Great Basin National Park, Nev. » Listening to young visitors who managed to discover the least-visited national park in the lower 48 states, it's easy to get a picture of this surprising alpine oasis.

"We're going inside planet Earth!" shouted 6-year-old Ayden Hall of Syracuse as he prepared to take a tour of Lehman Caves, one of Great Basin National Park's signature attractions.

"Oh my God, that is exciting," said 10-year-old Cameron Howland of Reno after taking advantage of some of the darkest, clearest night skies in America by peering into a telescope and seeing the rings of Saturn.

Bonneville Junior High School ninth-grader Greyden Ewing was surprised by the park's landscape, which typifies the geography of the Great Basin.

"It was an amazing experience, fun and really beautiful," he said. "It was surprising driving from the city and hitting the desert and driving up where there was alpine, forest and all that wonderful wildlife and greenery."

Great Basin, 243 miles from Salt Lake City on the Utah-Nevada border -- making it about a tie with Capitol Reef as the closest national park to the Wasatch Front -- remains an undiscovered gem.

Here, it is possible to camp in alpine splendor next to flowing streams, or near treeline at the base of 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak, the highest point in the Great Basin and second-highest mountain in Nevada.

Visitors trek to see 4,000-year-old bristlecone pines or a six-story limestone arch. Anglers fish for Bonneville cutthroat, rainbow, brook or brown trout on 28 miles of alpine streams. Cave lovers explore the drapery, unusual shields and underground environment of Lehman Caves. Others check out Fremont Indian rock writings dating back more than 1,000 years, or marvel at the Milky Way -- so visible in an area more than 200 miles from the light pollution of Salt Lake City or Las Vegas.

There are places to watch wildlife, see colorful wildflower displays or look out into the vast Great Basin.

"Regardless of what time of year, the skies are clear enough that you can look out and see a mountain range 100 miles away," said Great Basin superintendent Andy Ferguson, a friendly man whose passion for this park becomes quickly evident. "You get to the point where you can't take something like that for granted anymore."

Susan Geary, who helps operate the gift shop and cafe serving fresh baked goods that is part of the Lehman Caves visitor center, put it another way when asked what she likes about the park.

"The lack of crowds, actually," she said. "It can be a holiday week and be peaceful. It's just amazing. And there is no cell service. That's a plus. People can't find you."

Indeed, modern travelers accustomed to being connected at all times could be disconcerted by the lack of cell-phone service. There almost always seemed to be someone on the single pay telephone at the Lehman Caves Visitor Center.

The park's highest annual visitation is around 90,000. Last year, just under 70,000 people made the journey across U.S. 6-50 -- once dubbed the loneliest road in America by Life magazine -- despite the fact that the park's facilities are closed only three days a year (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day).

This despite the fact that Lehman Caves were declared a national monument by Warren G. Harding on Jan. 24, 1922, and have been administered by the National Park Service since 1933. Congress created Great Basin National Park -- Nevada's only national park unless you count the part of Death Valley that is in the state -- in 1986.

Many Utahns recall visiting the decorative caves, which require a ticket for a 60- or 90-minute underground tour of the cave. There is no entrance fee to enter Great Basin National Park because the lack of visitation makes it unprofitable to collect.

Jenny Hamilton, a ranger who grew up in nearby Baker -- which the only city of any size for miles and offers restaurants, lodges, groceries and gas -- has been taking visitors through the caves for eight years.

"I still find something new every year," she says before asking: "Are you ready to be amazed?"

In fact, the park does amaze and delight. Few who drive the desolate west desert past Little Sahara Sand Dunes or the Sevier Dry Lake Bed can believe that this is an alpine island oasis of wildflowers, quaking aspens, glaciers and lakes.

"When you have a cloudless night, I have seen contrails so bright with a good moon that they cast a shadow," said Ferguson. "You see more stars than you can imagine. The Milky Way is so demonstrative in this part of the country that it looks like a cloud."

Explorer John C. Fremont, who named the Great Basin in the 1800s, described the place well.

"It is a singular feature, a basin of some 500 miles in diameter in every way between four and five thousand feet above the level of the sea shut in all around by mountains with its own system of lakes and rivers, and having no connection whatsover with the sea," he wrote.

That remains an apt description of a remote place where it is still possible to get away from it all in a modern world.

wharton@sltrib.com" Target="_BLANK">wharton@sltrib.com