An excerpt: “Experiencing the Great Basin Desert in Nevada seems to involve an inner war of perceptions. Here’s how it went for me.
Just after Gail and I turned our rental car due south on Alternate U.S. Highway 93 from the fortress of casinos lining the border town of West Wendover, Nevada – servicing the good Mormon sinners of Salt Lake City – into the empty salt flats, it felt like we were sliding into another world.
And a forbidding one, even to a lover of other Western deserts. I think one of the reasons is the odd, whitish hue of the low-lying salt flats, whether they’re vast white playas or episodic alkaline lowlands. In large part they’re remnants of land-locked lakes and pools during the last ice age. As the Holocene warmed the atmosphere they dried up; today salt-whitened playas in the Great Basin are partially filled by water from snow melts and episodic thunder boomers.”
To read more of Scott’s article, click the image below:
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