Three miles up the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive winter visitors will find a road closed sign and a parking lot. There are a few hiking path options from here but at 7,500 feet elevation, the majority of the only road that goes through Great Basin National Park is closed for the season. We enjoyed the light dusting of snow slowly falling from the sky and scooping the remnants of last nights snowfall into snowballs while walking amongst white firs and ponderosa pines. There is a sense of solitude here in winter that you don’t get during their busy season, when a line of people are camped out in front of Lehman Caves Visitor Center with dreams of getting a no-show cave tour ticket.
There are sixteen free US National Parks and Great Basin is one of them (Alaska has the most). Even though there is less to do and see in this national park, you can’t complain about free. There is a fee for the cave but had we gone all this way and not done the caves our trip out here would have been a turkey. I am pleased with our experience here and plan to return during a different season, so we can camp and see the stars in this International Dark Sky Park.
