Two hours from Vegas, this 704,000-acre Nevada wilderness is older than most civilizations

It’s older, wilder and darker than you’d expect

Two hours north of Las Vegas, past the neon and the interstate, the Nevada desert opens into something that doesn’t feel like it belongs to the same state.

Basin and Range National Monument stretches across 704,000 acres of southeastern Nevada, wide enough to swallow entire mountain ranges whole.

Ancient rock carvings, skies dark enough to show you the Milky Way, and one of the largest artworks ever built all share this ground. Most people have never heard of it.

That’s part of what makes it worth the drive.

Where the Mojave meets the Great Basin

Basin and Range covers Lincoln and Nye counties in southeastern Nevada, where the Mojave Desert runs into the Great Basin and the land can’t quite decide what it wants to be.

Wide, flat valleys stretch between jagged mountain ranges, giving the whole landscape that pushed-apart look it’s had for millions of years.

The monument takes in Garden and Coal valleys, the Worthington and Seaman Mountains, and the Golden Gate and Mount Irish ranges.

President Barack Obama designated it on July 10, 2015, under the Antiquities Act, making it the first national monument managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada.

How a crashing asteroid shaped the ground you walk on

The land here has been breaking apart for a long time.

During the Miocene era, the earth’s crust stretched and cracked across this region, pushing up the mountain ranges and dropping the valleys between them.

Long before that, during the Devonian period, an asteroid slammed into shallow seas here and left behind shattered, jumbled limestone deposits called the Alamo Breccia.

You can see them today in the Worthington Mountains and at Murphy Gap.

Natural arches, caves, and sheer cliffs followed over time, carved from limestone and volcanic rock.

The ground holds 13,000 years of human presence, from Paleo-Indian cultures to Southern Paiute and Western Shoshone peoples to Mormon settlers and miners in the 1800s.

Walk a canyon where people carved stone 4,000 years ago

The White River Narrows Archaeological District ranks among the largest concentrations of prehistoric rock art in eastern Nevada.

It covers about 4,000 acres and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1976.

The petroglyphs here go back roughly 4,000 years, cut into soft sandstone and volcanic tuff along a winding canyon that formed during the Pleistocene era.

Six numbered sites are scattered through the narrows, reachable by dirt road off State Route 318.

The district also holds the northernmost known examples of the Pahranagat style of rock art, a detail that puts this canyon on the short list of places researchers still come to study.

Meet the Pahranagat Man at Mount Irish

Head to Mount Irish and you’ll find nearly a dozen petroglyph sites spread across 640 acres.

The heaviest concentration of carvings sits at Shaman Hill, which alone has 129 panels, along with a second cluster at Shaman Knob.

This is where you’ll find the Pahranagat Man, an anthropomorphic figure unique to Lincoln County and tied specifically to the Pahranagat Valley.

Two rock art traditions show up here side by side: the Pahranagat style and the Basin and Range tradition, which runs toward abstract designs, stick-figure humans, and bighorn sheep.

Mount Irish holds one of the highest concentrations of bighorn sheep imagery in eastern Nevada. Interpretive trails lead you to the three main rock art areas.

Curtis Canyon’s ancient hunting ground still tells its story

The Shooting Gallery sits in Curtis Canyon, about eight miles west of Alamo on the east flank of Badger Mountain, and the name tells you exactly what early inhabitants used it for.

Prehistoric hunters built blinds and rock arrangements to channel large game herds into range.

Rock piles along the hilltops were likely meant to scare desert bighorn sheep back down toward the waiting hunters below.

Two rock art traditions appear here, the Basin and Range tradition and the Pahranagat Anthropomorph style. There’s no formal trail, so you pick your way carefully among the boulders, reading the hillside as you go.

A mile-and-a-half sculpture rising from Garden Valley

Garden Valley holds something you won’t find anywhere else in the monument system.

Artist Michael Heizer spent more than 50 years building “City,” a land art sculpture that stretches over a mile and a half long and half a mile wide, roughly the footprint of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. He used local dirt, rock, sand, and concrete, at an estimated cost of about $40 million.

Heizer began around 1970 and the work opened to the public on Sept. 2, 2022. The nonprofit Triple Aught Foundation manages it now.

Nothing else in the monument quite prepares you for the scale of it.

Ancient pines and a sinkhole cave near the summit

The Worthington Mountains climb to nearly 9,000 feet, with Worthington Peak among the highest points in the monument.

The range is the only designated wilderness area within the monument’s boundaries, and the terrain earns that status. Knife-like limestone ridges, steep cliffs, and maze-like canyons fill the landscape.

Near the summit, bristlecone pines roughly 2,000 years old grow alongside natural arches that are among the only ones in Nevada.

Leviathan Cave, a limestone sinkhole carved high into the cliffs, draws experienced cavers who come equipped with helmets, lights, and rappelling gear.

Desert bighorns, golden eagles and what else is out there

Desert bighorn sheep move across the rocky slopes and turn up in the rock art for a reason: they’ve always been here. Golden eagles, Cooper’s hawks, and ferruginous hawks work the thermals above the mountain ranges.

Down lower, mule deer, mountain lions, bobcats, kit foxes, and coyotes share the ground with many species of bat, lizard, and snake.

The habitat shifts as the elevation climbs, moving from cholla and cactus in the low valleys up through pinyon-juniper woodland and into ponderosa and bristlecone pine at the higher reaches.

The variety in a single day of hiking covers more ecological ground than most parks manage in their entirety.

The Milky Way runs edge to edge out here

No development, no towns, no light. The monument’s remoteness puts it among the best stargazing locations in the Lower 48, where the Milky Way, meteor showers, and distant galaxies come through without interference.

The area sits within a broader effort to protect dark skies across central Nevada. Free dispersed camping runs up to 14 days, and you don’t need a reservation or a permit.

The monument stays open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no entrance fee. Spread out a sleeping bag and let the sky come to you.

No roads, no trails, no map telling you where to go

There are no paved roads in Basin and Range, no designated trails, and no developed facilities. What the monument does have is open country in every direction.

You can hike, mountain bike, camp, rock climb, hunt, or ride off-highway vehicles on existing roads.

The Worthington Mountains Wilderness closes to motorized vehicles, but the rest of the monument gives you room to explore washes, canyons, and ridgelines without a set route.

State Route 318 runs the eastern edge and connects to several petroglyph sites. State Route 375, the Extraterrestrial Highway, runs along the southern border.

Fill the tank, pack the cooler and tell someone where you’re going

A high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicle isn’t a suggestion out here. There are no services, no water sources, and no cell coverage across most of the monument.

Fill up on gas before you leave town, bring extra food and water, pack a spare tire, and let someone know your route and when you expect to be back.

The closest towns for supplies are Alamo to the south, Caliente to the east, and Ely to the north, all along US Highway 93. Summer temperatures run 80 to 90 degrees, and afternoon thunderstorms with lightning hit fast.

Come prepared, and the monument gives you back an experience of wilderness that’s getting harder to find anywhere in the country.

Visit Basin and Range National Monument in Nevada

To reach Basin and Range, head about two hours north of Las Vegas on US Highway 93. The monument has no entrance fee and stays open year-round, though seasonal weather can close roads without notice.

The closest towns for gas and supplies are Alamo to the south, Caliente to the east, and Ely to the north. Bring everything you need before you go in, including water, food, and a spare tire.

For current road conditions, contact the BLM Caliente Field Office. A high-clearance 4WD vehicle is strongly recommended.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• Hot springs, red rock canyons, and a drowned WWII plane are all hiding 30 miles from Vegas
• This dying Nevada town once beat Las Vegas in population fewer than 300 people live there now
• This Nevada highway passes a volcanic crater, ancient petroglyphs, and gets blanketed by the Milky Way