Road trip through the Great Basin of America

26 January 2026

The lands of central Oregon and Nevada stretch on for miles upon miles, a vast arid region between mountain ranges on a horizon that never seems to get closer. The Great Basin of North America is huge, basically all of Nevada, much of Utah and Oregon, and into California. It is a geologic basin with no outlet to the ocean. Native peoples have lived here since prehistoric times. We passed signs and markers for the Shoshone, Paiute, Cayuse, Umatilla, Timbisha, and more. The Spanish, British, then Americans arrived circa 1800s. Most of the towns here began as mining or gold rush settlements. They tell stories here of covered wagons and emigrant trails, the discovery of gold and borax and other useful minerals, boom and bust, and the wild West.

Up and down we went on the rolling hills of Highways 305 and 376, straight south through the Big Smoky Valley. After listening to several chapters of Paul Cooper’s audiobook The Fall of Civilizations, through the entire empires of Khmer and Byzantium, we pulled into a gas stop in Tonopah, NV. Entering the town (population 2,600) we were greeted with signs advertising the Clown Motel and the Chinese restaurant at the Banc Club (which I read as Bang Club) casino. The gas prices are cheap here, and occasionally you have to slow down behind a man leading his burro.

Then finally, as I look over a final crest in the road, a valley opens up with what appears to be a large lake. Except there’s no water. It’s a vast expanse of salt flats in Death Valley. Could’ve fooled me, and probably did fool a lot of thirsty, dusty people over the ages. The descent into Death Valley takes us from about 3500ft elevation down to negative 280 ft below sea level.

At the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, there are informative displays explaining that Death Valley is the hottest place on earth in the summer (it holds the record from 1913 for hottest ambient temperature recorded on the surface of the planet). It’s also one of the driest, since any moisture from the Pacific Ocean would have to cross 4 mountain ranges to get here. It sounds like a deadly place to be in summertime, although an impressive number of flora and fauna (and intrepid humans) have adapted to thrive in this desert world. Its morbid name was reportedly given to the valley by disgruntled gold rush emigrants who had taken an ill-advised short cut, got lost in the valley, and barely made it out alive sans wagons and oxen. It's rather an unfair name for a place of tremendous beauty.

In the winter, Death Valley is a wonderful playground. The sun shines in a cloudless sky, and daytime temperatures are in the upper 60s Fahrenheit. When the sun sets, temperatures plummet into the 30s, which is ideal for campfires, star-gazing, and cozy sleeping.