Existing comment:
Basin and Range:
Up and Down:
Mono Lake lies at the western edge of a geographical region known as the Great Basin. The Basin drains over 500,000 square kilometers, approximately 1/5 of the Western United States. Water that settles here never flows to the ocean. Its only escape is evaporation, leaving dissolved salt and other minerals behind. From Mono Lake, you could travel east climbing over mountain range after mountain range. Between mountains, your journey would continue through vast stretches of sagebrush and alkali flats.
A Long Walk From Here:
Moving east across Nevada you would eventually reach the Great Salt Lake in Utah, a sister lake to Mono Lake. Great Salt Lake, like Mono Lake, had no outlet, and mirrors a similar geography along the western edge of the Rocky Mountains, the eastern boundary of the Great Basin. Both lakes harbor exceptionally productive ecosystems and provide critical migratory bird habitat. |