Zion National Park
Canyonlands National Park
Arches National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park
Antelope Canyon
Mesa Verde National Park
Monument Valley
Capitol Reef National Park
Canyon De Chelly
Aztec Ruins
Chaco Canyon

Great Basin National Park, NV
Grand Canyon
Glen Canyon
Petrified forest
Sedona, Az
Jerome Az
Moab Utah
Dead Horse Point National Park
Tuzigoot
Bandelier
Cecar Breaks
Great Basin

In the shadow of 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak, 5,000 year old bristlecone pine trees grow on rocky glacial moraines. Come to Great Basin National Park to experience the solitude of the desert, the smell of sagebrush after a thunderstorm, the darkest of night skies, and the beauty of Lehman Caves. Far from a wasteland, the Great Basin is a diverse region that awaits your discovery.

The variety of natural features and ecosystems found within Great Basin National Park, and the larger region, is surprising to many first time visitors. The Great Basin has often been stereotyped as barren and uninteresting.  But it doesn't take long, once off the beaten path, to discover that this rugged landscape, with its desert valleys and snow covered peaks, houses much more than meets the eye.

The "Great Basin" that Great Basin National Park is named after extends from the Sierra Nevada Range in California to the Wasatch Range in Utah, and from southern Oregon to southern Nevada. This is an area where no water drains to an ocean, but drains inward. As big as it is, the Great Basin is only part of an even larger region called the Basin and Range province that extends down into Mexico. The landscape around Great Basin National Park is a good example of what is found throughout the Basin and Range province - long mountain ranges separated by equally long, flat valleys.

Great Basin National Park contains over 40 known caves, filled with unusual cave life and unique features.  Some caves contain unique formations such as folia, bulbous stalactites, anthrodites, and shields. Some caves contain features that suggest that deep-seated, hydrothermal waters influenced the caves’ development. The park has high-elevation vertical shafts and horizontal solution caves that have formed along fracture planes. 

Great Basin National Park is located in the Great Basin Desert, one of the four deserts of the United States.  The Mohave, Chihuahan, and Sonoran deserts are typical "hot" deserts. The Great Basin Desert is the only "cold" desert in the country, where most precipitation falls in the form of snow.   A desert is defined as a region that receives less than 10 inches (25cm) of precipitation per year. 

Great Basin National Park is home to the only glacier in Nevada, and one of the southernmost glaciers in the United States. The Wheeler Peak Glacier sits at the base of Wheeler Peak, in a protected cirque around 11,500 feet in elevation. The glacier measures 300 feet long and 400 feet wide. Exact depth is unknown.