Several river systems and lakes are of interest in the Great Basin. Lake Tahoe, a vibrant freshwater Sierra Nevada lake, flows down the Truckee River, quickly loses elevation and drains into the salty, geographic sink of Pyramid Lake.
The Great Basin is also referred to as the Basin and Range Province and Great Basin Province, though these definitions follow geographic features more than watershed.
Look at at map…you will see that they are longitudinally stacked one after another from central Utah to the Sierra Nevada mountains. It fascinates me to consider the wonder of this large scale watershed and geographic separation as I enjoy the lush, high mountains on our back doorstep, juxtaposed by the dramatic and seemingly barren and inhospitable landscapes below.
If I stand on the mountain ridge line above my home and face south, I can straddle the water line between the Great Basin and the rest of the country. To my right, a different drop of water travels west, meanders between desert ranges and eventually drains into the ground or evaporates from the surface of a salty desert hardpan.
A tiny gust of wind could land that snowflake or raindrop mere inches one way or the other and result is a very different fate. This process is not unique to the Great Basin by any means…the same process happens everywhere on the planet.
In the Great Basin the result of this micro-event, multiplied by every drop of water that ever falls, results in a fascinating dichotomy. Dramatic geography, wildlife and plant life, culture, industry, travel and ways of life are all shaped by the process and are uniquely different from adjacent landscapes. The Great Basin is our home. Our ancestors were among the first European settlers to set roots here. These ranges are separated by flat valleys or basins. These hundreds of ranges make Nevada the most mountainous state in the country.
The Great Basin Desert is defined by plant and animal communities. The climate is affected by the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains. It is a temperate desert with hot, dry summers and snowy winters. The valleys are dominated by sagebrush and shadescale. The biologic communities on the mountain ranges differ with elevation, and the individual ranges act as islands isolated by seas of desert vegetation.
Because the Great Basin exhibits such drastic elevation changes from its valleys to its peaks, the region supports an impressive diversity of species, from those adapted to the desert to those adapted to forest and alpine environments. Great Basin National Park preserves a small representative piece of this entire region.
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