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Great Salt Lake 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 of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donner Party
The Donner Party, sometimes called the Donner–Reed Party, was a group of American pioneers who migrated to 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 mountain range. Some of the migrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, eating the bodies of those who had succumbed to starvation, sickness, and extreme cold. The Donner Party originated from Springfield, Illinois, and departed Independence, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail in the spring of 1846, behind many other pioneer families who were attempting to make the same overland trip. 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-day Utah. The desolate and rugged terrain, and the difficultie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, most populous U.S. state and the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated Administrative division, subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous Statistical area (United States), urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7million residents and the latter having over 9.6million. Sacramento, California, Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the List of largest California cities by population, most populous city in the state and the List of United States cities by population, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 as Nevada Historical Marker 3. Trail use Hastings led a small party over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jedediah Smith
Jedediah Strong Smith (January 6, 1799 – May 27, 1831) was an American clerk, transcontinental pioneer, frontiersman, hunter, trapper, author, cartographer, mountain man and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the Western United States, and the 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 as the dominant point of crossing the Continental Divide for pioneers on the Oregon Trail. Coming from modest family background, Smith traveled to St. Louis and joined William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry's fur trading company in 1822. Smith led the first documented exploration from the Salt Lake frontier to the Colorado River. From there, Smith's party became the first United States citizens to cross the Mojave Desert into what is now the state of California but which at that time was part of Mexico. On the return journey, Smith and his compa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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—the size of England's second largest county, Lincolnshire—is divided into North and South ranges. Interstate 80 divides the two sections of the range. The site is administered and maintained by the US Air Force's HQ UTTR, formerly known as the 388th Range Squadron (388RANS) stationed at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. 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) in 1945-1946, the Matador in the 1950s, and Minuteman motor testing and development in the 1960s. Wendover property was split and tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pilot Peak (Nevada)
Pilot Peak (Shoshoni: Waahkai) is the highest mountain in the Pilot Range in extreme eastern Elko County, Nevada, United States. It is the most 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 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 Hastings Cutoff emigrant route. Running out of water, they had to temporarily abandon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dugway, Utah
Dugway is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Tooele County, Utah, United States. The population was 2,016, at the 2000 census, a modest increase over the 1990 figure of 1,761. 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 th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
