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 state in the 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. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

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 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, running generally northwest–southeast along the west side of

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish language, Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the List of United States cities by population, 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the U.S. state, state of Neva ...

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 and managed as the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area within the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest and the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

Geography

The Spring Mountains range is named for the number of springs to be found, many of them in the recesses of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, which is on the eastern side of the mountains. The Spring Mountains divide the Pahrump 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, i ...

basins from the

Las Vegas Valley The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the 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 Statistical Area i ...

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 watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

watershed, by way of Las Vegas Wash 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 Divide, (one of the Great Basin region borders) continues north through the Indian Springs Pass region, then turns due east at the perimeter mountain ranges north of Las Vegas.

Mount Charleston

The highest point is Mount Charleston (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, an ...

. The main town in the area is also named Mount Charleston (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) lies in Lee Canyon on State Highway 156.

Other peaks

In addition to Mount Charleston, other major summits in the Spring Mountains range include Bonanza Peak, McFarland Peak, Mummy Mountain, Griffith Peak, Bridge Mountain, Mount Wilson and Mount Potosi.

Biological diversity

The Spring Mountains are a sky island

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 syst ...

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

s have been reported from the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area 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 for "governess") in Mexico, due to its ability to secure more water by inhibiting the growth of nearby plants. In ...

and

white bursage ''Ambrosia dumosa'', the burro-weed or white bursage, a North American species of plants in the family Asteraceae. It is a common constituent of the creosote-bush scrub community throughout the Mojave desert of California, Nevada, and Utah and ...

, then rising to a

blackbush scrub Blackbush scrub,Mojave Desert Wildflowers, Pam Mackay, p18, 252 or blackbrush scrub,Canyon Country Wildflowers, Damian Fagan, p 3, 105 is a vegetation type of the Western United States deserts characterized by low growing, dark gray blackbush (''Co ...

zone, followed by a

pygmy conifer In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a pop ...

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, and topped by a montane zone with many species of conifers around Mt. Charleston and its connecting ridges. Palmer's chipmunk is endemic to the Spring Mountains. File:Charleston peak2.jpg, Mount Charleston 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'' tree in the Spring Mountains

References

External links