“You can just pull over to the side of the road and camp anywhere…” explained the park ranger, as I told him about my plans to cross Highway 50, the loneliest highway in America. “…It’s generally accepted,” he continued.
He pulled a map out from under his desk. It was folded like a standard brochure, but he unfolded it again and again, until the whole state of Nevada covered his desk. I had taken the advice from the little placard on the table in the cafe the day before which read, “Ask a park ranger about Nevada ghost towns. The ranger had explained how to get to the abandoned town of Hamilton, and he pointed out another place on the map. “That one is on private land now. There’s a mining company that owns it, but you still might be able to see some of the building.”
My plan was to cross Highway 50 to Lake Tahoe on the far west side of the state. I wanted to camp at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park to break up the journey and see the ghost town that park preserved. I was asking the ranger if there were any other ghost towns worth a stop along the way, and if he thought I’d be able to find a vacant campsite at Berlin-Ichthyosaur. He was an older, friendly man, who equipped me with the you can do this- it’ll be an adventure kind of spirit. So, out of the Great Basin National Park visitor center I left with my map of Nevada in hand along with some exclusive knowledge on ghost town. I was excited to have them both.
This morning I had gotten up early and took a stroll through the Bristlecone Pine forest in Great Basin National Park. The park is home to the oldest trees in the world Pinus longaeva, the Bristlecone Pine. The oldest one was removed from the park in 1964 at 4,900 years old. Today still many ancients stand in the grove next to Wheeler Peak. They only grow at an altitude between 9,00 to 11,500 feet. Here they have found their niche, where they aren’t disrupted. They are slow growing, and often, as the National Park Service puts it “out-competed.” So they have, in a sense, retreated to conditions in which other trees can’t survive.
A short interpretive hike, tells you the names and ages of the the trees. What fascinates me about such old trees is putting them in context of history, and considering all of the things they out date, such as all modern wars and the birth of Jesus. They precede the rise of the Roman empire. They might have been standing back during the rule of King Tut. These trees have stood through much of the milestones tumult of the world.
Looking at them, you wouldn’t guess their age. They are rather girthy, but not that tall in comparison to something like the Sequoia or Redwood, which we often equate with age. Their branches are unique as they twist and curve like strings of warm taffy. Once you fully consider how old they are, they start to look elderly. Their exterior is painted many different shades of brown, and the trunks and limbs are brushed with indentations and grooves, like a wrinkly old man who’s spent too many days out in the sun. At the same time, the way they look is almost fanciful. Although extremely still and sturdy, the dramatic twisted growth and exotic posture make these trees appear frozen in mid-dance, manipulated by some strange sorcery.
Nevada, never ceases to amaze me. I wouldn’t have thought the world’s oldest trees resided in such a place. As I closed my car door and spread out my new map on my drivers seat, I was gearing up to see what other surprises this state held in the middle of its expanse. I buckled up, programed my gps, plugged in my camera to charge, and…realized I needed gas.
As a courtesy of the National Park Service, the park map labeled the location of the nearest gas station- or might I say, the only gas station around. It was in Baker Nevada, the town in the desert at the foot of the park. When I arrived I was very skeptical. There was no building nor sign. There was just a single pump next to an old lamp post and a garbage can in the middle of a gravel lot. It looked to me like the remnants of an old gas station that used to stand here. Maybe I could mark this off as my first ghost town experience of the trip. Maybe this gas station predated the Bristlecone Pines.
I double checked my map. This was it. I pulled up to the pump and got out of my car into the oppressive heat and dead silence. Sure enough, there was a credit card reader. The pump was functional. I was sincerely surprised, and found the whole situation comical. This part of Nevada was truly a foreign place to me. I filled up, knowing that while traveling across what’s called “America’s loneliest highway,” gas would be sparse.
This little gas station, if we so generously permit it such a term, is the most fitting post and right of passage to Highway 50. Many places have their iconic monuments upon entry. The United States as a whole has the Statue of Liberty, San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge, Yellowstone has Roosevelt Arch, and Highway 50 has this gas pump. It sums up the whole Highway 50 experience: Get ready for a whole lot of nothing, but a few really genuine surprises.
Read the previous entry “Summiting Wheeler Peak,” here: https://joshthehodge.wordpress.com/2018/03/25/summiting-wheeler-peak/
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I stood there in a prairie along the mountain side, among bunchgrass and black sage, looking up at the mountain peek. The view looked like Wheeler Peak, and the adjoining peaks, used to all be connected at a higher point, all composing one grand mountain, but over time that higher summit crumbled to pieces and formed the rock glacier. Nevertheless, Wheeler Peak stands very tall. It’s Nevada’s highest peak. Although just summiting the beast alone seemed impossible, one of my questions was, do I have time? I was not getting an early start. It was well into the afternoon. 
Eventually there was nothing left except me on the slanted fields of rock crumble. The trail evolved into switchbacks, and since the landscape was so uniform, it was difficult at times to know exactly where the trail was supposed to be.
When I reached the top, the wind had dissipated greatly. I was stunned by the view. Hundreds of miles of Nevada was visible in all directions. Here I could truly see just how mountainous Nevada was, with mountains all over in near and far reaches, with sharp points, and slanted slopes, snow caps, and hidden forests, and valleys of desert between them all, covering great expanses. Just across from Wheeler peak was another peak that rose on a mountain which looked like it had been sliced by a knife with such a shark direct cut down to its base. 
This little forest gave me a feeling of privacy and security, despite the dead squirrel in there, just a few feet from where I pitched my tent. Flies buzzed around it. I made a mental note to make sure to avoid it. The last thing I wanted to do was to clean fresh juicy squirrel guts from my hiking boots or feel them ooze onto the sides of my flip flops. It hadn’t crossed my mind that the real concern should be the carcass attracting other animals. 
This lake before me was not very big. It was small. I could easily swim from one side to the other. It seemed more like a pool. That combined with the fact that the pine trees weren’t terribly tall, the rocks around had fallen in relatively small fragments, and the only wildlife I had observed were chipmunks playfully running around, gave this place a sort of miniature feel. This sensation was appealing. It made the place welcoming, homey, manageable. It was like I had come upon a secret, exclusive, pocket-sized Montana. 
It seemed as if the forest of the park was only possible because of Wheeler Peak. Here at the base of this giant rock feature was the collection of its ice melt, the fruit of its shade. It created conditions for this pristine forest. It was another paradise hidden in the high reaches of a mountain. 
I sat down on my sleeping bag, in my tent, tucked in between the pines, and I was at perfect blissful ease. I brought into my tent with me my water bottle and my book on the West. I took a sip of my water and laid down. The sleeping bag felt soft, silky, and warm, as it slid under my skin of my arms and brushed against my heels. Beneath it was the comfort of my air mattress filled full. I stretched my legs out and I could almost hear them giving off a sigh of relief. My head sunk heavily into my pillow. I looked up through the top of my tent into the limbs of the pine trees. Just beyond them was the rich blue sky and a few clouds lingering. I could gaze at this view for hours, I thought. 
There was no way for me to gage the distance of the expanse before me, for there were no objects to give perspective. There was nothing but a grand mirage of water. It appeared that the desert housed a great lake, but the image disappeared at certain angles and the illusion waved in the heat. I knew it was desert trickery.
This is not just an observation based on Baker. Elsewhere in Nevada I’ve seen some interesting sites. Once I stopped at a gas station, and in the men’s room, I relieved myself into a cascading urinal fountain adored with rocks and greenery, where people had thrown pennies in, as if making a wish. Also outside of Death Valley, on the Nevada side, in the abandoned city of Rhyolite I’d seen the figures of the last supper recreated as lifesize ghost statues. Nevada is just full of surprises. I mean, in Baker you don’t get a stop sign, you get a “WHOA!” sign. They just have to be different.
When I come across these rough looking trailers isolated in the desert, it’s not something I look down on or fear. I don’t think these people are hostile, or unrelatable by any means. Some may be living in poverty, and life may not be ideal, but for many, this is just how they live in Nevada. Many people have moved to Nevada and have chosen to live here in this way. It’s so far isolated from the rest of the country that sometimes these lots of land don’t have access to the full array of utilities, and there’s no one around to build a house hundreds of miles out in the desert. So, the only option is to resort to a trailer. 
Another thing worth mentioning in my observations about rural Nevada is the fascination with the supernatural and extraterrestrial. The supernatural fascination, I think, is tied back to all the ghost towns they have. These ghost towns have held so much life and so many stories, and then they were suddenly abandoned after the silver rush, but stories live on, or are speculated. And so in these places that have been abandoned there are allusions of the past that are almost seeable and believable, just like the mirage of water in the desert. It’s as if the beating heart of Nevada is a ghost itself, but a ghost really wouldn’t have a beating heart, would it? That’s just a piece of Nevada irony for you. 
We all had contributed to finding firewood and kindling, but Paul won the prize for this. There was a pattern. He’d disappear. We would carry on conversation, and, after a while, he would return with arms full of wood and kindling. At one point I remember we all laughed. Paul had found an enormous piece of tree trunk and was carrying it to camp over his head, seemingly effortlessly, like an experienced woodsman. He had a grin on his face seeping from his sense of personal accomplishment, I would assume. The question on all our minds was where did he find that, and how did he resolve to lift it?
After we were by the fire for many hours, the conversation died down, and I decided to open a round of Would You Rather, something I learned from my younger brother, Timothy. You go around in a circle taking turns, posing ridiculous questions like “Would you rather jump out of an airplane or plummet down Yosemite Falls?”
That morning we didn’t stay long in the basin. We were all cold and hungry. As the others were slowly waking up and putting themselves together, I walked around camp, admiring the expanse of the basin waking up. It was beautiful. The sun was golden and caused everything that was wet and frozen to shimmer in its light. Paul and Ines also walked around and sat together on a fallen tree trunk, looking out into the basin. No one said anything. I suppose we were all taking in the awe of our surroundings and trying to thaw out. I walked out from the shade to feel the slightest bit of warmth falling from the sun. It wasn’t much, but I’d take it. 
Despite being out in the wild, I felt sheltered twofold. First, we were down in a basin with the sloping walls around us, placing us in our own little world. Secondly, we were in the fold of the small patch of forest with a strong sense of camp establishment. We had our little tent village, or the bedrooms as I liked to call them. Next to that was a mound of snow, were were had refrigeration- our natural kitchen. I had taken out my water bottles and stuck them in the snow. Next to that, was a collection of stumps, fallen tree parts, and rock oddities, creating an area to sit down and have a fire- the natural living room, the common area. All of this was hidden and sheltered by the cover of the pines. Never before had nature seemed so accommodating. It was as if it was saying, 
I could see there were more mighty dunes in the distance, which were temping to pursue. But at the moment, my feet felt like they were on fire. Wearing socks was not a bright idea. Hot sand found its way into the socks over and over again, and was burning my feet. The hot sand mixed with coarse friction had also burned and ripped a giant hole in one of my socks. It appeared as if part of the sock had disintegrated. I was about a mile and a half in, but my feet couldn’t endure anymore hiking, so I turned around. I wasn’t disappointed the least bit. I felt like I got a true Great Sand Dunes experience, greater than the rest of the tourists who gave up much sooner than me.
Josh Hodge blog 