The Great Basin

What exactly is the Great Basin? It's not a sink. But in a way, it kind of is.
Although a number of rivers flow into the Great Basin, none flow out to
the ocean. Hence, the name Basin.


It's also a very very large desert. In fact, it's the largest desert in the
United States, covering approximately 190,000 square miles. To give
you a comparison, England is only just over 50,000 square miles.
It's big.


It's also a land of wide wide wide open spaces. If you're looking to
get away from it all, this is the place. My history teacher in high school
told us that the Native Americans in the Great Basin basically ate dirt.
I scoffed at the time, but now I almost believe it. Although we drove
through the Great Basin during the day, I can imagine what it looks
like at night, with a moonless sky. Imagine the sky that your
grandparents or great-grandparents saw. No light pollution. The
clearest sky you will ever see. That's what the night sky in the Great
Basin looks like.


Finally, this pretty much sums up the Great Basin. There are no services
available for a long long distance. We are lucky that we can cover this
distance in about an hour. The early pioneers would have taken almost
a week to cover 80+ miles. There is just nothing out there.

If I had to choose one word for the Great Basin? EMPTY

Driving to Arizona

We drove back home to Grand Junction before heading to our
planned stop in Arizona because we had so much stuff in the car,
we wanted to get rid of it and not haul it around for 10 days. It
made for a bit more driving, but was definitely worth it.

I love driving through this part of the country. Miles and miles of
empty lands, with beautiful rock formations, interesting people
and tons of scenery! About 3 hours south of our house is a formation
called Mexican Hat. Yes...an upside down sombrero. Not exactly
politically correct, but apparently the name has stuck


The northern border of the Navajo Nation is the San Juan River. it
eventually flows into Lake Powell, a few miles to the west, but at this
point, it acts as an oasis in a very dry land.


An iconic view and one I never seem to tire of is on the highway just
north of Monument Valley. It was pretty hazy today so it's not tour
guide photo ready, but pretty nonetheless. We skipped visiting
Monument Valley today (the actual park) because we've been there
many times and had lots of other things to see in a short amount of
time.


Just north of the Utah/Arizona border, we came across these folks from
California that were driving the southwest in their homemade choppers.
Very cool.


The other chopper.


On the southwestern edge of the Navajo Nation is the Cameron
trading post. It's very commercial, but always fun to visit.



Traffic through Flagstaff is always miserable. It seems like it
takes forever to drive through, no matter what time of year it is.
I wish they'd come up with a solution to the problem. We took
advantage of being in Flagstaff to visit one of our favorite
bookstore chains...Bookman's. A great used bookstore, we always
seem to leave there, purchasing something. After 90 minutes or
so there, we needed to continue south to the Phoenix area.
The lights had started to come on in Flagstaff and as the first
International Dark Sky city, it's refreshing to see how little light
pollution there is in the city. We continued the two hour drive
to Phoenix and it definitely is NOT a Dark Sky City! It's glow
can be seen from just south of Flagstaff!

Dark Days Ahead

Click On Photos To Enlarge

2008


2007


The photos above were taken by Bill, the NSF Station Manager
this May (top two photos) and last May (bottom two photos).
Even though we turned off quite a few lights last year to
conserve energy, this year we've probably turned off twice
as many and it's very obvious when comparing the photos. I
for one am very happy since I am a Dark Sky proponent and we
will see many more stars and auroras here in town. There
are some who would rather turn on all of the lights but I
think it's more how Antarctica should be and not just some
big town on the edge of the wilderness. Safety does however
play a big part of our lives down here and I concede that we
need to have a fair share of lights on so people will not
hurt themselves. For the next few months, this will be our
view when looking over McMurdo as the Sun is long gone and
even the very dim twilight at midday will be gone in less than
a week. However, with the lights vastly dimmed, I'm
looking forward to some fantastic sky shows this winter!