Las Vegas to San Francisco
- Thread starter Jennifer
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
SeilerBird
Well-known member
For Sequoia National Park you will need reservations. Make them soon. It gets crowded. The best campground IMHO to stay in would be Lodgepole. It is right in the middle of the park close to all the things you will want to see and do.Jennifer said:
For Kings Canyon you can't make reservations and you won't need them anyway. Best thing is to show up there on a Sunday morning and you will have your choice of just about any spot you want. Sunset is my favorite campground in the west unit. It is a 3/4 mile walk through the woods on a nice trail to Grant's Grove, home of the General Sherman tree.
I would also recommend going down to Cedar Grove (the east unit of Kings Canyon) and camping a few days in Sheep Creek, they don't take reservations there either, but you will have no trouble getting in. The Cedar Grove area is a virtual clone of Yosemite Valley only without the people and the waterfalls.
Be prepared for shock and awe when you visit these two parks. They are among the most beautiful spots you have ever seen. The size of the trees is impossible to imagine. But try and picture this in your mind. General Sherman is among the tallest, widest and longest-lived of all trees on the planet. It is 275 feet high. It is 130 from the ground to the first branch, which is taller than just about every tree east of the Mississippi. That branch is 6 feet in diameter. Bring your camera.
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Jennifer said:
An alternate to taking Interstate 80 west is US 50 - nicknamed the Loneliest Road in America by Life Magazine. It's a very good 2 lane road through the heart of America's Outback. Be sure to fill up before you leave the Interstate and have plenty of fuel to reach the next town, as there is literally nothing between one town and the next. The mileage is almost identical to taking the interstate, but the driving time will be a bit longer due to a couple of mountain passes and the inevitable stops along the way.
Delta, Utah has a museum that preserves the memory of the nearby WWII Japanese internment camp. The museum is in town, and you can also drive about 10 miles out of town to the site of the camp itself to experience it's true desolation.
Or take I-80 across the Salt Flats to Wendover and take US 93 Alt south to Ely and join US 50 there.
If you're skipping Salt Lake City and going directly to Lake Tahoe from Bryce Canyon, you can save a few miles by taking Utah 21 from I-15 until it joins US 50 near Baker, NV.
US 50 through Nevada originally part of the Lincoln Highway, America's first coast to coast route, even predating the famed Route 66 to the south.
Ely, Nevada is about at the mid-point of the journey and has a KOA and a couple of other RV parks. At the west end of town is the Hotel Nevada, the state's first multistory fireproof hotel. It's still open and worth having lunch or dinner in it's coffee shop while you take in the ambiance. East Ely is home of the Nevada Northern Railroad Museum which is a perfectly preserved shortline railroad that closed when Kendecott Copper shut down their copper mine and smelter. They offer passenger train rides and tours of the facility.
Eureka and Austin are former silver mining boom towns that still have much of the flavor of their heydays. West of Austin US 50 parallels the old Pony Express route and there are ruins of two Pony Express way stations, one right alongside the road, the other at Sand Mountain. The Sand Mountain station was covered up by shifting sand then uncovered again about 10 years ago.
East of Fallon the highway passes right through the middle of the Fallon Naval Air Station practice bombing range. It's the training ground for the Top Gun fighter jets, and they often buzz the highway while they're lining up their runs at the target at the south end of the valley (yes, there are warning signs so you aren't too surprised).
JCZ
Well-known member
It looks like The Lincoln Highway has changed it's course a few times over the years. There's a 1st generation, 2nd generation and 3rd generation routes...... http://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/map/
I don't know about the full length but here in Calif. and Nev. there's been a push to revive "Historic Lincoln Highway". The California portion of the highway will take you along some incredably beautiful roads. Here's a photo taken near Donner Lake and very, very close to the actual spot where the Donner party was forced to turn around and drop back down to the east end of the Donner Lake....that went down in history.
http://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/info/ca/rainbow_bridge.jpg
I don't know about the full length but here in Calif. and Nev. there's been a push to revive "Historic Lincoln Highway". The California portion of the highway will take you along some incredably beautiful roads. Here's a photo taken near Donner Lake and very, very close to the actual spot where the Donner party was forced to turn around and drop back down to the east end of the Donner Lake....that went down in history.
http://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/info/ca/rainbow_bridge.jpg
SeilerBird
Well-known member
If you are driving from Bryce to Tahoe on 50 (which is my recommendation) then I give my highest recommendation to stopping in at Great Basin National Park near the Nevada Utah border. The Lehman Caves are some of the best caves in the country. And it is a really beautiful park that no one knows about.
B
braindead
Guest
Can you recommend a specific campground there? Sounds like a nice place and close to us.SeilerBird said:
SeilerBird
Well-known member
There are several campgrounds inside the park, but they do not have hookups and they are not big rig friendly at all. The town of Baker is about 10 miles from the park and there are two places there with hookups. When I was there I stayed in the park at Baker Creek Campground and it was very nice and remote. If I were to stay in the park again without hookups it would be at Wheeler Peak Campground which is located at 10,000 feet. There are some great hikes starting from that campground including the one to Wheeler Peak, the second highest peak in Nevada at 13k feet. Must be hiked in summer time. The hike to Stella Lake and Lake Teresa is incredible.braindead said:
https://picasaweb.google.com/SeilerBird/2003#5614389441234305026
https://picasaweb.google.com/SeilerBird/2003#5614389355106752050
