Snake Creek Overlook Trail, Great Basin National Park

With family in town and ready to stretch their legs, we headed up Snake Creek. At first we thought we would do the Serviceberry Loop trail, but decided we didn't have enough time. So we started on the Snake Creek Overlook trail (highlighted in orange on the map), a trail I wasn't familiar with.

It starts at the end of the Snake Creek road, on the same trailhead as Dead Lake. It's a lollipop hike, with a straightaway, then a loop, and then back to the straightaway to return.

The trail veers off from the Dead Lake trail and crosses the creek to go to a couple walk-in campsites, which were occupied.

There are even picnic tables and fire grates at the walk-in sites.

We finally remembered to do a "before" shot.

We followed an old road up to a sign that showed we were at the loop section. We didn't know if there was a better direction to go, so we arbitrarily went left.

Lots of Oregon grape aka creeping mahonia (Mahonia repens) was blooming.

At the top of the loop is this huge dead ponderosa pine. Some live ponderosa pines are nearby. 

We thought the overlook would be at the top, but didn't see anything, so we started hiking down.

Then we found a bench with a glimpse of Pyramid Peak.

From here, the trail was back to an old road, so was more gradual.

I enjoyed seeing the manzanita (Arctostaphylos patula) blooms.

Desert Boy is going to be doing an internship at Great Basin National Park this summer, so I thought it might be good to see what he knows. Could he match the foliage with the pinecone?

Do you know what each of these pinecones/foliage are? Answers under the photo.

From left to right: ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), white fir (Abies concolor).

Here's the white fir closeup, with grayish-green needles and rather smooth bark on the trees.

And here's Douglas fir, with a darker green needles and flakier bark.

While Desert Boy was puzzling it out, I noticed a different looking tree nearby. It's a bristlecone pine (Pinus longevae)!

Then it was back to the parking lot, which has some nice views of the limestone Eagle Peak.

The short hike was just what we needed to stretch our legs and see a couple interesting sites. This would not be a hike I would recommend as a destination hike, but it's fine if you have some extra time and are looking for something off the beaten path. Or if you are trying to hike all the trails in the Park this year!