Wheeler Peak, Lehman Cave & Parowan Gap Petroglyphs

We got all the good we could out of our time this weekend.  Friday after I finished up helping with check-in for Webelos Day Camp Paul and I took off for Great Basin National Park.  We ate dinner in Cedar. It's quite a drive from Cedar through Minersville, Milford, Garrison and Baker (some very small towns) with lots of empty country in between. We had hoped to camp in the Wheeler Peak campground which is at 9,886 ft.  It was very nice up there at about 61 degrees around 8 pm, but it was full, so we ended up getting the last campsite and setting up in the dark at Lower Lehman Creek campground at 7,300.  It was pretty warm there, but we got some sleep and after eating and cleaning up we were at the trail head at 8 am.  The starting elevation is 10,160 there and the peak is at 13,063, the second highest in Nevada.  It's an 8.2 round trip with a gain of 2,900 ft. most of it during the last 3 miles.  It's a great trail.  It was very windy once we got above timberline until the last 400 ft. when we were on the leeward side.  There were lots of clouds blowing over the top while we were there.  We shared the honor of first ones to the top that day with a couple of varsity scouts with a lot of other people arriving soon after. It took us about 2.5 hours up and 1.5 to go down. On the way down we stopped off at Stella Lake for lunch.  We decided rather than hike over to a couple more lakes and some bristle cone pines to go back down to take a tour of the Lehman Cave.  It was an interesting tour because their were several deaf people, their dog and their interpreter with us.  The cave, of course, is very interesting as well.

 After that we checked out a few other campgrounds and then headed back home.  On the way home we saw a turn off to Parowan Gap Petroglyphs.  It was only 2.5 miles over, so we went to see them.  They are pretty amazing and it was worth the time. 

 Just so you know, you don't have to pay to get into Great Basin National park.  There was a fee to camp and you do have to pay to tour the cave.  I think we got our money's worth out of our time.