What is the Great Basin?

Wheeler Peak

An elegant description of the Great Basin was written by geographer I.C. Russell in 1885:

In the crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, between the Mexican boundary and the central portion of Oregon, one finds a region, bounded by the Sierra Nevada on the west and the Rocky Mountain system on the east, that stands in marked contrast in nearly all its scenic features with the remaining portions of the United States. The traveler in this region is no longer surrounded by the open, grassy parks and heavily timbered mountains of the Pacific slope, or by the rounded and flowing outlines of the forest-crowned Appalachians, and the scenery suggests naught of the boundless plains east of the Rocky Mountains or of the rich savannas of the Gulf States. He must compare it rather to the parched and desert areas of Arabia and the shores of the Dead Sea and the Caspian.
The bare mountains reveal their structures almost at a glance, and show distinctly the many varying tints of their naked rocks. Their richness of color is sometimes marvelous, especially when they are composed of the purple trachytes, the deep-colored rhyolites, and the many-hued volcanic tuffs so common in western Nevada. Not infrequently a range of volcanic mountains will exhibit as many brilliant tints as are assumed by the New England hills in autumn. On the desert valleys the scenery is monotonous in the extreme, yet has a desolate grandeur of its own, and at times, especially at sunrise and at sunset, great richness of color. At mid-day in summer the heat becomes intense, and the mirage gives strange delusive shapes to the landscape, and offers false promises of water and shade where the experienced traveler knows there is nothing but the glaring plain. When the sun is high in the cloudless heavens and one is far out in the desert at a distance from rocks and trees, there is a lack of shadow and an absence of relief in the landscape that makes the distance deceptive- the mountains appearing near at hand instead of leagues away- and cause one to fancy that there is no single source of light, but that the distant ranges and the desert surfaces are self-luminous. The glare of the noonday sun conceals rather than reveals the grandeur of this rugged land, but in the early morning and near sunset the slanting light brings out mountain range after mountain range in bold relief, and reveals a world of sublimity. As the sun sinks behind the western peaks and the shades of evening grow deeper and deeper on the mountains, every ravine and cañon becomes a fathomless abyss of purple haze, surrounding the bases of gorgeous towers and battlements that seem encrusted with a mosaic more brilliant and intricate than the work of Venetian artists. As the light fades and the twilight deepens, the mountains lose their detail and become sharply outlined silhouettes, drawn in the deepest and richest purpose against a brilliant sky.

This region of unique topography covers about 200,000 square miles (500,000 square kilometers) and includes nearly all of Nevada, much of western Utah, and parts of California, Oregon, and Wyoming. Within this vast area, some 160 mountain ranges, all trending north-south, separate more than 90 valley basins. The term Great Basin refers to the fact that all of the drainage from the mountains flows into interior basins and none reaches the sea. A few of these basins include permanent lakes and some have seasonal lakes, but the majority of the valleys are dry. The mountain ranges tend to be long and narrow, from 30 to 120 miles long and 3 to 15 miles wide. Most ranges have peaks above 9,000 feet, and a dozen or so reach above 10,000 feet. The highest point is Boundary Peak, 13,140 feet, located in the White Mountains near the California border. Although the Great Basin is a desert, the higher mountains catch enough moisture from passing storms to support forests, streams, and lakes.