The point is not to read about the Great Basin. The point is to drive. That way you learn more about this land than all the books could ever tell you.
One time we were making our way toward Paradise, using the Nevada Map Atlas as our guide. We turned off the highway and headed up a dusty road toward the sheer western escarpment of the Santa Rosa Mountains. Could this be the road to take us over the top?
We saw a pickup approaching. It slowed down. An old Indian man with a long braided pony tail was at the wheel. “Is this the road to Paradise?” I asked.
“Where you from?” he said.
I told him we were from Carson City, and he eventually allowed as to how the road did lead to Paradise, and it was a steep and winding road, but we could probably make it.
We drove up the steep switchback road, and then across the eastern folds of the mountain through aspen groves filled with light.
The more I thought about his first answer to my question, the more it seemed so right. Whether you’re on the right road depends on where you’re coming from as much as where you’re going. And all the guide books in the Great Basin can’t help you with that.
But Hot Springs of Nevada by George Williams III just might help ease your weary back on a long road trip (Tree by the River Publishing, $10.95). This slim book can fit in your glove compartment and it covers 37 of the better known hot springs strategically located around the state. George doesn’t reveal any state secrets. But it’s the kind of thing, that if you ask a local, it might depend on where you’re from. And you never know when an angel is going to show up in a pickup to tell you you’re on the right road.
Jon Christensen
The rising of the Sierra Nevada on the western edge of the Great Basin has made a region of spectacular geology. As explained in Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Owens Valley (Mountain Press, $16) here “lies the greatest dryland relief in the contiguous United States, between Mt. Whitney at 14,494 feet above sea level in the Sierra Nevada and Badwater Basin at 282 feet below sea level in Death Valley.” This guide makes this remote region accessible and understandable to visitors through thirty clearly-explained driving and walking tours. Numerous maps, diagrams, and excellent black-and-white photographs lead readers to ancient lake beds, steam explosion craters, sand-blasted boulders, dramatic earthquake faults, obsidian mountains, and “the mysterious sliding stones of the Racetrack playa.” This book invites you to visit and experience these wonders firsthand. So get your car and drive.
David Lukas
Everybody knows a packrat. It may be someone with closets full of junk. Or it may be the rodent whose antics have tormented many a soul.
Often cursed for stealing trinkets, chewing wires and building a foul smelling nest in the attic, the packrat is now being praised for its filthy habits in the scientific world. The packrat’s habit of collecting a bit of everything and adding layer by layer to ancestral collections, some of which date back more than 40,000 years, has preserved a treasure trove of natural history.
By digging into these well-preserved collections, sealed in a crystallized brine of packrat piss, scientists have begun to piece together a history of the Great Basin back into the last Ice Age.
While written for scientists, the story of this discovery and meticulous research is well-told in Packrat Middens (University of Arizona Press, $67.50). This book is a must for anyone interested in the evolution of the Great Basin. It is also a great reference for anyone who is curious about the strange habits of packrats, the rodent variety that is.
As for friends and family members who are packrats, well, maybe you don’t want them to know the secret of packrat historical preservation.
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David Lukas