Sierra Valley is a large mountain valley located east of the crest of

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 territori ...

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

mountain range in Plumas and

Sierra Sierra (Spanish for "mountain range" and "saw", from Latin '' serra'') may refer to the following: Places Mountains and mountain ranges * Sierra de Juárez, a mountain range in Baja California, Mexico * Sierra de las Nieves, a mountain range i ...

Counties, north of

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one o ...

Geography

intermontane Intermontane is a physiographic adjective formed from the prefix " inter-" (''signifying among, between, amid, during, within, mutual, reciprocal'') and the adjective "montane" (inhabiting, or growing in mountainous regions, especially cool, moi ...

valley at approximately elevation, Sierra Valley is surrounded by mountains ranging in elevation from 6,000 to . The huge valley covering about is a down-faulted basin, formerly a lake of similar geologic origin to

Lake Tahoe Lake Tahoe (; was, Dáʔaw, meaning "the lake") is a Fresh water, freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada of the United States. Lying at , it straddles the state line between California and Nevada, west of Carson City, Nevad ...

to the south, now filled with sediment up to two thousand feet thick. The former Lake has the suggested name of Lake Beckwourth and existed until approximately 10,000 years ago. Average annual rainfall is less than twenty inches, most falling as snow. The valley floor has a grassland and sagebrush ecosystem and is the site of extensive freshwater marshes filled with

cattails ''Typha'' is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in A ...

bulrush Bulrush is a vernacular name for several large wetland grass-like plants *Sedge family (Cyperaceae): **''Cyperus'' **''Scirpus'' **'' Blysmus'' **''Bolboschoenus'' **''Scirpoides'' **''Isolepis'' **''Schoenoplectus'' **''Trichophorum'' *Typhacea ...

es and alkaline flats that drain into the

Middle Fork Feather River The Middle Fork Feather River is a major river in Plumas and Butte Counties in the U.S. state of California. Nearly long, it drains about of the rugged northern Sierra Nevada range. Its headwaters are located near Beckwourth in the largest al ...

. Many species of wildlife make their permanent home in the valley, and a great number of migratory bird species stop over in the fall and nest in the valley in the spring. The valley also has thermal activity, with Marble Hot Springs located in the north central valley floor.

Economy

Sierra Valley is an agricultural and livestock region. Tourism also contributes to the local economy.

Access

Entrance from the west is through

Yuba Pass Yuba Pass is a mountain pass on State Route 49 in Sierra County in the U.S. state of California. The pass lies at an elevation of about 3.4 air miles west of Sattley, on the divide between the North Yuba River and the Middle Fork Feather Riv ...

on State Route 49. Entrance from the east is through

Beckwourth Pass Beckwourth Pass is the lowest mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada mountain range at an elevation of . Geography Beckwourth Pass is located at the eastern edge of Sierra Valley at Chilcoot-Vinton, California on the border between Plumas County ...

, the lowest mountain pass on the crest of the Sierra Nevada, on State Route 70. State Route 89 skirts the southern end of the valley. State Route 49, the

Gold Rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...

trail, terminates at State Route 70 in Vinton, and the latter highway then terminates at

Hallelujah Junction ''Hallelujah Junction'' is a composition for two pianos written in 1996 by the American composer John Adams. Adams titled his autobiography after this composition. A two-CD retrospective album of works by Adams on the Nonesuch label is also entit ...

U.S. Route 395 U.S. Route 395 (US 395) is a U.S. Route in the western United States. The southern terminus of the route is in the Mojave Desert at Interstate 15 near Hesperia. The northern terminus is at the Canada–US border near Laurier, where the road be ...

after passing through Chilcoot.

Principal towns

* Sierraville * Beckwourth *

Calpine Calpine Corporation is the largest generator of electricity from natural gas and geothermal resources in the United States, with operations in competitive power markets. A Fortune 500 company based in Houston, Texas, the company is owned by an ...

* Sattley * Loyalton * Vinton * Chilcoot

Sources

A Biological Baseline Study of Sierra Valley Marsh, California 1976. Dept. of Biology,

SFSU San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

. NSF SOS grant SMI-76-08071. This was a student originated study funded by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

to assess biological resources of the high-altitude freshwater marsh in Sierra Valley. https://archive.org/details/SierraValleyStudy/page/n23

References

External links

*
Plumas County Visitors BureauPlumas National forestTahoe National forest
{{Coord, 39, 46, 15, N, 120, 19, 40, W, display=title Valleys of California Wetlands of California Landforms of Plumas County, California Landforms of Sierra County, California Valleys of Plumas County, California Valleys of Sierra County, California