Wheeler Peak is a giant mountain, reaching over 13,000 feet into the sky with over 7,000 feet of clean prominence, located in the remote eastern corridor of Nevada within the Great Basin National Park. It just misses out being the state highpoint by a mere 80 feet to Boundary Peak, but makes up for this shortcoming with its own remarkable grandeur. From any vantage point, Wheeler Peak is an impressive peak to behold. I first looked at hiking it back in 2000 on one of my inner-Nevada sojourns, but a big forest fire in the region blocked me out for that attempt. Now, a year later, my dad and I were making a week-long trip throughout Nevada, and I had worked in two peaks for the trip. A few days earlier I hiked Mount Grant in Mineral County, then we set off toward Jackpot up on the Idaho border, just to say we've been there, before heading back south through Elko and Ely toward the Great Basin National Park. We arrived to the upper campground, elevation 9,800 feet, on Wheeler's east-facing slopes around 3 in the afternoon.

Today - our travel day - had been rainy and cloudy, and there was no change when we arrived to our campspace, sitting out a thunderstorm cell in my dad's big army tent, big enough to set up lawnchairs and stretch out. By 4 p.m., the storms had moved on, the sun broke through, and it got lovely all of a sudden! My dad and I decided to make a short loop-hike to a couple of the glacial lakes located up in a hanging valley below Wheeler's East face, and below the lone glacier still to exist in all of Nevada. We were gone about an hour and had a blast. Both of us could feel the 9,800 feet elevation, though. It was good to acclimatize this way. By 5, we were back at camp, eating and having some beer. My plan was to begin hiking at sun-up the next morning. The weather was a concern, given the raininess we'd experienced today. As usual, a calculated gamble. I crashed in the tent and slep reasonably well.

I was up at 4:30 a.m. and moving before 5, just as the sun was barely rising in the east. I worked my way up the trail, the initial portion being the same as yesterday's glacial lake hike. At a junction, I went hard-right and worked my way up through a mix of light forest and meadow, eventually emerging into a broad open meadow/slope where I had unobstructed views of the magnificent profile of Wheeler Peak. The trail then bends southerly again and makes a gentle gain toward a saddle north of Wheeler, roughly at tree-line. The saddle is at 10,800 feet and I was here within an hour from the campground. The vegetation here was sparse limber pine and gnarled krumholz. Otherwise, rocks of various sizes and shapes. Nevertheless, the trail is hewn well into the rock, so that route finding is not an issue. I made pretty good time here as the trail steepened a bit. For awhile, the immediate objective is a ridge bump at 11,500 feet, obscuring Wheeler's summit from view. I reached this bump after maybe a half-hour. Weather was holding steady, but given the activity of yesterday, some cloudy build-up was already evident even though it was not yet 7 a.m.! At this point I was passed by a family of four, all making excellent time; I hiked with them for awhile on this stretch. They were very friendly. At this 11,500-foot bump, Wheeler's summit comes into view once again, still about 1,600 feet higher.

The route reaches another slight bump at 12,000 feet elevation before making it's final 1,000-foot push to the top. From below it looks like one big rock-hop ordeal to the top, but the trail does in fact go all the way up, although it does get quite steep in places. I was on the summit at 7:15 a.m., roughly a 2.5-hour one-way hike with about 3,200 feet of gain. This was quick for me, the fine trail aiding my ascent time. The weather was holding well and the family of four was already up top. The views are outstanding: sharp abrupt peaks and cliffs forged by glaciers, moraine fields, and thousands of square miles of wonderful Great Basin scenery into Nevada and Utah. I ambled along the elongated summit ridge to the east end to peer down the east slopes and the campground below. The actual highest point is the windbreak on the west end of the ridge. I stayed up top for about 40 minutes, having it to myself after the family started their descent. However, down below there was this big crowd of boy scouts working their way up, so I decided to get moving so as to avoid the crowd when they arrived.

I caught up to the family again, hiked with them for a bit, then parted ways at the saddle at 10,800, where I took an extended break to feed and water myself, whiz, and change into some drier clothes. The hike down went very quickly, and I was back to our campsite just before 10 a.m., surprising my dad who figured I'd be gone for another 2 hours at least. He was happy, though, as he was starting to feel sick from the elevation, and it was just as well to get going and down off the mountain as soon as possible. We did stop at the visitor's center and got a lunch. Driving back to Ely, we stopped at a peculiar "town" called Major's Place, at the junctions of US-93 and US-6/50 in the middle of nowhere, west of Wheeler Peak. It's basically a bar that sells some gas - with a minimum purchase required and at a very high price. Definitely for emergencies. By this time (noonish), the storm clouds were amassing again, shrouding Wheeler in a mantle of white and grey. I was glad to be off the mountain.

After a day and night in Ely, we went back to Las Vegas via US-6 and NV-375, the so-called "Extraterrestrial Highway". NV-375 skirts Nellis Air Force Range and the famous Area-51, and the lone little town of Rachel makes good money by promoting aliens and UFOs. But the "A-Le-Inn" in Rachel does have some excellent burgers for such an out of the way locale. The walls are covered in photographs that purport to be UFOs. Most (to me) are clearly not UFOs - a lot are clouds, tricks of the light or too fuzzy or suspect to be taken seriously. Some people even confuse their own foggy breath with UFOs. A few others are interesting, we'll say. I imagine this place gets a few of the believers, but most people who show up here come for the grub, the isolation and the experience. I recommend it.