If I Were Going...: A Big Trip for a Big Event

Great Basin National Park for the eclipse

Caty and I went to Idaho in 2017 to photograph the total eclipse and it was awesome. So, we decided to try to catch any close-by eclipses from then on. The next one coming our way was an annular eclipse arcing across the western United States on October 14, 2023. Since Caty is trying to go to more National Parks, we decided to combine the trip with checking off a couple more Parks for her.

So, we mapped out a plan to go to Great Basin National Park for the eclipse, staying in near(ish)-by Ely, Nevada (an hour’s drive; we couldn’t get anything closer because of the eclipse). Then, we would scoot over to Death Valley National Park for a few days and then head back home through Nevada, visiting Scott’s sister, Nancy, and seeing a couple of Nevada’s cool State Parks.

The plan

We planned it and booked it. Then, the remnants of Hurricane Hilary triggered flash floods in August that damaged all of Death Valley’s roads, causing a full Park closure.

Death Valley destruction; Photo: NPS

The new plan

We remembered the last time Death Valley had flood damage and how long that took to repair, so we re-jiggered our plan to a ridiculous 3,500-mile odyssey, heading from Colorado to Great Basin and then from Great Basin all the way to Big Bend National Park in south Texas and back home through White Sands National Park and Albuquerque, New Mexico. So, Caty would still add Great Basin, plus Big Bend.

I have been to all the Parks in the U.S. except American Samoa and Caty had been to White Sands before, but the last time she went, it was still a National Monument and now it is a National Park.

We had to alter our plans to visit Nancy and just switch to meeting for lunch in transit from Nevada to Arizona on our way to Texas. We’ll see her when we finally visit Death Valley.

Death Valley roads at reopening: NPS

By the way, Death Valley partially reopened a few days before we were originally scheduled to go there. But, lots of road remained closed, so we are OK with our revised plan.

Also, after we had put together our full plan, Scott decided he wanted to see the eclipse, too. But, he also had a hankering to visit his family in the east. So, he set off on a road trip to Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. He asked me to join him for the end of the trip, which I will cover later.

But, for now, let’s talk about …

Going West

We were supposed to start our trip with a four-hour drive to Green River, Wyoming, after Caty got off work. We’ve done that a million times, but, since October can bring snow, we were continually checking the weather. Everything looked OK (temps down to 38°F, light rain) until about 15 minutes before Caty and I were going to jump in the car and head out. We knew we would be driving mainly in the dark, so weather was important. I rechecked the route and got a warning that “Your drive may be affected by a Winter Storm Warning.” What? Yep, the weather had changed and now they were predicting 4-8 inches of snow with 45 mph wind that would affect two sections of I-80 on our route.

Originally, we had been avoiding the more southerly I-70 route because it crosses two high mountain passes, but the weather there looked better. So, we sacrificed the hotel we booked in Green River (we called past the cancellation time, but they ended up not charging us! Yay, Hampton Inn!) and drove south and west heading for Grand Junction. The drive the next day would be a bit longer, but we felt we had a better chance of making it to Grand Junction alive.

I won’t say the drive was great, but it was OK. Traffic was lighter than we expected, but (as always happens in fall/winter), it was snowing at both Loveland and Vail Pass. That slowed traffic to a crawl and then to a standstill. But, even with somewhat compromised visibility and a little slush, it was never treacherous, and we made it to Grand Junction before midnight.

A rocky start, but we were on our way.

Great Basin and the Eclipse

Great Basin National Park

The next morning, we drove the six-hour drive to Great Basin and spent the afternoon in and around the Park scouting for a place to photograph the eclipse.

The revised route took us to the Park before Ely, where we were staying the next two nights. So that was a plus.

Ely has an "old Nevada" vibe

Because Great Basin is a remote Park with low visitation, the Park Rangers did not know what kind of crowds to expect.

2023 eclipse path; Chart: Great American Eclipse

Being in the path of an eclipse was a big event for them, so they were prepared for crowds. They had lots of associated activities, including astronomy programs and star parties.

Unfortunately, they were BEFORE the eclipse. Because we would be getting up early, we didn’t want to be at the Park late into the evening. So, we couldn’t attend any.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t have come earlier and we had to stay an hour away because there just isn’t much lodging near the Park.

The Park is very small and has limited parking, so we decided that we would try to get there before sunrise and hope to get a parking spot inside the Park. Failing that, we would try for the Visitor Center in Baker, just outside the Park. Failing that, somewhere along the route.

Great Basin is gorgeous, but quite small. So, I didn’t take a lot of pictures that afternoon or the next day after the eclipse.

Pretty, but basically just one really good vista

In fact, this whole trip didn’t inspire the same huge volume I usually take. All the places were pretty, but I already have tons of photos of them and we saw very few animals.

To learn more about Great Basin, see my 2019 blog here.

Great Basin National Park

We left super early the next morning, arriving at Great Basin around 5:30 a.m. There were people there, but it wasn’t crazy (especially compared to Grand Teton in 2017 for the total eclipse). So, we were able to park in the Lehman Visitor Center parking lot facing where the eclipse would be (we even could use the front of the parking spot for our tripods). So, our plan worked.

The parking lot and path to the amphitheater

There were astronomers and telescopes at the nearby amphitheater, but we didn’t want to go there until after the eclipse to ensure we had good placement.

The Eclipse

The eclipse started at 8:07 a.m., reaching full annularity at 9:24 a.m. Just 3 minutes and 41 seconds later, it started to wind down and it was over by 10:53 a.m.

Progress to annularity

We had selected Nevada and Great Basin along the eclipse path because it had a very good chance of clear skies. And, it was clear most of the time, with some heavy clouds before the eclipse and some passing wispy clouds during.

Clouds over the sun

Of course, a heavier cloud rolled in at about 9:25, so I really had to coax an image out of the shots I was taking. Scott was shooting from Midland, Texas, where he had full sun.

Midland, Texas; Photo: Scott Stevens

So, what is an annular eclipse? And how is it different than a total eclipse, which is what we saw in 2017?

Total eclipse, 2017; Annular eclipse, 2023

An annular eclipse, also known as “ring of fire” eclipse, occurs when the Moon’s shadow isn’t large enough to obscure the entire Sun when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, instead leaving a bright ring visible around the edges.

"Ring of Fire"

Solar eclipses happen when the Moon casts a shadow over an area of the planet as it moves. Because the Moon’s orbit isn’t perfectly circular, its size in the sky changes slightly over the course of each month.

Chart: Great American Eclipse

Chart: Espace Pour la Vie

Total solar eclipses occur when the Moon is close enough to Earth that it appears just as large as the sun in the sky. Annular eclipses occur when the Sun, Moon and Earth line up perfectly, but the Moon is just a bit too far away to appear big enough to block the sun entirely.

This year’s annular solar eclipse covered 89.36 percent of the of Sun for that almost four minutes of annularity.

Photographing eclipses is tricky. During a total eclipse, you have to protect your eyes and your camera with light-blocking filters during the portion where the shadow advances on and then moves away from the Sun (this is called the progression). Then, during the totality (when the Sun is completely blocked), you can take off the filters and glasses and look because the visible corona is not damaging. When we shot in 2017, we each used two cameras so that we wouldn’t have to switch out filters and exposures during the critical moment of the eclipse. Because eclipse glasses are hard to keep on when you wear glasses, we each built special prescription eclipse glasses by taping the flimsy cardboard eclipse glasses to some to old glasses.

It worked well, so we did it again

The annular eclipse is different because the ring of fire is still dangerous to look at (and dangerous for the camera sensor). So you have to use filters and glasses the whole time. Less juggling, but not as great a view.

The filters really, really filter. The photos look black with just the Sun, looking a lot like the Moon. It is cool that we could see a couple of sunspots. But, there was no flaming corona.

Sunspots

While the sky dimmed during the annularity (and the temperature dropped about 10 degrees), the sky never got particularly dark. Had you not known that there was an eclipse, you might not have even noticed. If you looked at the sun without eclipse glasses, it was so bright, it was hard to see the Moon’s shadow. You probably would have thought a storm cloud passed in front of the sun.

The beginning

So, while interesting, the annular eclipse didn’t hold a candle (well, actually 8,000 candles per square yard) to the total eclipse. Next April, we’re going to Texas to see another total eclipse.

The total eclipse is more impressive

But, it was cool to see.

We even got our Junior Ranger badges

Following the eclipse, we puttered around the Park a bit, but were glad we drove the road up to Wheeler Peak the day before, because it was crowded. The Park has just one narrow winding road and limited parking and pull-outs, so it doesn’t take much to get crowded.

Scenes from Great Basin

There is a cave there and cave tours are popular. We didn’t go because they were sold out far, far in advance. We were fine with it because we had just been in caves at Oregon Caves and Lava Beds.

A Historic Stop

Beehive charcoal oven

On our way back to Ely, we made a quick stop at Ward Charcoal Ovens State Historic Park to see some very well-preserved beehive-shaped charcoal ovens. Constructed in the latter half of the 19th century, the ovens used to make charcoal from locally harvested timber to support silver smelting in the town of Ward, Nevada.

The smelters used 30 to 60 bushels of charcoal per ton of ore, about 16,000 bushels a day. So much that, in a few short years, they completely denuded the nearby hillsides. The Ward ovens are the best-preserved of their kind in Nevada.

Established in 1876, Ward had a population of 1,500, two newspapers, a school, fire department, two smelters and a stamp mill. But, it started to decline after 1880 and a fire in 1883 destroyed a third of the town. The post office closed in 1888.

The Ward ovens are listed in the National Register of Historic Places

Mining revived briefly in the 1930s and 1960s, but repeated flash floods prevented Ward from ever recovering. Only the smelter, mill foundations and a cemetery are left.

And, the ovens look new. Only used from 1876 to 1879, the six large ovens are 30 feet high and 27 feet in diameter with walls two feet thick at the base. They were built of quartz rock by Swiss/Italian masons, known as "carbonari," who specialized in oven building.

Fine brick work

The beehive shape was designed as a more efficient version of the open-pit system that originated in Italy.

We saw wildlife, too: Juvenile White-crowned Sparrow and Hunt's Bumblebee

I have seen old charcoal ovens before, but have never been able to walk inside one.

The view from inside

I just kept thinking how cool it would be to watch the eclipse from inside.

It could happen

Driving to the Next Destination

Not much here

The next day was one of our two long driving days. We timed out departure so that we could meet with Nancy for lunch in Las Vegas.

The drive was through a particularly unpopulated part of Nevada on a two-lane road. It wasn’t bad, just frustrating when we got behind slow trucks without many opportunities to pass. So, no photos.

We made it to the restaurant with about 10 minutes to spare!

We had a lovely time (and forgot to take photos) chatting about family and eating burrata cheese and bomboloni at North Italia. It was a lovely, leisurely lunch. Nancy sure can pick a restaurant!

Yum! Photos: North Italia

Following lunch, we headed south to our evening’s stop in Chandler, Arizona, just south of Phoenix. Fortunately, the route avoided Phoenix's terrible traffic by skirting the western side of town rather than taking us down the middle. But, it was a long trip (especially after a leisurely lunch), so we made no stops along the way and still got to our hotel well after dark.

The next day was our REALLY LONG DRIVE, ten hours of road time from Chandler to Alpine, Texas.

A long day behind the wheel

You might wonder why we opted to press on for two days in a row instead of visiting sights along the way. Very simple: when we decided to go to Big Bend, we really wanted to stay in the Park so that we could do night sky photos and not have to spend a lot of time driving to and from the remote Park. We weren’t totally successful, but we were able to get one night at the Chisos Mountains Lodge in the middle of the Park. So, we wanted to get close the day before so that we could take full advantage of in-Park lodging. We opted to stay a second night close to the Park in a luxury tent-cabin.