National Park of Great Basin

Location: Nevada
Established: October 27, 1986
Size: 77,180 acres (31,234 hectares)

An Ice Age landscape of glacier-carved peaks rises more than a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the desert floor. The park takes its name from the vast region that extends east from California's Sierra Nevada to Utah's Wasatch Range, and from southern Oregon to southern Nevada, encompassing most of Nevada and western Utah. Called Great Basin by explorer John C. Frémont in the mid-1800s, the region actually comprises not one but at least 90 basins, or valleys, and its rivers all flow inland—not to any ocean.

The park road winds up Wheeler Peak, the second highest mountain in Nevada. When the road ends at 10,000 feet (3,048 meters), trails lead to the 13,063-foot (3,981-meter) summit and to the region's only glacier, near a stand of bristlecone pines. Great Basin is a young park compared to a Yellowstone or Yosemite, yet within its confines are some of the world's oldest trees.

The bristlecones form the rear guard of a Pleistocene forest that once covered much of the region. Now surviving in scattered stands, some trees are 3,000 years old—alive when Tutankhamun ruled Egypt.

In the flank of the mountain, at an altitude of 6,800 feet (2,073 meters), lies Lehman Caves with 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) of underground passages. These formed when higher water tables during the Ice Age made pockets in the limestone. Park rangers guide visitors past flowstone, stalactites, and delicate white crystals that grow in darkness.

The number of visitors has reached more than 80,000 yearly since 1986, when the cave and neighboring mountains became a national park. But the park has 65 miles (105 kilometers) of trails, offering access to the hills and a chance to see glacial moraines, alpine lakes, and spectacular sweeping views of the surrounding basin and range country.