Leaving beautiful California behind we took a direct but
relatively leisurely seven days and six nights to cross the Great Basin*, the
remainder of Utah and about one-third of Colorado to reach our “summer home”; the
Snowy Peaks RV Park in Buena Vista, Colorado.
*The Great Basin is a sprawling area that covers almost all of Nevada, a big chunk of both Utah and Oregon and a bit of Idaho where no water flows out to an ocean. From Mono Lake on the west to the Great Salt Lake on the east all of the water in the basin either percolates into the ground collects in a few lakes or evaporates. Incredibly, the explorer and U.S. Army Captain John C. Fremont was able to conceptualize this phenomenon when he traversed the area in two exploratory trips in 1843-45 and declared it a "Great Basin".
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| Attentive readers may recall photos in a previous blog post looking up at the Devils Postpile formation from below. The Postpile consists of hexagonal columns of basalt. On our second visit to the national monument we hiked up to the top of the "pile"... |
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| ...and looked down on the talus at the base of the postpile; clear evidence that the columns of basalt do occasionally break and fall, most recently during a series of earthquakes in 1980. |
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| Looking down on the San Joaquin River below Rainbow Falls. |
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| Rainbow Falls, I wonder how they came up with that name? |
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| Remnants of a 90s era forest fire just south of Devils Postpile. |
I stumbled onto the Snowy Peaks RV Park in Buena Vista in 2012 when I spent the summer in Colorado climbing 14ers. Betsy visited several times that summer and
we liked the area so much that we have returned for extended summer stays in
2013, 2015 and again this year.
The drive from Bishop to Buena Vista is not easy if you are
pulling a trailer in the middle of the summer but the faithful truck chugged up
and across at least a dozen mountain passes and we caught a break when monsoon winds brought plenty of cloud cover but not much rain. Our first stop was Ely,
Nevada for two nights, the second stop was Salina, Utah for two nights and then
two nights in Fruita, Colorado before making the final pull to BV.
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| Nevada's highest point is located, as the name suggests, on the border with California. |
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| What better place to experience the Great Basin than Great Basin National Park (on the Nevada-Utah border)? Also, check out this video of us driving to the park from Ely, NV. |
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| High up in the mountains at Great Basin National Park is a "forest" of ancient Bristlecone Pines; 4,000 plus years and still going strong! |
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| One of dozens of mountain passes between Bishop and Buena Vista. |
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| Two weird coincidences during the drive east. When we were in Ely, Nevada I was listening to a news report about the cancelled execution of a prisoner on Nevada's Death Row when they mentioned that the prison where he resides is in Ely. Then, as we were out exploring in Utah and at about the same time that we were passing by this Mormon Temple, we got a message saying that Tex and Rachel were attending a performance of the musical Book of Mormon. |
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| The 100-mile stretch of I-70 between Salina, Utah and Green River, Utah may have the most spectacular scenery of any interstate in the country. |
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| This collared lizard resides in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area, 123,400-acres of BLM land just south of Fruita, Colorado, I-70 and the Colorado River near the Utah border. |
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| Looking north towards Fruita and the Colorado River in McInnis Canyons NCA. |
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| Looking south near the mouth of Devils Canyon in MCNCA. |
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| We've stayed several times at a state park near Fruita but had never been into the town until this trip when we discovered a beautiful bike path that connects the park with the town (and passes under I-70). Lo and behold, two brew pubs in the same block downtown. Fruita, Colorado, nice place! Who knew? |
We are planning to stay in BV through the end of September
and then return directly to San Antonio.
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