The Spring Mountains are a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

of Southern

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

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 ...

, running generally northwest–southeast along the west side of

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

and south to the border with California. Most land in the mountains is owned by the

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...

and 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 ...

and managed as the

Spring Mountains National Recreation Area The Spring Mountains National Recreation Area (SMNRA) is a U.S. national recreation area, administered by the U.S. Forest Service, west of Las Vegas, Nevada. It covers over . The area runs from low meadows (around above sea level), to the Mount ...

within the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest and the

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area The Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in Clark County, Nevada, is an area managed by the Bureau of Land Management as part of its National Landscape Conservation System, and protected as a National Conservation Area. It is about west o ...

Geography

The Spring Mountains range is named for the number of

spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a ...

s to be found, many of them in the recesses of

, which is on the eastern side of the mountains. The Spring Mountains divide the

Pahrump Valley Pahrump Valley is a Mojave Desert valley west of Las Vegas and the Spring Mountains massif in southern Nye County, Nevada, and eastern San Bernardino County, California. Pahrump, Nevada, is in the valley's center and the Tecopa and Chicago Valley ...

and

Amargosa River The Amargosa River is an intermittent waterway, 185 miles (298 km) long, in southern Nevada and eastern California in the United States. It drains a high desert region, the Amargosa Valley in the Amargosa Desert northwest of Las Vegas, int ...

basins from the

Las Vegas Valley The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the Southern Nevada, southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Stat ...

watershed, which drains 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 ...

watershed, by way of

Las Vegas Wash Las Vegas Wash is a 12-mile-long channel (an Arroyo (creek), "arroyo" or "wash") which feeds most of the Las Vegas Valley's excess water into Lake Mead. The wash is sometimes called an ''urban river'', and it exists in its present capacity because ...

into

Lake Mead Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. ...

, thus the mountains define part of the boundary of the

Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic basin, endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California ...

. The

Great Basin Divide The Great Basin Divide in the western United States is the ridgeline that separates the Great Basin from the Pacific Ocean watershed, which completely surrounds it. The Great Basin is the largest set of contiguous endorheic watersheds of Nor ...

, (one of the Great Basin region borders) continues north through the

Indian Springs Pass Indian Springs Pass, is a mountain pass 40-mi (64 km) northwest of Las Vegas in northwest Clark County, Nevada. The pass is in a region of converging landforms of various watersheds, valleys, and mountain ranges; specifically it lies on ...

region, then turns due east at the perimeter mountain ranges north of Las Vegas.

Mount Charleston

The highest point is

Mount Charleston Mount Charleston, including Charleston Peak (Nuvagantu, literally "where snow sits", in Southern Paiute or Nüpakatütün in Shoshoni) at , is the highest mountain in both the Spring Mountains and Clark County, in Nevada, United States. It is ...

(officially Charleston Peak), at . The area around Mount Charleston is protected in the

Mount Charleston Wilderness The Mount Charleston Wilderness Area is located west of Las Vegas in the southern part of the state of Nevada in the western United States. It was created by the U.S. Congress in 1989 under the provisions allowed by the Wilderness Act of 1964, a ...

. The main town in the area is also named

(Nevada), which lies in Kyle Canyon. The area is typically 30-40 °F cooler than the valleys below, and it is a popular getaway for Las Vegas residents and visitors. The

Lee Canyon (Ski and Snowboard Resort) The Lee Canyon Ski and Snowboard Resort is located in Lee Canyon, northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, United States in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest and Spring Mountains National Recreation Area. The base lodge is situated at the base of Lee ...

lies in

Lee Canyon Lee Canyon is a canyon containing a small community and recreational area in the Spring Mountains located on in Clark County, Nevada, United States. Primary access is via Lee Canyon Road. Access to the adjacent Kyle Canyon and Mount Charleston, ...

on State Highway 156.

Other peaks

In addition to Mount Charleston, other major summits in the Spring Mountains range include Bonanza Peak,

McFarland Peak McFarland Peak is a limestone peak in the northern portion of the Spring Mountains in Clark County of southern Nevada. It is in the Toiyabe National Forest and the Mount Charleston Wilderness. McFarland Peak is located north of Mount Charlesto ...

, Mummy Mountain,

Griffith Peak Griffith Peak is located in the Spring Mountains in Clark County of southern Nevada. It is approximately northwest of the Las Vegas Strip and southeast of Mount Charleston. Griffith Peak is Nevada's 43rd highest peak, and the third highest ...

, Bridge Mountain, Mount Wilson and Mount Potosi.

Biological diversity

The Spring Mountains are a

sky island Sky islands are topographic isolation, isolated mountains surrounded by radically different lowland environments. The term originally referred to those found on the Mexican Plateau, and has extended to similarly isolated montane ecosystems, hi ...

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

. With an area around , and a vertical range of nearly , the mountains encompass a wide variety of

habitats In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

, and the

biological diversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') lev ...

is probably greater than anywhere else in Nevada; 37 species of

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

s are known (more than any other Nevadan range), and 600 species of

vascular plant Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes () or collectively Tracheophyta (), form a large group of land plants ( accepted known species) that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They al ...

s have been reported from the

alone. The bases of the mountains are part of the Mojave zone dominated by

creosote bush ''Larrea tridentata'', called creosote bush and greasewood as a plant, chaparral as a medicinal herb, and ''gobernadora'' (Spanish language, Spanish for "governess") in Mexico, due to its ability to secure more water by inhibiting the growth of n ...

and white bursage, then rising to a blackbush scrub zone, followed by a pygmy conifer zone with

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 ...

pinyon pine The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in southwestern North America, especially in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. The trees yield edible nuts, which are a staple food of Native Americans, and widely eaten as a snack and as an ingredient in New ...

, and

mountain mahogany ''Cercocarpus'', commonly known as mountain mahogany, is a small genus of at least nine species of nitrogen-fixing flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae. They are native to the western United States and northern Mexico, where they grow i ...

, and topped by a

montane zone Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

with many species of conifers around Mt. Charleston and its connecting ridges.

Palmer's chipmunk Palmer's chipmunk (''Neotamias palmeri'') is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae, endemic to Nevada. Its natural habitat is temperate forests. It is threatened by habitat loss. Description Palmer's chipmunk resembles other chipmunks in ...

is endemic to the Spring Mountains. File:Charleston peak2.jpg,

in the Spring Mountains, Nevada File:UpperKyleCanyonSMNRA.JPG, The cool, forested slopes of upper Kyle Canyon File:Spring Mountains aerial from south.jpg, The sandstone reefs of Red Rock are seen to bridge the northern and southern parts of the Spring Mountains, in this aerial view from the south File:Populus fremontii ssp fremontii 2.jpg, ''

Populus fremontii ''Populus fremontii'', commonly known as Frémont's cottonwood, is a cottonwood (and thus a poplar) native to riparian zones of the Southwestern United States and northern through central Mexico. It is one of three species in ''Populus'' sect. ...

'' tree in the Spring Mountains

References

External links