rocky glacial moraines.
Wheeler Peak
Date: 06/25/2007
13,063-foot Wheeler Peak dominates the view in this photo taken along the scenic drive in Great Basin National Park.
Bristlecone Pine Trail
Date: 06/25/2007
This is a view from the Bristlecone Pine Trail in Great Basin National Park. This trail is the best place in the park to see bristlecone pines, many of which are 3,000 - 4,000 years old! (This photo was taken just before we reached the first grove of bristlecones.) The bristlecone pine groves are all over 10,000 feet in elevation.
Bristlecone Pine
Date: 06/25/2007
One of the first bristlecone pines that we saw in the park. Bristlecone pines are the oldest living organisms on Earth, often reaching nearly 5,000 years of age! Bristlecones have 5 needles per fascicle, and can grow to be 40-60 feet in height (under most favorable conditions.) Often they will die in portions. As the roots become exposed they will dry out and die. The tree directly connected above those roots will eventually die as well. The remainder of the tree will continue to live. This is among the causes that create the twisted tortured look of the trees.
Red Columbine
Date: 06/26/2007
A red Columbine along the Alpine Lakes Trail in Great Basin National Park.
Red Columbine - Another View
Date: 06/26/2007
A red Columbine along the Alpine Lakes Trail in Great Basin National Park.
Mountain Stream
Date: 06/26/2007
A mountain stream along the Alpine Lakes Trail in Great Basin National Park.
Stella Lake
Date: 06/26/2007
The Alpine Lakes trail passes Stella Lake, a beautiful alpine lake over 10,000 feet in elevation. The water was amazingly clear, and cold!
Lehman Caves
Date: 06/26/2007
Lehman Caves is a beautiful limestone cave ornately decorated with stactities, talagmites, helictities, flowstone, popcorn, and over 300 rare shield formations. (Note that it is a single cave, despite the name. It contains numerous large chambers, which is probably where it got the name.
Lehman Cave Tour
Date: 06/26/2007
Weather in caves tends to be very consistent, compared to the surface conditions. Lehman Caves is 50° F year round. The relative humidity varies between 90 and 100%.
Cave Shield
Date: 06/26/2007
Shields are the formation that Lehman Caves is best known for. Lehman Caves has an unusually large concentration of shields, more than 300. Shields consist of two round or oval parallel plates with a thin medial crack between them. The medial crack is thought to be an important clue to their formation. Shields tend to form in caves with highly fractured limestone (like Lehman). Shields grow at all sorts of angles from the ceiling, wall, and floor of the cave. The most accepted theory for how shields form relates to fractures in the bedrock. Water under hydrostatic pressure moves through thin fractures in the limestone. As it enters the cave passage by means of capillary action, the water deposits calcite on either side of the crack, building plates of calcite with a thin, water-filled crack between them. Shields may be decorated with popcorn or helictites on the top and along the medial crack, and draperies and stalactites on the bottom. Sometimes the speleothems on the bottom plate get too heavy and pull the shield apart.