What's Out There?
History/Natural History
The Pine Forest Range, in northern Nevada’s arid Great Basin, is a rare and exceptional area of abundant streams and clear, cold subalpine lakes amidst the sagebrush steppes of the lower elevations. Just north of the Black Rock Desert and east of Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, this mountain range features four distinct subalpine lakes inhabited by trout.
Nestled deep within cirques and fed by seasonal snowmelt and springs and seeps, these lakes are not only visually stunning but also possess an excellent, sustained trout fishery. The lakes are surrounded by a rare remnant population of white bark and limber pine woodland conjoined by stands of quaking aspen and mountain mahogany. As the seasons change and Fall comes early to this high-altitude paradise, xanthophyl orange and yellow replaces chlorophyl green and the wilderness’s aspens alight with color adding a masterfully artistic touch to campgrounds enjoyed by generations of visitors.
Visitors may travel between high elevation lakes to pristine meadows, rocky outcroppings, and scenic vistas. Notable wildlife in the area include pronghorn, mule deer, bighorn sheep, pika, Chuckar, and mountain lions in addition to many raptors including Northern Goshawk, Coopers Sharp-shinned, Red-tailed, Swainsons’, Golden eagles, Red-ailed, Swainsons, Rough-Legged, and Ferruginous Hawks, American Kestrels, Merlins, Prairie, and Peregrine Falcons, and Turkey Vultures, and Northern Harriers and owls such as Great-Horned, Barn, Long-Eared, Short-Eared, Western Screech, Flammulated, Northern Pygmy, Burrowing and Northern Saw-Whet Owls. Multiple songbird species also reside either seasonally or permanently within this wilderness such as White Throated Swifts, Black-Chinned and Broad-Tailed Hummingbirds, Lewis’s, Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Northern (Red-Shafted) Flickers, Red-Naped Sapsuckers, Gray, Ash-Throated, and Dusky Flycatchers, Loggerhead and Northern Shrikes, Plumbeous and Warbling Vireos, Pinyon and Western Scrub Jays, Tree, Violet-Green, Bank, Cliff, Northern Rough-Winged and Barn Swallows, Juniper Titmouse, and much more.