Question of the Day - 16 November 2022

[Editor's Note: This answer is penned by Deke, author of seven editions of Nevada Handbook. He readily admits that he's biased in favor of "leaving Las Vegas," but he assured us that he'd lay it out for you, then you can make the call.]

It's true. I'm generally in favor of taking the occasional trip to slip the grip of the Strip. But this one sounds especially worthwhile to me.

There are plenty of closer destinations. Valley of Fire, for example, is only an hour northeast and is definitely a trip worth taking, with a couple of campgrounds equipped with shaded picnic tables, grills, water, and restrooms; showers and a dump station are available at one of them (it's first-come first-served until next year, when the Nevada State Parks system is implementing a reservation system). 

Cottonwood Cove is also an hour, but southeast through Searchlight and right on Lake Mohave, with a modern RV park under trees and an easy walk to the water and a resort with houseboat and watercraft rentals, cafe, and minimart. 

Other possibilities include Death Valley (two hours); Oatman, Arizona (a ghost town 45 minutes from Kingman); Zion National Park (two hours 40 minutes); or even Bryce Canyon National Park (four hours).

But if you brave the wilds of remote eastern Nevada, you'll boldly go where a mere fraction of a fraction of Vegas visitors have ever been or even know about and, I dare say, a fraction of local Las Vegans have ever been or even know about. Indeed, welcoming 90,000 visitors per year on average, Great Basin is the 11th least visited national park in the country (six in the top 10 are in Alaska and one's in American Samoa), compared to, say, Zion with five million and the Great Smokeys with nearly 14 million.

On the way, you can do some sightseeing at Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge; Kershaw-Ryan State Park (a surprisingly spectacular canyon with 700-foot-high walls only about two hours from Vegas); Cathedral Gorge State Park; and Lincoln County's old railroad town Caliente, old mining town Pioche, and old Mormon town Panaca.

Great Basin is four and a half hours from Las Vegas door to the visitor's center door. Once you're there, you're in for an experience that plumbs the depths of the Earth and scales the heights of Nevada.

The park preserves the upper half of the eastern side of Wheeler Peak, second highest point in the state (13,065 feet elevation); the visitor center is at 7,000. The guided tour of 10-million-year-old Lehman Caves is worth the entire trip, while Wheeler Peak Campground at 10,000 feet is the highest you can drive on a paved road in Nevada.

From the campground, you can hike to a couple of cool little alpine lakes, a forest of bristlecone pine trees (some more than 3,000 years old), and a viewpoint looking out on one of the most spectacular sights in the Silver State, a mountain bowl with sheer thousand-foot walls all around, the southernmost permanent icefield on the continent, and Wheeler Peak towering above it all. An eight-mile trail from the campground goes all the way to the top of the peak, a five- to six-hour round trip.    

Great Basin is also an International Dark Sky Park, so the stargazing is absolutely incomparable, especially from 10,000 feet in what's considered one of the darkest national parks in the whole 423-park system.

When you come down, stop in at Baker, the town at the base of the park, population 36. Good Mexican restaurant there.

If you take this trip and don't cherish at least a dozen memories, I'll eat my backpack.