We didn't mean to . . . at The Great Basin National Park

We go out of our way to visit national parks, and it was great that the Great Basin National Park was right on our way on this trip. We've been traveling down the "Loneliest Road," and it ends right on the Nevada/Utah border at the national park entrance. We checked in at the visitor center and then started up the steep park road for our first view of Wheeler Peak.

We spent most of the day driving across the Loneliest Highway, so we really didn't mean to go for a long hike today. We were really checking to see if they had any last-minute openings for the Lehman Cave tours in the next couple days. We got on the wait list, but everyone showed up for the 2:00 tour. They are completely booked up for the next week. So instead of walking through a cave, we decided to take a hike. We had read about a loop hike that takes hikers to two different alpine lakes. We didn't mean to start that loop so late, but before we knew it we were standing in front of Stella Lake.

It's already 4:45 and we're just getting a good start on this hike. We really didn't mean to get such a late start, but the blue skies and nice weather whooed us into it.

We caught a picture of a couple deer that were posing beside the trail this evening.

These two girls did acknowledge our presence, but it was about time for them to find a place to bed down.

We arrived at the second alpine lake--Teresa Lake, by 5:20 p.m. Actually, our phones are having a hard time keeping track of the time. We are so close to the Utah border--and the border between Pacific and Mountain Time--that the time on our phones kept shifting back and forth between the two time zones.

We had noticed that this loop hike intersected with the hike to the Wheeler Peak Glacier. We didn't mean to, but hiking up to the glacier just seemed to make sense right now. Part of this hike was over big rock boulders, but we continued down this new trail.

It's 6:20 by now, and the sun is low enough in the sky to light up east-side peaks, while leaving the west-side peaks in the shadows.

We finally got to the point of the trail that we could get our first glimpse of the Wheeler Glacier.

We zoomed in for a closer view, as this white glacier isn't very big. Glaciers form when more snow falls on a mountain in the winter than will melt in the summer. Below the white icy glacier, is the long rock glacier that covers more of the glacial ice.

While Denisa has had enough rock scrambling, Mark is still up for the challenge of getting closer to the glacier. So he takes off across the rocks for a closer look. He gets far enough away that Denisa couldn't even see him now.

We have to zoom in to see him standing in front of a tree. Then he continues up those rocks even further to get his best look at the glacier.

It's a beautiful blue sky evening, but we didn't mean to still be so far up on this trail at 6:45.

We skipped by the bristlecone pine forest on our way to the glacier, but we just had to stop on the way back to the trailhead. So we didn't mean to visit this interesting little forest today, but we did.

The easiest way to identify these unique trees is to look for their tight bristle branches that look like a baby bottle brush.

They are often confused with the limber pine, and they often grow side by side. They both grow needles in clusters of five. But the bristles are more compact on the bristlecone pine on the right, and it is remarkably older.

The amazing thing about bristlecone pines is their longevity. For example, the tree that Denisa is standing by is 3200 years old! That means it was "born" around 1230 B.C.

These trees have witnessed much in their long lives. This tree was found to be 3100 to 3300 years old based on a core sample taken.

Because bristlecone pines grow so slowly, their wood is exceptionally hard. Even when they die, the trunks stay upright and don't decay like most dead trees. They estimate that this tree was 1500 years old when it died. That was 700 years ago, but it is still standing.

We're enjoying the beautiful old trees and beautiful blue skies. But it's well after 7:00, and we don't have much sunlight left to get back to the trailhead. We didn't mean to stay on the trail this late.

While Denisa always enjoys flowers, Mark likes the beauty of unusual wood. Bristlecone pine's old wood is gnarly and beautiful.

Even though we didn't mean to take this trail today, it was a good one. It's well-marked with bright red metal flags on the trees to follow, it's a well-maintained trail, and it was sprinkled with more of God's wonders. 

As we walked through the woods in the last section of the hike, we caught sight of two woodpeckers. Denisa never realized how hard it is to get a clear picture of birds intent on drilling into the trunk of a tree. After twenty attempts, Mark reminded her that we needed to get off this mountain before it got dark.

It was almost dark by the time we drove down the mountain, and back to where our motor home was waiting for us at Sacramento Pass campground. It was a long drive down the Loneliest Road today, and then to Great Basin National Park. Even though we didn't mean to, we ended up hiking 5.9 miles today. We did a lot of things that we didn't mean to today, but they were all fun!