Great Basin National Park - Nevada - and then The Meltdown

There was another long and quite scenic drive to get to Baker, gateway to the park.  We stopped at the visitor's center and then drove right in to the park and were able to get a spot in the Baker Creek campground, which had a few pull-through sites for RV's.  The campground wasn't too full, and we found a spot that was pretty isolated and gave us a lot of privacy.  There were no hookups, but there was some shade to protect us from the heat, and the campsite was quite cheap and very beautiful.

After setting up the campsite, we took a short hike around and went to the visitors center to get tickets for the tour of Lehman Caves, a major highlight of the park.  The tours are limited in both number and size, so reservations are essential.  We got a spot the following afternoon.  Afternoon tours are always preferred, because the temperature in the caves is in the 50's, while midafternoon temps in the park were approaching 95 every day. 90 minutes below ground is a real treat, regardless.  In the evening we attended a ranger lecture on the basque sheepherders and their history in Nevada. 

The next morning we took a hike down the creek from our campsite to an area known as Grey Cliffs.  It was nice hike, with some great scenery, a bit of wildlife and a lot of heat.  Ivy was having trouble with the altitude, and so was I, so we decided to head down to the town of Baker for lunch.  "Town" probably overstates it a bit - there was a curio shop and restaurant/bar, and an unattended gas station.  But we had an enjoyable chat with the curio shop owners and one of the customers, a colorful lady driving a three-wheel Harley Davidson motorcycle around the country.  Her husband had died in a motorcycle accident and left her some money, so she decided to honor his memory with the tour.  It was a great bike, too, full of hidden compartments and surprises.

We had a pleasant lunch in the little restaurant, and then went back to take our Lehman Caves tour.  The caves are truly spectacular.  They are not really huge like some others, but they belong to the category of "decorated" caves, those with many elaborate variations on the usual stalactite/stalagmite configurations.  These include "cave bacon", "cave shields", and a truly baroque and dazzling variety of shapes, each different from the other. The late afternoon was spent as most are in that part of the country, lounging in the shade and waiting for human-scale temperatures to return.  There were lots of little squirrels and birds around the campsite to watch, and Ivy did some art work.   Then there was another ranger lecture, this time on wild horses.  A fascinating and quite timely and controversial topic.

The next morning we got up early and headed up to the top of the Wheeler Peak road.  At over 10,000 feet, this spot was the highest we'd been to, and both of us were a bit worried about the altitude, but it all went OK.  We took a walk around the campground and then a hike along one of the mountain trails leading up to the top of Wheeler Peak.  We only went about a mile in, but we had a great time, with a lot of birding and some great views of the peaks.  In  the afternoon we went down to the Grey Cliffs area again and Ivy painted awhile, while I wandered around and looked at stuff.

 The next morning dawned, sunny and fateful.  We packed up the RV and headed down the long grade from the park into Baker.  Well, we never seem to lack for adventures on our little tour.  Halfway down the grade, the Geo tow car caught fire and burned to the ground.  We’re still not sure why, but it probably had something to do with brakes.  Poor little Geo – died with its boots on.  Fortunately, because of the prevailing winds, the RV, which was firmly tethered to it, did not catch fire and suffered only minor damage.

It could have picked a better place to pull this particular stunt.  Imagine our situation.  Halfway between Baker, NV, a town with one restaurant, one curio store and a self-serve gas station, and the Great Basin National Park, out in the middle of the desert, with no pullouts and no cell phone or any other phone service.  We stopped in the middle of the road and waited with the Geo burning merrily.  There was nothing to be done at this point, and we were worried that the RV, still attached by multiple cables and towbars, would be involved in any explosion that ensued.  A kind visitor eventually came by – there isn’t much traffic out there – and, seeing our plight, drove into town to get help.  They sent out the BLM people with a small fire truck.

Well, it turns out that the BLM people are not authorized to work on car fires, only brush fires on the surrounding desert, so the truck pulled over to the side of the road at a safe distance and waited for our Geo to explode and start a brush fire so they could go to work.  In the meantime, we were stopping traffic and concern was building.  A park employee came by and got on the radio to HQ.  Eventually a larger fire truck from the direction of Baker showed up.  There were quite a few people there by this time, and they all ran around for awhile, but it turned out that the truck’s water system wasn’t working somehow and they couldn’t put any water on the fire.

So, another ten or fifteen minutes later, a third truck showed up, this one with both water and permission and the means to employ it.  The fire was brought under control while the bigger fire truck went back to get more water.  Then it came back and really drowned the blaze, then they put tons of foam on it and finally put the whole thing completely out.  The picture shows the remains of our poor Geo, totally gutted.  The radiator was a pool of metal on the highway, the tires melted down to radial fibers – it’s pretty impressive what a car fire can do.

Of course, to file a report on the incident, we had to get a Nevada Highway Patrol Officer from Ely, NV, over 60 miles away.  That took awhile.  Then there was a call to find somebody to pick up the carcass – this was no ordinary tow job, and it was a Saturday out in the desert.  Eventually, someone from Ely  agreed to come, at an hour and a half there, an  hour and a half back again, and maybe a half hour to clean up the mess.

But Ivy and I are hale and hearty, although beginning to doubt our travel karma in a big way.  Our RV survived remarkably well, apparently because the wind was blowing in the right direction.  We’re now set up in a motel in Ely and working on cleaning up the RV and contacting all the insurance, blah, blah.  But we are having to re-engineer the trip a bit, and we need to settle the issue of a new tow-car.