We began hiking this south rim 2.3-mile trail which was rated difficult as it dropped 400 feet into the canyon down to about 7,800 feet elevation. It was a steep trail, open to the sun at first with lots of sage, wildflowers, and then thankfully it became shaded with aspen trees and Douglas fir trees. We saw many chipmunks, heard the whistle of marmots and the occasional trail opening gave us spectacular views of the canyon far below. Although we didn’t see any, we were watchful for bears, mule deer and porcupines. Carrying a heavy backpack containing lots of water, I was gasping for breath as we ascended back up the trail in the 84-degree weather.
Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller, Tina Bartolo, Jake & Nina Naeger
Date: July 22, 2022
This large head of Aphrodite lies over the entrance to McPherson Theater. It is a prop from a theater production. What makes this roadside attraction neat is that it is taken down each spring by students and repainted and decorated. One year it was wearing a protective face mask, another year it was decorated as band member Gen Simmons of KISS. Today, it just looked scary laying there on its side.
Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller, Tina Bartolo, Jake and Nina Naeger
Date: July 22, 2022
This 15-foot-tall muffler man is at Carl’s Ice Cream Shop. The fiberglass figure is holding an ice cream cone and a hamburger. The milkshake I purchased at Carl’s was delicious.
On Route 66 in this town of 1,600, I had planned to stop at Pam’s Grille Café for a fried bologna sandwich (which I haven’t eaten since my mom made one for me about 50 years ago). Sadly, the Route 66 diner was closed due to covid. Across the street in a small park is a 20-foot-tall muffler man holding a hot dog. Purchased in 1965 and stood for 40 years outside of Bunyon’s Hot Dog Restaurant in a Chicago suburb, it was moved to Atlanta in 2003.
Quick history – the original “man” was a Paul Bunyan figure done for the Paul Bunyan Café on Route 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1962. Since then, the majority of statues were derivatives of that one mold. These tall statues were attention getters, and many sprung up throughout America in front of service stations, muffler and tires stores soon becoming known as “Muffler Men”. Hence, this muffler man was modified to hold a hot dog to promote the Hot Dog Restaurant.
This national park in western Colorado, founded in 1999, is one of America’s most breathtaking scenic treasures. Carved through solid granite, the dark canyon walls plunge 1,800 feet to 2,700 feet to the Gunnison River below. The river is wild and rocky and only for experienced kayakers. The river drops 34 feet per mile through the entire canyon. The national park contains 12 miles of the 48-mile river. The canyon gets its name because parts of the gorge only receive 33 minutes of sunlight each day. The road through the park took us along the south rim canyon and many lookout points. We toured the visitor center and then hiked on three challenging trails.
We had astounding views from the canyon rim at the visitor center at an elevation of 8,200 feet. I wish we would have returned at night as the canyon area offers some of the nation’s darkest night skies with excellent views of the galaxies, stars, and planets.
At around 10,000 feet, we left the Bristlecone-Glacier Trail and hiked onto this incredible interpretive trail of some of the oldest trees on planet Earth. These uniquely shaped and colored ancient pine trees have learned to survive in harsh weather and bad soil. The high winds at these high elevations have twisted the trees into almost human-like forms and shapes but beautifully sculptured, colored, and polished. The trees slow growth makes the wood very dense and provides resistance to insects, fungus, rot, and erosion. There were many interpretive signs in the grove and Rosie, and I posed with the Oldest Tree in the World, a bristlecone pine tree that was 3,200 years old (born in 1,230 BC). Scientists took five cores from different sides of the tree to obtain a complete sequence of its growth rings.
Park rangers described this national park as a place where you experience desert heat down in the basin and alpine cold all in one day. We were about to experience the worst of that real fast.
Rosie & I wanted to leave the grove and continue hiking 500 feet higher to the Wheeler Peak Glacier (which is predicted to melt and disappear in 20 years), but we saw dark clouds coming over the mountain peak. I have never seen Rosie hike faster than I did that day as the storm approached. We descended the two miles to the trailhead in record time and hopped into the truck. At the 10,000-foot elevation road sign, ice pellets hit our windshield and strong winds buffeted the truck. I drove slowly and cautiously down the winding mountainside. At 9,000 feet the pellets turned to slush and thankfully, at 8,000 feet the slush turned to rain. It was still treacherous driving down the wet road past the overlooks of the great basin far below. Back at the campground our small travel trailer was slammed by high winds and rain throughout the night. That was to be only the third day it rained during the 43-day trip. The stormy night caused us to miss an incredible night sky galaxy viewing.
This was one of our favorite and challenging hikes of our 43-day trip. The Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive took us up from 4,500 feet to 10,000 feet. A short distance later we parked at the Bristlecone Parking Area at 9,600 feet to begin the Alpine Lakes Trail which branched into the Bristlecone-Glacier Trail. Although we have been hiking in high altitude for around 25 days, this 4.5-mile trail was still very challenging. Rangers warned hikers of the possibility of altitude sickness which was more prevalent over 10,000 feet where the air was thinner.
The trail gradually climbed over 500 feet beginning in a forest area. After about two miles, the trail dramatically changed to a steep rock trail of quartzite boulders and other rocks exposed to the open sun. We witnessed beautiful views of the mountains, ravines, twisted bristlecone trees, and patches of snow on the distance heights. Had we continued this trail we would eventually have come upon a clear alpine lake hollowed by a glacier and a small icefield. Instead, after this difficult climb we turned north and began hiking on the famous bristlecone pine grove interpretive trail.
Prior to arriving at Great Basin NP, we had camped 66 miles away in Ely. The rain in the distance created a beautiful rainbow which I photographed with an Indian teepee in the foreground. After breakfast at the Hotel Nevada, a prohibition era gambling hall where they had a great Roy Rogers display, we walked the town viewing the many artistic murals.
Great Basin is in eastern Nevada near the Utah border. It is one of the newest national parks founded in 1986. The park rises from a sea of sagebrush to treeless rocky summits along Snake Range. The difference in the parks highest and lowest trails is more than a mile – 6, 235 feet. The highest part of the park is Wheeler Peak at 13,060 feet and the lowest trail is at 6,825 feet. The park is known for its groves of ancient bristlecone pine trees, the oldest known living non-clonal organisms. We saw hawks and eagles, deer, chipmunks and heard the whistling of marmots. Sadly, we did not see any ermine or ringtail cats.
The visitor center was in the metropolis of Baker, Nevada, population 68. Baker was down in the great basin, a flatland called a high desert, but still that was at 5,300 feet elevation. Our campground was on the state line about thirteen miles away. Our travel trailer was in Nevada, but the restroom/showers butted up to the Utah. One step farther and we were in a different time zone. Four miles from the visitor center we started the drive up the mountain on Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, a scary road with lots of turns and switchbacks but with an incredible view across the thirty-mile basin. We passed Lehman Caves and then enjoyed drove up the winding mountain road to our hiking trail in search of the world’s oldest trees.
This 1-mile hike was a combination of the Hat Creek Trail area and the Devastated Area Trail. Damage in this area was from the 1915 volcano eruption and from the 2021 Dixie Forest Fire. Burned trees plus rocks thrown from the volcanic blast covered the area. Several kiosks told the story of the devastation and recovery efforts. The good news, many trees from the fire were already showing signs of re-growth. Wildlife have returned to the fire area as we saw several eagles fly overhead.
This was one tough 4-mile trek. Mt. Lassen Peak, at 10,457 feet was one of the world’s largest plug dome volcanoes. Our trailhead began at 8,500 feet. The first 100 yards was quite formidable as it was almost a straight up incline. I was winded already. No wonder the trail was rated difficult. I could see large rocks way above on the bald tundra and hoped they would not avalanche down on us. The trail continued up via loose rock switchbacks or rounded curves with no protection from the sun. We passed smaller rocks, and some scrub brush, patches of wildflowers and a few twisted hemlock and white bark pine trees but not much else was growing this high up. I had to stop often to catch my breath at this altitude, but Rosie seemed unfazed. At the higher points we encountered big patches of snow. At one location, Rosie lay down and made snow angels. We talked to a few hikers who had made it to the top and were returning. They said it took about 4 to 5 hours. We made it up to 9,950 feet, four out of the five miles, and then turned around. I considered this a success. As we descended, we saw a furry, small mouse looking mammal called a pika run across our trail. Pika’s only live above 8,000 feet. We took many panoramic photos from our high elevation. We returned to the campsite and did some serious stretching after that tough hike.
