The Great Basin National Park brochure describes their terrain as "mountains in a sea of sagebrush." Situated in the middle of a basin, you can experience desert heat and alpine cold in a single day. That's what we did today. We started at our free campground at Sacramento Pass and drove 31 miles to the Shoshone trailhead for the Johnson Lake Trail. That 31-mile drive took an hour because the last miles on the gravel national park roads were (ahem) not exactly freeways.
Snaking through aspen forests and brush, this one-lane road with blind curves would make meeting another car very interesting. The good news is that this little-known trail doesn't have many hikers, and we didn't see a single car during the second half of the drive.
The other good news is that the drive took us from desert heat to gain 3,000 feet in elevation. We were the only vehicle in the trail head parking lot as we started this trail at 10 a.m.
We are still in the desert part of the day, surrounded by sagebrush as we continued UP. We also found some pink desert flowers that almost matched Denisa's blouse today.
We stopped for lots of breaks as we went UP. If Denisa would have known we were going to the top of the big mountain we saw when we pulled up to the trailhead, she might have gotten back in the pickup. This was a steep hike!
But first we went UP this the sneaky side mountain of sagebrush, then we went UP through the forest. This was the visitor center ranger's favorite trail because it is so diverse. It can go from desert heat to alpine cold because it goes up in elevation so much. It's only 4.6 miles to the top, but with 2,635 feet in elevation gain it took us three hours. "Let's go to the gym and do the step master for three hours this morning!" said no one. ever.
As we neared Johnson Lake, we started seeing some of the remains of the log cabins from the Johnsons and other miners.
The guys that lived in these cabins were here to mine Tungsten from these surrounding mountains.
Some of the cabins had been refurbished so we were able to go inside after our long journey UP.
Just a little further UP the trail and we finally got our first glimpse of Johnson Lake.
Denisa is still not sure that steep trail was worth it, but this is a beautifully peaceful place to be today.
The water is cold, but it felt good to our tired feet.
Of course, Mark wasn't content to stay on the lake shore. He scrambled up on the rocks for a bird's eye view of the lake. You can see his blue shirt amid those white rocks in the picture below.
From there he could see the clear turquoise waters of Johnson Lake, with Denisa as a tiny dot on the shore. That's where we had our picnic lunch as we spent some time enjoying the lake.
It was a beautiful view as we wandered UP to another of God's wonders!
True to the brochure claims, we managed to hike all the way UP to alpine cold this afternoon. Denisa had to put on her jacket at the lake. Then she was warm enough to take a nap in that spongy grass around the lake.
So Denisa was a fan of the lake destination, but not a fan of how steep the trail was to get to it. She is working on a new formula that will limit her future trails to something less than 500 feet elevation gain per mile hiked. After a nice long time enjoying the lake, it was time to make that steep hike DOWN. That's when we found this crooked aspen where Mark could sit in the crook.
This is a steep rocky trail, making the descent challenging as well.
We took the alternate route DOWN so we could pass by Dead Lake. While it fills up with snow melt and rain each spring, by the end of the summer it is basically dead. We noticed at the trailhead that a hike to Dead Lake was one of the possibilities. We feel bad for people that did this much elevation gain if this little puddle pond was their only destination.
By the time we got back to the pickup, we had hiked 9.2 miles total. It seemed to be all straight UP or straight DOWN! On the drive back to the motor home, we noticed a herd of elk cows and their babies in the same field where they were grazing last night.
It was early enough that we still had good lighting, so we pulled over to watch the little guys.
On this clear evening we can see the grand mountains on the north side of the loneliest road. We're loving the blue skies and white clouds on this smoke-free day in eastern Nevada!
We were back to the motor home in its spot in the Sacramento Pass Campground before sunset, and what a beautiful sunset it was! It has been a full day on a steep trail, but we got to experience everything from desert heat all the way UP to alpine cold in one day.
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