Wheeler Peak Overlook

Wheeler Peak Overlook is a roadside pullout about nine miles up the paved Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive, with viewing scopes aimed toward Wheeler Peak and Doso Doyabi. Its special payoff is the only roadside view of the Wheeler Peak rock glacier, a tongue of boulders at the foot of a sheer cirque wall. Make it a quick stop for the geology, especially if you don't want to hike toward the summit. Trees partly screen the peaks, so if you want a broad, open skyline, Mather Overlook may suit you better.

The view from the road is of a rock glacier: angular boulders and cobbles with ice filling the gaps, slowly creeping downhill. Higher in the cirque, Wheeler Peak Glacier is Nevada's only ice glacier, around 11,500 feet and about two acres. They're two different features. This overlook is the only place to see the rock glacier from the road; the scopes help pick out its shape at the bottom of the cliff.

For a photo, try to keep the steep wall and the boulder tongue at its base in the same frame. That shows what makes this stop different from a summit shot.

The small ice glacier is a remnant of a colder past. During the last glacial period, regional glaciers reached down to about 9,200 feet, when the average climate was roughly eight degrees Fahrenheit cooler than today. Wheeler Peak Glacier is the last alpine glacier to survive in the area, while older ice carved the cirques and steep faces around it.

The scenic drive climbs more than 4,000 feet to elevations above 10,000 feet, passing from sagebrush through pinyon-juniper and mountain mahogany to conifers and aspen. At this high, rugged stop, grasses, low perennial plants, and wildflowers grow above the tree line. Bighorn sheep, rosy-finches, and American pipits are possible here, but the National Park Service calls them rare sightings.

Parking is limited. The overlook has scopes and an information kiosk, and the park lists it as wheelchair-accessible. The road is paved but narrow and winding, with a 35 mph limit; stop only at pullouts, and vehicles over 24 feet cannot continue beyond Upper Lehman Creek Campground. The drive typically opens around Memorial Day and stays open into late October, depending on weather; it closes in winter and after snowfall.