The Grant Range is a mountain chain in east-central

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

in the western

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 territorie ...

. It runs for approximately 30 miles (50 km) in a generally north-south direction in northeastern

Nye County Nye County is a county in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 51,591. Its county seat is Tonopah. At , Nye is Nevada's largest county by area and the third-largest county in the contiguous United States, behi ...

. It is located south of the Horse Range and northeast of the closely associated Quinn Canyon Range. To the west is the expansive

Railroad Valley Railroad Valley is one of the Central Nevada Desert Basins in the Tonopah Basin and is about long north-south and up to wide, with some southern areas running southwest to northeast. Description The southern end of the valley begins near Gra ...

and to the east is the White River Valley. The White River Valley drains the eastern slopes of the range into the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid drainage basin, watershed that encompasses parts of ...

. The Grant Range mountains cover an area of 346 square miles (896 km²). The

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

manages 60.5% of the area, while the Forest Service oversees 39.3%. Troy Peak is the tallest mountain in the range, reaching 11,298 feet (3443 m) above sea level northwest of Scofield Canyon. The Grant Range is home to the

Grant Range Wilderness The Grant Range Wilderness is a protected wilderness area in the Grant Range of Nye County, in the central section of the state of Nevada in the western United States. The Grant Range Wilderness encompasses an area of , and is administered by th ...

, administered by the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. Almost 60% of the area is made up of pinon-

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arcti ...

vegetation, with

sagebrush scrub Sagebrush scrub is a vegetation type (biome) of mid to high elevation Western United States deserts characterized by low growing, drought resistant shrubs including sagebrush (''Artemisia tridentata'') and its associates.Karen Wiese, Sierra Nevada ...

accounting for about 15% of the range. The mountains are home to at least four species of

mice A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...

, three species of

chipmunk Chipmunks are small, striped rodents of the family Sciuridae. Chipmunks are found in North America, with the exception of the Siberian chipmunk which is found primarily in Asia. Taxonomy and systematics Chipmunks may be classified either as ...

s, and three species of

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastro ...

Steller's jay Steller's jay (''Cyanocitta stelleri'') is a bird native to western North America and the mountains of Central America, closely related to the blue jay found in eastern North America. It is also known as the long-crested jay, mountain jay, and pin ...

and the

hairy woodpecker The hairy woodpecker (''Leuconotopicus villosus'') is a medium-sized woodpecker that is found over a large area of North America. It is approximately in length with a wingspan. With an estimated population in 2020 of almost nine million individ ...

also use the mountains, as well as the

Great Basin fence lizard ''Sceloporus occidentalis longipes'' is a subspecies of the western fence lizard, commonly called the Great Basin fence lizard. Several subspecies of the western fence lizard, a species of phrynosomatid lizard, are found in the far western pa ...

References

*Biological Resources Research Center

*''Nevada Atlas & Gazetteer'', 2001, pgs. 55 & 56 * C. Michael Hogan (2008) "Western fence lizard (''Sceloporus occidentalis'')", Globaltwitcher, ed. Nicklas Stromber

{{authority control Mountain ranges of Nevada Mountain ranges of the Great Basin Mountain ranges of Nye County, Nevada Bureau of Land Management areas in Nevada