MSGID: 1:317/3 63fcefe7   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    EPOD - a service of USRA   
      
   The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) highlights the diverse processes   
   and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives. EPOD will collect and   
   archive photos, imagery, graphics, and artwork with short explanatory   
   captions and links exemplifying features within the Earth system. The   
   community is invited to contribute digital imagery, short captions and   
   relevant links.   
      
      
    Northeastern Nevada’s Pilot Peak   
      
      February 27, 2023   
      
       RayB_pilotpeak659c_28jan23 (003)   
      
      Photographer:  Ray Boren   
      
      Summary Author:  Ray Boren   
      
      
      Looming prominently, and helpfully, above the  Great Basin of   
      western North America, Nevada’s  Pilot Peak has proved to be a   
      beacon to desert travelers. The mountain rises to an elevation of   
      10,720 feet (3267.6 meters) above the sage, salt flats and lower ridges   
      of the  Great Salt Lake Desert. It has an appealing pyramidal aspect   
      even in mid-winter, as shown in this photograph, taken on January 28,   
      2023, from an Interstate 80 exit south of the mountain, not far from   
      the twin, stateline communities of West Wendover, Nevada, and Wendover,   
      Utah.   
      
      
      Native Americans, such as the region’s resident  Goshute and   
       Shoshone peoples, mountain men, and 19th-century emigrants all   
      found  Pilot Peak an invaluable landmark. Historic markers near the   
      freeway exit note that the early, California-bound   
       Bartleson-Bidwell wagon party, cutting cross-country northwest of   
      Great Salt Lake, camped by the mountain and precious springs that they   
      found there in 1841, having left the  Oregon Trail in today’s Idaho   
      in search of a new route to north-central Nevada’s  Humboldt River.   
      The summit’s name is attributed to government explorer  John C.   
      Fremont, who in 1845 first glimpsed it from the  Cedar Range, about   
      75 miles away, and recognized its value as a guide for emigrants. Only   
      a year later, the  Donner-Reed party reached Pilot Peak and its   
      springs after an arduous and time-consuming traverse of the desert and   
      salt flats on the untested  Hastings Cutoff, which caused delays   
      that contributed to the company’s subsequent snow-bound tragedies that   
      autumn and winter in the still-distant Sierra Nevada Range.   
      
      
       Pilot Peak’s “prominence” — its impressive 5,726-foot (1745 m.)   
      rise and views above surrounding valleys — places it among an elite   
      group of summits in the United States, according to hikers and   
      mountaineers. Primarily composed of  sedimentary rocks, including   
       shale, the short Pilot Peak Range is among the many mountain   
      sequences that help define the  Basin and Range physiographic   
      province, extending from Utah’s  Wasatch Mountains on the east to   
      California’s  Sierra Nevadas on the west. Geologists explain that   
       tectonic extension stretched the earth’s crust over millions of   
      years, forming the basin’s series of mountain blocks and intervening   
      valleys.   
      
      
      
      Pilot Peak, Nevada Coordinates: 41.0210, -114.0778   
      
      
      
   Related EPODs   
      
       Northeastern Nevada’s Pilot Peak  Dance Hall Rock and Tafoni   
       La Scala dei Turchi  Atacama Lagoon and Sagittarius Arm of the   
      Milky Way  The Snake River’s Formidable Hells Canyon  Joggins   
      Fossil Cliffs   
       More...   
      
   Geography Links   
      
        *  Atlapedia Online   
        *  CountryReports   
        *  GPS Visualizer   
        *  Holt Rinehart Winston World Atlas   
        *  Mapping Our World   
        *  Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection   
        *  Types of Land   
        *  World Mapper   
      
   -   
      Earth Science Picture of the Day is a service of the  Universities   
      Space Research Association.   
      
   https://epod.usra.edu   
       
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