DETOUR!

After waking up refreshed and showered at the KOA, we headed north to Cedar Breaks National Monument. Our first impression when we saw the amphitheater was that it was like a miniature Bryce Canyon. It had the the same orange rock and some of the white capstone. It also had a purple manganese layer near the top of the formations.



We drove the scenic drive, stopping at all of the available overlooks before hiking the Alpine Pond Trail with a ranger. The hike brought us through much of the wilderness areas and eventually to a small, shallow, spring-fed pond. Surprisingly, the pond had foot-long trout swimming in it.



After the hike we had a picnic near the campground (beef stew) and attended another ranger program on mountain lions. Apparently we can witness many of the wild behaviors of mountain lions by watching Pumpkin. I always suspected that he was a savage, feral, undomesticated beast. I miss him.

We hiked the Ramparts Trail to Spectra Point. The trail had some steep cliffs which gave Lisa sweaty palms. The point gave a beautiful view of the amphitheater and we could even see some snow in the canyon.



Leaving Cedar Breaks, we headed to Cedar City which was to the west. Our intention was to head south to Zion National Park but knowing how crowded it would be on the weekend, we plugged Great Basin National Park into the GPS and found out that it was only two hours away! We headed north to a park we both knew nothing about.

The drive was beautiful and took us through mountain passes and valleys with no human activity in sight. We passed four cars in the two-hour drive!

Great Basin National Park exceeded our expectations. The park itself isn’t a basin at all - it is a picturesque mountain range with a cave underneath. The basin refers to the area in northern Nevada in which water is trapped and doesn’t actually flow to the ocean. Instead it tends to form salty lakes in the valley which dries up in the summer. Neat place!



We went to the Astronomy program in the evening, but clouds overhead kept the ranger from even getting a view of the moon.

The next morning, we toured Lehman Caves (which is actually a misnomer - it’s just one cave). The cave was wetter than any other that we’ve visited on this trip and most of the formations are still active.



The cave’s famous formation is a “shield” which is a flat disk of calcite with vertical cylindrical-shaped patterns underneath.



We grabbed sandwiches at the visitor center and drove the Wheeler Peak scenic drive. The drive took us above ten-thousand feet and gave Lisa sweaty palms again. At the end of the road we hiked to the bristlecone pine grove which had gnarly trees that were two to three thousand years old! The trees looked ancient and their bark was smooth. The oldest tree in the world, nicknamed Promethius, was accidently cut down in this area in the 1960’s. Since then, there has been an older tree discovered, but the park service keeps it a secret so people don’t carve their names into it.



After the pine grove, we hiked to Teresa Lake, a small glacial pond that sits under the peak of the mountain. The water was cold, but there was a family there determined to swim, they must be cold-blooded.



Now that it’s Sunday night, were heading south to Zion National Park for the evening...probably