U.S. Highway 50 across Nevada was famously dubbed “The Loneliest Road in America” by Life magazine back in 1986, a nickname the state quickly adopted for the highway to promote tourism.
“The Loneliest Road” travels near Great Basin National Park, which regularly makes the list of the ten least-visited of the 63 national parks.
But my recent visit found the highway not so lonely, and the park not so unvisited.
Don’t get me wrong, the drive and the park were great. They just didn’t live down to their reputations.
Despite the supposed lack of demand, it was difficult to get a campsite at Great Basin. I had hoped to spend two nights at the park, but I could only reserve one night in early June. The park’s Wheeler Campground hadn’t yet opened for the year, so that may have driven up demand in the other two campgrounds.
It turned out my site at Upper Lehman Campground was spectacular! It was even better than it looks in the picture on the reservation website, and many other sites in the campground appeared to be equally spectacular. It was one of those places I wished I could’ve stayed longer, but it was only available for one night.
The reason the park was first established was because of Lehman Caves. Despite the park’s reputation for not getting many visitors, the cave tours actually fill up pretty quickly, but I was lucky to get a last-minute spot to go on a quick tour. It turned out to be a really quick tour: on the Gothic Palace Tour you basically walk into the cave, take some pictures, and walk back out. That was fine for me because I’m not much of a cave guy.
I’m more of a hiking guy. This park’s feature hiking attraction is Wheeler Peak, with a 3,100-foot elevation gain that starts around 10,000 feet above sea level. That’s definitely still not something I’m ready for despite all of my uphill hiking in recent years.
My second choice was the moderate Bristlecone Grove and Glacier Trail, but the park had advised the use of traction devices because of slippery ice on the trail, and I hadn’t thought to throw my Yaktrax in the car when I left Wisconsin on a hot June morning.
So the easy Alpine Lakes Loop was the hike to do, and the quiet views of resplendent alpine lakes didn’t disappoint. It was here that there was finally evidence of the park being among the least visited — I only passed a couple of other people on the entire hike and had the lakes all to myself.
I’d come into Great Basin from the east on U.S. Highway 50 through Utah. Despite it not having the “lonely” reputation of the Nevada portion of the highway, I found the stretch through Utah to be quiet and scenic.
I headed west on U.S. 50 across Nevada after my night at Great Basin. Despite its branding, I actually found it to be a lot busier than the Utah side.
The even more surprising thing is that on the Nevada side, I didn’t see the true warning of a remote highway: the blue sign advising that no gas will be available for the next 100 miles. There are towns about every 60 miles or so on the Nevada part of the highway.
(After driving “The Loneliest Road” I realized that I have actually been on many other highways that were a lot lonelier. The journey from The Pas to Thompson, Manitoba, comes to mind, as well as a more recent drive on I-70 across Utah.)
Imagery of U.S. 50 usually features its long, straight stretches. There are plenty of those, but there are also many areas where the highway runs through scenic mountain passes. It also goes by some cool salt flats near Naval Air Station Fallon.
Once you hit the city of Fallon, the “lonely” part of the highway is definitely done. That wasn’t a disappointment to me, though, because I was leaving the highway to head southwest to the Sierra Nevada and fun at Yosemite, Kings Valley, and Sequoia. More on that in the future!
Read about more of my roadtrip adventures in the Off Topic category!