Saturday 8.28
Great Basin NP
No breakfast other than coffee before our morning hike. Bad decision! Our little 3 mi, creekside hike had an unbelievable 1500ft elevation gain??!! But, luckily, it was a flora & fauna beauty!! Turkeys, deer, wildflowers, snakes, and a possible Bonneville Cutthroat trout! Walk back down to camp and somehow clocked 5miles! Time to soak our feet in the cold creek behind our camp and decide the rest of the day…
We decide on the whole enchilada… so start the quesadilla lunch and extras for dinner, and pack for the evening’s temperature change. Back up the mountain and out & up to see some Bristlecone pines that grow at about 11,000 ft elevation… and the late afternoon light was perfect for photography (says Trish).
Onward to the night’s main event - the Dark Sky ranger program. It is a tier “gold” rated site, so we had to join the talk. The 3 large telescopes provided were a nice surprise - we could check out Saturn, a Nebula and the Andromeda galaxy!! Sipping my peanut butter whiskey and seeing an amazing night sky, the longest shooting star of my life passed overhead, just seconds after the ranger said to keep an eye out for shooting stars! Bonus!!
