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West Desert
The Great Salt Lake Desert (colloquially referred to as the West Desert) is a large dry lake in northern Utah, United States, between the Great Salt Lake and the Nevada border. It is a subregion of the larger Great Basin Desert, and noted for white evaporite Lake Bonneville salt deposits including the Bonneville Salt Flats. Description Several small mountain ranges occupy the edges of the desert, such as the Cedar Mountains, Lakeside Mountains, Silver Island Mountains, Hogup Mountains, Grassy Mountains, and Newfoundland Mountains. On the western edge of the desert, just across the border in Nevada, stands Pilot Peak in the Pilot Range. The desert is cool during the winter and includes unusual plants adapted to the dry conditions. Most of the desert receives less than of annual precipitation. The salt crust covering the desert reforms yearly when the rain evaporates. The military's Utah Test and Training Range is in the northern portion of the desert. The lowest part ...
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United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States asserts sovereignty over five Territories of the United States, major island territories and United States Minor Outlying Islands, various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest land area and List of countries and dependencies by population, third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three Metropolitan statistical areas by population, largest metropolitan areas are New York metropolitan area, New York, Greater Los Angeles, Los Angel ...
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Donner Party
The Donner Party, sometimes called the Donner–Reed Party, was a group of American pioneers who migrated to California interim government, 1846-1850, California in a wagon train from the Midwest. Delayed by a multitude of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–1847 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. Some of the migrants resorted to Human cannibalism, cannibalism to survive, mainly eating the bodies of those who had succumbed to starvation, sickness, or extreme cold, but in one case murdering and eating two Indigenous peoples of California, Native American guides. The Donner Party originated from Springfield, Illinois, and departed Independence, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail in the spring of 1846. The journey west usually took between four and six months, but the Donner Party was slowed after electing to follow a new route called the Hastings Cutoff, which bypassed established trails and instead crossed the Rocky Mountains' Wasatch Range and the Great Salt Lake Desert in present ...
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California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an international border with the Mexico, Mexican state of Baja California to the south. With almost 40million residents across an area of , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, largest state by population and List of U.S. states and territories by area, third-largest by area. Prior to European colonization of the Americas, European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization by the Spanish Empire. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following Mexican War of Independence, its successful war for independence, but Mexican Cession, was ceded to the U ...
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Hastings Cutoff
The Hastings Cutoff was an alternative route for westward emigrants to travel to California, as proposed by Lansford Hastings in ''The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California''. The ill-fated Donner Party infamously took the route in 1846. Description A sentence in Hastings' guidebook briefly describes the cutoff: The most direct route, for the California emigrants, would be to leave the Oregon route, about two hundred miles east from Fort Hall; thence bearing West Southwest, to the Salt Lake; and thence continuing down to the bay of St. Francisco, by the route just described. The cutoff left the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger in Wyoming, passed through the Wasatch Range, across the Great Salt Lake Desert, an 80-mile nearly water-less drive, looped around the Ruby Mountains, and rejoined the California Trail about seven miles west of modern Elko (also Emigrant Pass). The west end of the cutoff is marked by Nevada Historical Marker 3. Trail use Hastings led a small party o ...
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Jedediah Smith
Jedediah Strong Smith (January 6, 1799 – May 27, 1831) was an American clerk, transcontinental pioneer, frontiersman, hunter, trapper, author, cartography, cartographer, mountain man and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the Western United States, and the Southwestern United States, Southwest during the early 19th century. After 75 years of obscurity following his death, Smith was rediscovered as the American whose explorations led to the use of the -wide South Pass (Wyoming), South Pass as the dominant route across the Continental Divide of the Americas, Continental Divide for pioneers on the Oregon Trail. Coming from modest family background, Smith traveled to St. Louis and joined William Henry Ashley, William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry (fur trader), Andrew Henry's fur trading company in 1822. Smith led the first documented exploration from the Great Salt Lake, Salt Lake frontier to the Colorado River. From there, Smith's party became the first United States citiz ...
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Utah Test And Training Range
The Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) is a Department of Defense military testing and training area located in Utah's West Desert, approximately west of Salt Lake City, Utah. UTTR is currently the largest contiguous block of over-land supersonic-authorized restricted airspace in the contiguous United States. The range, which has a footprint of of ground space and over of air space — about four-fifths the area of West Virginia—is divided into North and South ranges. Interstate 80 passes through a wide gap between the two sections of the range. The site is administered and maintained by the United States Air Force (USAF) HQ UTTR, formerly known as the 388th Range Squadron (388RANS) stationed at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. The East and West areas of the Dugway Proving Ground are contiguous with the South Area of the UTTR. History The Wendover Army Air Field was created in 1942 for research and training, with testing of Republic-Ford JB-2 (U.S. copy of the V-1 flying bomb) i ...
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Pilot Peak (Nevada)
Pilot Peak (Shoshoni language, Shoshoni: Waahkai) is the highest mountain in the Pilot Range in extreme eastern Elko County, Nevada, Elko County, Nevada, United States. It is the most topographic prominence, topographically prominent peak in Elko County and the fourth-most prominent peak in Nevada. The peak is on public land administered by the Bureau of Land Management and thus has no access restrictions. History Pilot Peak was named in 1845 for its use as an easily recognized landmark. John C. Fremont saw the peak from the east during his third expedition, mapping the Great Basin. Wondering whether his entire party could cross the desert he sent Kit Carson ahead to scout for water sources. Finding a perennial Spring (hydrology), spring just east of the peak, Carson lit a large bonfire, the smoke from which signaled Fremont that the crossing was possible. In 1846 the Donner Party also used the peak as a landmark for their crossing of the Great Salt Lake Desert, part of the Ha ...
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Silver Island Range
The Silver Island Range, also called the Silver Island Mountains, is a mountain range in Utah, United States, situated the northwest corner of Tooele County and the southwest corner of Box Elder County, about northeast of Wendover. The Silver Island Range lies at the west perimeter of the Great Salt Lake Desert; the southeast flank of the range is on the northwest border of the Bonneville Salt Flats. Geography The Silver Island Range is a rough triangular area which extends into Utah from the Utah - Nevada border, with the Pilot Valley Playa to the west and the Great Salt Lake Desert to the east. The wilderness area includes with sloping stream terraces, foothills, canyons, and steep mountains. Elevation starts at at the base of the range, to more than at the summits. The four tallest peaks in the range are Graham Peak, at , Campbell Peak , Jenkins Peak , and Cobb Peak, at . Other peaks include Tetzlaff Peak, Rishel Peak, and Volcano Peak. With no perennial streams, ve ...
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Skull Valley Indian Reservation
The Skull Valley Indian Reservation (Gosiute dialect: Wepayuttax) is located in Tooele County, Utah, United States, approximately southwest of Salt Lake City. It is inhabited by the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians of Utah, a federally recognized tribe. As of 2017 the tribe had 134 registered members and 15-20 people living on the reservation. Landbase The reservation comprises of land in east central Tooele County, adjacent to the southwest side of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest in the Stansbury Mountains. The reservation lies in the south of Skull Valley, with another range, the Cedar Mountains bordering west. Resident and previous chairman Leon Bear described it as their "beautiful wasteland". History There were records of a flood in 1878, and tribe members recalled large flood events in the 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s. In Fall 2013, a few weeks after the Patch Springs Fire, an intense rainstorm hit the area, causing flooding and mudflows estimated at . The BIA's B ...
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Dugway, Utah
Dugway is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Tooele County, Utah, United States. The population was 342 at the 2020 census, a continued decrease from the 2010 figure of 795. The town is located inside the United States Army's large weapons testing facility, Dugway Proving Ground, making it a closed city, as the only roads leading to the town pass through military checkpoints at the boundaries of the base. Non-resident civilians must request advance authorization to enter the town. The housing area designated for military and civilian personnel is referred to as "English Village." The name "Dugway" comes from a technique to dig a trench along a hillside to keep a wagon from tipping. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 5.2 square miles (13.5 km2), all land. Climate According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Dugway has a semi-arid climate, abbreviated "BSk" on climate maps. Demographics As of ...
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