Hot Creek + Middle of Nowhere, NV | The Big 2025 Parks Tour, Part 4
Original Adventure Date: October 4, 2025
After an enjoyable, beautiful, adventurous visit with Kimber at Mammoth Lakes, I’m headed toward my first National Park destination: Great Basin in Nevada’s high desert. It’s the least visited park in the entire United States, likely because it’s in such a remote location.
By the way, Kimber has been inducted into the Aggravation family, and she won the first match she ever played! It came right down to the wire, as they always seem to. What a fun way to keep my Grandpa’s spirit alive — and I of course carried forward some of Grandpa’s ridiculous and silly traditions. For example, when someone is praying to the dice gods to roll a 6, you look at them without a trace of worry on your face and say "you can't make a 6 with a pencil."
Traveling with that homemade marble board was definitely the right call.
Before heading northeast, a short side quest was required. Because a place called “Hot Creek” exists which definitely lived up to its name.
Here was my first glimpse of Hot Creek, in the Inyo National Forest, nestled at the bottom of a giant volcanic basin:
About 100,000 years ago, 50 cubic miles of molten lava blasted up from beneath the earth’s surface. To this day, water from the Sierra Nevada mountains flows down and gets super heated by the molten rock. So how hot does this creek get?
Well, here’s a wild looking thermal hot spring that allegedly gets up to 199 degrees Fahrenheit / 92 Celsius! You’d get boiled alive in this one, but it sure is pretty:
Look at the white-hot liquid oozing into the creek from that hot spring:
Once I walked down to the creek itself, I could see steam escaping from cracks in the nearby rocks, and bubbles shooting up into the water.
After leaving Hot Creek, I started my drive northeast into Nevada. Before getting to an old ghost town called Benton Springs, I had to stop several times to gawk at the scenery.
I mean, look at this! The warm color palette of boulders and sand and sagebrush in the foreground and the dramatic pop of snowy mountains in the background. It's as if the high desert and the Sierra Nevada had a baby. This one spot felt like the best of both worlds to me. And it's just a random spot where no one seems to pull over and admire the scenery.
As highway 120 ended and I turned onto the 6, the scenery kept changing, mostly becoming a grand expanse of foothills and basins and stunning desert landscape.
The roads here seemed endless.
"There's just nothing and no one"
The drive from Mammoth Lakes to Great Basin National Park should be about 6 hours without stopping, but of course I felt compelled to stop for every photo opportunity possible. I also wasn't accustomed to driving all day (yet) and as the afternoon wore on, I thought it would be wise to take advantage of these vast stretches of BLM land and finally do some proper car camping.
Eventually I came to an area known as the Lunar Crater Byway, and something pulled me in. My Kia Soul couldn’t actually make it TO the crater area because of washouts and patches of very rough road, but I found a perfect place far from the highway.
A little slice of the Nevada desert just for me.
The silence out there was exquisite. Nothing pierced it aside from the occasional crow’s call. It was almost eerie, and took some getting used to! But after I grew comfortable with the deep silence, it became so peaceful.
You know, my Kia is definitely starting to earn my trust. In the last few days, we’ve been down snowy roads, gravel paths, and backcountry byways without incident or worry.
This was the first night I properly tested my car camping setup, and I was mildly surprised that it felt so cozy! The night would have been perfect except that my NEMO air pad started leaking. I had to top off the air every few hours, otherwise my back felt the unforgiving stiffness of the cargo floor.
I love NEMO products, but that thing was getting returned to REI the second I was back in civilization.
Kimber suggested buying some memory foam (when I get to a proper city), and that might end up being more reliable and easier than inflating up a backpacking air mattress every night.
And in case you’re wondering, I did see a single coyote, but it wanted nothing to do with me, and trotted off in the opposite direction as soon as it saw my space.
Heh, speaking of space: I saw roughly ONE BILLION stars when I crawled out of the car at 4:30am. I took the photo above kind of haphazardly with my iPhone, just placing it on the hood and letting it automagically choose the exposure time. I cannot WAIT to bust out my camera and the tripod for some serious night photography.
I've done a lot of camping, and I don't believe I've ever seen so many stars with my naked eye.
I’m already loving this adventure, and I’m really enjoying bringing you along with me. Thanks for reading. Sign up below to get emailed whenever I post a new story or photojournal.
Until we chat again, take care. And take care of each other.
PREVIOUSLY ON THE 2025 PARKS ROAD TRIP:
Jason Evangelho
Jason Evangelho
Jason Evangelho
Member discussion