Post #1 "How Did I Get Here?"
Lincoln County, Nevada. You’ve never heard of it but it’s there. A little over 5,000 people spread across a desolate 10,000 square miles. How do I know of it you ask? Well, I’ve been there. Just as I’ve been to other missable places all over the United States like Goodland Kansas, Neah Bay Washington, Garfield County Utah, and Calumet Township Michigan. For some reason, these places stick in my head with vivid detail. Back to Lincoln County.
It’s mid-May 2019. I’m having the time of my life in Lincoln County, Nevada. my good friend Noah and I are doing our best to get lost exploring the Great Basin Region of Utah and Nevada. We have a general idea of where we're going but have no expectations. Classic Americana Rock is blasting through the speakers and the windows are down. My car is decorated with a plentiful coating of bugs, mud, and red dust. We’re driving in my 2010 Subaru outback down U.S. highway 93 at speeds the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department would not approve of. If there’s a good road to test the top speed of your car though, it’s this one. Straight, flat, not a single pothole, and beautiful scenery all around. At this moment I found myself asking, “How did I get here?”
Green shrubs carpet the desert floor beside my car parked on the shoulder of U.S. 93
Earlier that day we had woken up from a night of camping at the base of Pine Valley Mountain, just north of St. George Utah. While eating breakfast and patiently waiting for a construction grader to re-grade the dirt road we had camped down, we discussed our plans for the day. I whipped out my giant Rand McNally road atlas and opened it up on the hood of my car. “what’s out there?” I said, pointing to Great Basin National Park. “No idea,” said Noah. Just, like that our plans were set.
We hopped in my car and made a beat for the National Park. Stopping twice, once for gas and snacks, the other for photos. The drive was scenic. This area of the U.S. had received more spring rainfall than usual. The usually dry and brown desert basins were not carpeted with vibrant green vegetation. There was even snowpack still on some mountaintops, a rarity in this region, even in winter. During the three-and-a-half-hour car ride we probably only passed 5 total cars. We were in the middle of nowhere. Just as we turned on to U.S. Highway 50, the mountains of Great Basin National Park came into view.
“I love getting to know my fellow Americans” Noah wittily remarked as we stood in a circle with a group of other visitors to Great Basin. We were all introducing ourselves before going on a cave tour. He was right though; we were all Americans with cheesy background stories. A mom and her son from Las Vegas, Retirees from Pennsylvania, a vagabond from Oregon. I need to point out that this is rare. Usually while visiting a national park one feels almost like a minority as an American. On the south rim of the Grand Canyon, it’s not uncommon to hear five different languages just standing in one place. National Parks are in America, but they are for the world. It was a unique but fun experience to share with just everyday Americans. To bond over land valiantly protected by our own tax dollars.
To be fair, it doesn’t really make sense for a foreign traveler, or anyone for that matter to make a trek to Great Basin just for the hell of it. It’s a place 150 miles from the nearest Walmart and the town right outside of the park, Baker has one gas station where prices are pushing $3.50 a gallon. Temperatures in the summer are scorching over 100 degrees, and in the winter can plummet into the negatives. Most don’t even think about coming or have never even heard about it. Great Basin receives only 90,000 visitors a year. compared to the Great Smoky Mountains whopping 11 million visitors a year, Great Basin really isn’t raking in the tourism.
Snowy Wheeler Peak standing at over 13,000 feet
Noah and I found ourselves to be one of those 90,000. I had done my research though; it had been on my list for over a year. Great Basin is under some of the darkest skies in the country, compared to Las Vegas 300 miles south which is considered to be ground zero for light pollution. It is home to some of the oldest living trees on earth, the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, which can live to over 5,000 years old. Nevada’s only glacier is 12,500 feet up the pinnacle of the park, Wheeler Peak. Finally, a limestone cave under all of it, unique because karst topography is rare in the west.
The cave tour was $7.00 with a park pass, well worth it in my opinion. We drove up the scenic drive through the park up to 10,000 feet where it was closed due to snow. Bristlecone pine and Aspen surrounding the pavement. There’s an overlook just before the road closure where we could see Wheeler Peak 3,000 feet above us and the Great Basin Desert 5,000 feet below. The wind whistling through the branches of the pines being the only sound. It was desolation, but beautiful in a sense. It gave that feeling of perspective and clarity that many come to the National Parks for. “How did I get here?” I asked myself again.
The view from about 9,000 feet among Bristlecone Pines. The Great Basin Desert 5,000 feet below.
The searing desert sun dipped closer to the horizon and we piled back into my car and headed back towards Noah’s house in southern Utah. About an hour into our drive back, as the road we were humming along rose out of a desolate valley I looked in my mirror to admire the view. I had to stop. It was too beautiful not to. My photographer mind instantly took over my brain. The scene was one I had always wanted to capture. Vast American Desert, Mountains in the distance, puffy white clouds, and a black asphalt road vanishing into the horizon. Not to mention, it was golden hour. I frantically grabbed my camera and immediately started taking pictures all over the place. Everything became a subject, flowers, my car, the road. “I should take a timelapse,” I said to myself. I ran back to my car to get a tripod. My mind was going a million miles an hour.
Noah Just sitting in the middle of the road. Not another soul in sight
Meanwhile, Noah grabbed a folding chair from my car, slowly walked out to the middle of the road, opened the chair, and sat down. He was enjoying the moment. No camera, creative mind racing around. Just quietly soaking this beautiful moment in. I soon decided to join him sitting on the sun-warmed asphalt. There was total silence while both of us sat there in thought as the sun slowly dipped below the mountains on the horizon. “How did I get here?” I asked myself for the third time. Although this time I gave my mind time to reflect.
As I visit more and more places around North America, the “How did I get here?” moments have become increasingly common. Always occurring in the most memorable times it’s my brain pushing me to capture this moment in my brain by reflecting on the past events that lead me there. It’s never the moments of grandeur either. It’s the small moments that come by and unexpectedly wow you. Who thought that I would come to have such amazing experiences in Lincoln County, Nevada of all places? After all, I had literally pointed to it on a map that morning and decided to go there. You never know what you're going to stumble upon when you explore, so no matter when or where you ask, “How did I get here?” Think about it, reflect, and enjoy the journey.