Nevada’s Largest State Monument: A Rugged Outdoor Paradise Surrounded by Majestic Mountain Ranges

It’s not often that an entire state is defined by one tourist attraction, but Nevada is nothing if not out of the ordinary. The world-renowned tourist city of Las Vegas is consistently voted America’s “most fun” city. For most travelers, Nevada’s attractions begin and end at the Las Vegas Strip. Outside of Vegas, you might consider the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe or the UFO Mecca of Roswell, but that’s about it. However, if you manage to escape into the rest of Nevada, you’ll quickly find that the Silver State packs quite a punch when it comes to pristine natural beauty. Nowhere is this more evident than in Nevada’s rugged outdoor paradise of the Basin and Range National Monument.

Located nearly five hours from Harry Reid International Airport, the Basin and Range National Monument is famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) as one of the emptiest places in the contiguous United States. But the park’s remote location and lack of development make it the perfect place to escape into a purely natural setting in blissful solitude. Far from being a bland wasteland, Basin and Range National Monument is a vibrant landscape of desert plains, gorgeous mountains, and unique Great Basin ecology. Despite the park’s lack of modern infrastructure, Basin and Range National Monument is also a treasure trove of the artistic legacies of the region’s ancient inhabitants. 

Nevada’s Basin and Range National Monument is a small but representative pocket of the much larger Basin and Range geographical province of the Western United States. Extending from West Texas to California to the north through Utah, the Basin and Range Province features a complex pattern of steep mountain ranges interspersed with flat plains and valleys. They are all topped by an arid desert climate and distinctive geographical features like canyons, mesas, and dunes. This Nevada region includes wonders such as the underrated Great Basin National Park with its spectacular scenic drives and stargazing offerings. 

Unlike other Basin and Range parks protected by the National Park Service, the 704,000 acres of the Basin and Range National Monument are administered by the Bureau of Land Management. On the one hand, this means you won’t get the NPS amenities you’d likely find in even remote national parks. On the other hand, you’ll have a first-hand experience of the remote majesty of this unique region. The park sits where the vast Great Basin region meets the Mojave Desert, creating a vibrant range of mountains, desert plains, and distinctive rock formations decorated by striking limestone cliffs and juniper forests. This setting is all without the larger crowds that flock to many Western national parks. 

Though it’s remote and undeveloped, the land, now designated as the Basin and Range National Monument, was home to Indigenous Americans dating back at least 13,000 years. Throughout the park, you will find traces of its original inhabitants in the form of intricate petroglyphs etched into the rock. The park’s Shooting Gallery Rock Art Site and Mount Irish Archeological Site are particularly notable for their impressive rock art specimens.