GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK is located near the small eastern Nevada towns of Ely and Baker, roughly 300 miles north of Las Vegas and 250 miles south-southwest of Salt Lake City.  The park protects a tiny portion of the huge geographic feature of the same name that encompasses high valleys, numerous mountain ranges, and very few rivers.  The Great Basin region covers most of Nevada, much of western Utah, and a portion of southeastern California, stretching from the Sierra Nevada Range of California eastward to the Wasatch Mountains of Utah.  The name comes from a peculiarity of the drainage—over most of the region, streams and rivers have no outlet to the sea.  Rather, water collects in shallow salt lakes, mud flats and marshes, and evaporates in the dry desert air. 

This is high desert country.  Great Basin National Park elevations range from well above 6,000 feet to the summit of Wheeler Peak which, at 13,063 feet, is the high point of Nevada.  Though small as national parks go—only 77,000 acres—and very lightly visited (fewer than 100,000 visitors per year), Great Basin offers varied attractions, including Lehman Caves and several hiking trails, one leading to the windy Wheeler Peak summit.     

All other attractions aside, any trip to Great Basin is incomplete without a visit to its bristlecone pine groves to view some of these ancient trees that survive the severe weather of high altitude slopes.  Bristlecones live not just for centuries, but for millennia—as long as 3,000 years or more.  Living trees as old as 4,900 years have been discovered in the park.  The bristlecones cling to life on cold, dry, windy slopes between 9,000 and 11,500 feet.  They grow extremely slowly, and their wood has a high resin content that prevents rot.  Instead of decaying normally, the wood actually erodes—like stone—from exposure to wind and ice crystals.  Ironically, though bristlecones living at lower elevations in less severe conditions grow more rapidly, they live only a few hundred years.  It seems that in bristlecone society, the tougher the conditions, the longer the life.

Though not widely known or highly ranked in national park visitation or popularity, the variety of experiences Great Basin offers—from caves to summits, small, quiet lakes to ancient trees—makes this park well worth discovering.  And its small size makes such a discovery possible with the investment of only a couple days time.