Searching for Prometheus, chasing sunset's light, and finding peace in the remote Great Basin Snake Range.
Stella Lake at sunset under Wheeler Peak (right) and Doso Doyabi (left).
Great Basin National Park
Trip Stats
Location: Snake Range - Great Basin National Park - Eastern Nevada Date visited: Sept. 8-11, 2024. Photo advice: Stella Lake is great for sunset shots, as Wheeler Peak and Doso Doyabi are bathed in orange light that reflects into the lake; late afternoon/early evening light was good at the bristlecone pine grove. Links: Stargazer Inn and Bristlecone General Store Great Basin NP Directions to Mount Moriah Big Canyon Trailhead - Willhite Web.com (trail map at end of this post). Mount Moriah Big Canyon Trailhead: 39.301432 -114.211424 Hike to Wheeler Bristlecone Grove: 2.8 miles total out and back from the end of Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive at Wheeler Peak Campground. Fun Fact: The Prometheus tree, a Great Basin Bristlecone pine, once recorded as the oldest tree in the world (4700-5000 years old) is located in the Wheeler Bristlecone Grove in Great Basin National Park. Quote: "Now he walks in quiet solitude, the forest and the streams Seeking grace in every step he takes His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake." - John Denver, from his song Rocky Mountain High
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Mount Moriah
Other adventures in Baker's backyard include summiting Mount Moriah, in the northern Snake Range, north of Great Basin National Park. This summit includes "the table" reached just below, a worthy destination all its own. Our plan to summit this mountain failed when we parked too far away from Big Canyon Trailhead, the highest on Moriah's western side, after a very slow (5 mph) drive up a grueling and long rocky access road, doubling our planned hiking distance. We didn't have it in us to do it this time. Instead, we made it to a 10,000-foot summit nearby with a register in a glass jar and some bristlecone pines. Mount Moriah will have to be a "grudge" peak for now. We will probably access it from an eastern trailhead. (Trail map to summit at end of this post). Bristlecones! ♡ is an entry in the register that prompted me to explore more of this ridgeline, and indeed I did find some bristleccone pines a few hundred yards away, sadly dead or nearly dead. I can't help but wonder what these stalwart trees witnessed over the possibly hundreds and maybe even thousands of years of their lives.
Hike toward Mount Moriah from NF Road 469.
Bristlecone pine or Limber pine? I think bristlecone. Near Mount Moriah Wilderness at 10,000 feet.
From the truck: driving back down to Spring Valley, looking at the Schell Creek Range on the other side.
Nevada, the heart of the Great Basin, is significant for its many parallel mountain ranges as a result of extension of the Earth's crust. Note the sun shining on the light-colored silt and clay playa, an ancient lake filled during Pleistocene times.
Ward Charcoal Ovens
The Ward Charcoal Ovens State Historic Park near Ely and to the northwest of Baker features an essential process of remote silver ore mining in the American West. It's a popular place to do night photography. Located in the Egan Range, these ovens, or kilns, were used in the late 1800's to make charcoal, an efficient fuel used in smelters to extract the minerals from silver ore. Normal supply lines couldn't reach these remote areas, so the kilns burned local trees to make the charcoal. The image below was made by Mish.
Ward Charcoal Ovens State Historic Park.
photo by Mish (Mike Shedlock) - mishmoments.com Comment from Mish: “I used small, thin, Lume Cubes to light the inside of the kilns. The Milky Way was taken separately at Great Basin but is in the correct spot. The kilns are a panoramic blend of 8 overlapping images with only 4 of 6 kilns used in the final composite.” “I like blue hour blends. That is the hour after sunset or the hour before sunrise. Working with multiple sets of images improves the ability to capture details and reduce noise. There is a period of about 20 minutes in the middle of the blue hour where ambient light and light from Lume Cubes roughly match intensity. The resultant image is a whopping 656 megabytes.” Wheeler Peak Bristlecone Grove: Prometheus - the oldest tree on Earth Fred and I searched for Prometheus, the oldest-known non-clonal organism on Earth, estimated to be 4,900 years old when it was cut down by a researcher in 1964. It's in the Wheeler Peak Bristlecone Grove, but we didn't find the stump. Its scientific name - Pinus longaeva - literally means "ancient aged." Bristlecones flourish where many species cannot, in limestone rocks and soil; this reduces their chance of burning by forest fire. The Wheeler Peak grove is unusual in that it grows in quartzite boulders on a glacial moraine. The top of Wheeler Peak is quartzite, a metamorphic sandstone. Prometheus, in Greek mythology means "forethought"; he was a god of fire. Actually, myth has it that Prometheus stole fire from gods and gave it to humans to advance civilization. The bristlecone's dramatic, jagged and twisted appearance reflects its endurance in harsh conditions. High winds twist them, cold temperatures contribute to slow tree ring growth, creating a protective, dense wood that resists insects and rot. These majestic trees have been around during the fall of civilizations and the creation of America, survived through catastrophic volcanism. Two other bristlecone groves in Great Basin State Park are the Mount Washington and Eagle Peak groves. Our Photo Expedition The challenge Mish and I had on this day was to find the right light conditions for photographing these bristlecones and then make sure we got to Stella Lake in time for optimal sunset shots. Lucky for us, the wind blew away smoke from wildfires, storm clouds came in to reveal perfect illumination for photography. After photographing the bristlecones in late afternoon, we took the long way to Stella Lake afterwards risking missing optimal sunset light on the lake. We realized afterward that there's a quicker way to get to Stella Lake from Teresa Lake, next to the bristlecone grove. We set up our tripods and began shooting just in time as the light grew more and more intense on Wheeler and Doso Doyabi and in the lake's reflection. The clouds were perfect! One of the extraordinary things about photographing nature is the few magic seconds when you capture a scene not usually witnessed by humans. The fast-changing light of a sunset makes you realize how quickly time passes. Mountains stay the same for eons and a bristlecone pine would barely change during our lifetimes, but light can change quickly. After all, it's the various degrees of light we are capturing with our cameras, as "photograph" means "writing with light."
Bristlecones from Wheeler Peak Grove and Forest Road 469 en route to Mount Moriah's Big Canyon Trailhead.
Identifying features of a bristlecone pine: one-inch-long needles in packets of five that grow in tufts, and cones with scales that are tipped with a claw-like bristle.
Bristlecones under Wheeler Peak
Stella Lake with Doso Doyabi illuminated above.
The name comes from Shoshone language meaning "white peak."
FUN-ky Baker
Baker, Nevada scenes on a very smoky day due to distant wildfires. The smoke actually made good lighting conditions for photography but bad conditions for breathing!
"Museum of the Future Coming Soon" on an old cabin with photos below: something to look forward to ;)
Abandoned cabin in "downtown" Baker.
Topo map of hike (yellow) from Big Canyon Trailhead to Mount Moriah summit.
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Walk on one of Earth's largest laccoliths in a quiet part of the Pine Valley Mountains near St. George, Utah.
Distance/elevation gain: 11.5 miles out and back. Trailhead = 5,324'. Summit = 8,890'. Cumulative gain = 3,700'.
Difficulty: moderate - hard Class 1 effort up moderately steep switchbacks; steep bushwhacking/scrambling off-trail the last mile to the summit. Considerations: there is no trail, no cairns to mark the final ascent (~ 1 mile), once you get off Anderson Valley Trail: navigation experience is necessary. Summit not visible from approach trail. Maps/Apps: AllTrails (see notes below), Topo Maps US., St. George/Pine Valley Mountains (National Geographic #715). Date hiked: Sept. 2, 2024. Geology: Pine Valley Mountain Laccolith - perhaps the largest on Earth - granite monzonite porphyry intrusion 20.5 million years ago. History: "New Harmony" comes from Harmony, Pennsylvania, where Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. The local Mormon settlers thought the name represented the united action they had during periods of trial and hardship. Quote: "You talk the talk. Do you walk the walk?" - Animal Mother in the film Full Metal Jacket.
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Map of our tracks from New Harmony Trailhead (see link above).
More topo maps at end of this post.
Solitude, cool views of Zion National Park, nice pines and aspens, and unique geology are the rewards you get with this hike to Mount Baldy if you don't mind hiking through a large burn area and can handle some frustrating bushwhacking and deadfall maneuvering.
With this ascent, we conquered one of our "grudge peaks," as we gave this a try in April but faced a thick blanket of snow covering the steep mountainside that the trail traversed. We should have known when we had to ford a cold, overflowing creek with waterfalls from snow melt at the beginning of the hike. However, a few days ago, we added another peak - Mount Moriah - to our grudge peak list, so the net number remains the same! The New Harmony trailhead for Anderson Valley Trail is at a large gravel parking lot with signboards and pit toilet. This is a less-traveled trail - maybe because most Pine Valley Mountain hikers are on trails leading to Burger and Signal Peaks, 10,000-footers to the southwest looking over Mount Baldy's summit. The approach to the saddle/ridge is bare of trees and faces east, so there's minimal shade in the morning. The human-caused 2018 West Valley fire left a lot of charred tree skeletons. The last mile of bushwhacking/navigating is crawling over/hiking around lots of large pine deadfall.
Hike Summary
0 - 3.2 miles (5,324' - 7,000'): Anderson Valley Trailhead to saddle on Baldy's north ridge. 3.2 - 4.7 miles (7,000' - 8,175'): Saddle to turn-off from Anderson Valley Trail. 4.7 - 5.8 miles (8,175' - 8,890'): Cross-country to summit.
The first mile is flat, crosses over a few streams via wooden bridges, goes through private land with two gates. At the wilderness boundary, the trail begins to climb up shrubby switchbacks with loose rocks.
Reach the saddle on ridge heading due south to Mount Baldy. The trail is overgrown in a lot of places, but still discernible. Great views of Zion to the east. Anderson Valley Trail then traverses the west side of this ridge with great views of Main Canyon draining from the heights of Pine Valley Mountains. This creek was roaring with waterfalls in April. Aspens appear at 7,500 feet as the trail climbs past two water troughs and then up to the turn-off of Anderson Valley Trail. Next time we hike this we would turn left to leave the trail right after what I call "the obelisk," a solitary rock pinnacle (see photo below) next to the trail to begin the cross-country navigation southeast toward Mount Baldy. The AllTrails track for this hike goes further on Anderson Valley Trail and ends up unnecessarily mounting a steep and rocky ridge which you have to climb down anyway, so it's wasted effort. This turn-off is ~ 4.7 miles in from the trailhead. As with many other times climbing an off-trail peak, you find a more efficient track to and from the summit on the descent. Now it's a steep climb (700 feet in one mile) through brush and over deadfall to the summit. We made our way over a ridge just to the north of Baldy, then back down and up again to a saddle just north of Baldy. From there, climb south to Baldy's summit. I couldn't find a register or survey marker on the summit, but the views of the sheer orange cliffs of Zion's Kolob Canyons to the east was a contrast to this green and gray mountain. Signal Peak, the highest in the Pine Valley Mountains loomed over us to the southwest. There's a lot of Mount Baldys in the U.S. and now we can say we've climbed our local one! This northern end of the Pine Valley Mountains with its trails and peaks deserves more exploring.
Trailhead to saddle/ridge (0 - 3.2 miles)
Saddle to turn-off of Anderson Valley Trail (3.2 - ~4.7 miles)
Cross-Country to Summit (~4.7 - 5.8 miles)
Looking at the west rim of Zion National Park. The last peak on the right with the small "bump" is Mount Kinesava.
For the Geocurious: Geology of the Pine Valley Laccolith
Geology:
The Land of the Laccolith
The "unique geology" appears once you've completed the first set of switchbacks to arrive at a saddle on Mount Baldy's northern ridge. The rest of the hike to the summit is on perhaps the largest laccolith in the world. The rock is a common igneous intrusive; it's the geomorphology (geo = earth, morphology = form/structure) and the size of this laccolith that make it unique. Twenty million years ago, magma from a heat source deep within Earth's crust rose up through cracks in the rock until it found a layer with less resistance, causing it to spread horizontally and create a "lake" of molten magma (lakkos = pond or lake, lith = stone). The molten rock formed a dome underneath the more resistant rock layer above it which prevented the magma from escaping. The magma cools and forms a laccolith. Over the millions of years afterward, the overlying rock eroded, exposing the Pine Valley Laccolith. The heat sources still underlie this area as evidenced by the basaltic lava flows and cones in the area that are less than two million years old.
Cross-section of the rock units underlying the Pine Valley Mountain Laccolith.
Bottom orange unit = Cambrian (500 Ma). Blue units = Permian (280 Ma). Jn unit = Navajo Sandstone - famous cliffs found throughout southern Utah - the main rock of Zion NP (190 Ma.) Geologic Map of the St. George area
References
Biek, R.F., et al. 2010. Geologic Map of the St. George and East Part of the Clover Mountains 30' x 60' Quadrangles, Washington and Iron Counties, Utah. Map 242DM, Utah Geological Survey. Miller, R. 2/25/2018. Our Geological Wonderland: The Pine Valley Mountain Laccolith. The Independent. Utah State University Fire History Tracker. https://fht.wildfirerisk.utah.gov/ Washington County Historical Society. New Harmony, Utah. |
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Sue and Fred
About this blogExploration documentaries – "explorumentaries" list trip stats and highlights of each hike or bike ride, often with some interesting history or geology. Years ago, I wrote these for friends and family to let them know what my husband, Fred and I were up to on weekends, and also to showcase the incredible land of the west.
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