GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK

NEVADA

VALUES

I. PROTECTION

THE SNAKE RANGE

Protection of the scenic and scientific resources of the Snake Range, including the maring and removal of bristlecone pine wood, artifacts and historical features, would be accomplished by establishing a national park. Overgrazing and erosion could be controlled, and native plants and animals could be reintroduced where they have been depleted.

Interpretation of fault-block ranges, bristlecone pine, prehistoric cultures, and major historical events are all important Great Basin features. Through a national park visitor center, library, interpretative programs, nature walks, and Great Basin Natural History Association, with publications, maps, films and other interpretative materials, these goals can be accomplished. III. AESTHETICS

LANDSCAPE APPRECIATION

Dramatic examples of Great Basin scenery such as picturesque bristlecone pine and mountain mahogany, delicate cave formations and limestone arches, rugged mountain peaks and high glacial lakes, with massive cliffs, canyons and cirques all surmounted by magnificient Wheeler Peak represent one of western América's most scenic outdoor areas.

A national park offers recreation ranging from rock climbing to picnicking. Major types include hiking, camping, skiing, horseback riding, photography and fishing. National parks have always had the highest status of any recreational areas in the world.

VI.

New tourist-oriented industries, based on the establishment of a national park,
would solidly strengthen and diversify the Great Basin economy. Free
nation-wide publicity, appropriation of National Park Service funds, and
increased tourist dollars would help to insure future economic gain.
Since there currently is no significant mining or timber industry on the
Snake Range, a national park would be an important economic boost to
eastern Nevada. It has been estimated the new park would provide a greater
economic return than present land use activities, amounting to approximately
20 million dollars of new income per year.

CONCLUSION

This is a project that is far more important than many people realize because
it is a permanent economic mainstay that will grow in both state and national
importance in the coming years. In terms of federal funding, tourist dollars,
educational value, commercial developments and new tourist industries, the
combined economic, educational and recreational advantages of a national
park are tremendous.

SUPERBLY QUALIFIED

FOR NATIONAL PARK STATUS

The Great Basin occupies much of Nevada and Utah and parts of four
other states. Motorists crossing it feel the mystery of space, of endless,
fearsome desert, but are generally unaware of what lies hidden. In the
little known mountains are meadows, forests, lakes, and hundreds of dash.
ing streams, yet from this strange land of alternating valleys and mountain
ranges no streams flow to the sea.

The Great Basin is not like any other place. Its plants, wildlife and rock
structures are distinctive; its scenery, spectacular and infinitely varied. Re-
cent studies by the National Park Service and other park authorities have
proved the Wheeler Peak-Lehman Caves area at the region's center to be
the superb example of the Great Basin type with nationally significant
ecologic, geologic and scenic values.

Five life zones represent the life of North America from the Upper
Sonoran desert of the southwestern states to the Arctic-Alpine tundra of
the far north with belts of Transition, Canadian and Hudsonian forests
between. Shadscale and sagebrush country, with cactus, desert reptiles,
antelope and jackrabbits, in the valleys below 6,000 feet, changes in the
foothills to a cover of juniper and piñon pine where the habitat of the
mule deer starts along with that of bobcat, mountain lion, and many
smaller forms of life.

Higher up are mountain mahogany and ponderosa pine, then forests
of aspen, white fir and Douglas fir, then expanses of Engelmann spruce
and limber pine still the home of deer in warm weather along with oc-
casional elk and mountain sheep. At timberline in many places are forests
of bristlecone pine, oldest living things on earth. Many of the gnarled
ogres are over thirty feet in trunk circumference, unforgettable illustrations
of a struggle for life which began centuries before Christ. Biologists coll
these bristlecone forests, with miles of healthy young trees as well as the
ancient giants, "reason enough in themselves for national park status."
Higher yet, ranging far above timberline to the very summit of Wheeler
Peak at 13,063 feet, are Arctic rock gardens.

From the peaks the distinctive structure of the Great Basin is displayed
like a diagram. On the west is a steep scarp of the block-faulted range,
dropping 7500 feet to the valley. On the east are chasm-like cirques and
wide glacial basins, leading down to stream-eroded canyons that empty
into the valley where Lake Bonneville lay thousands of years ago. In every
direction basin-and-range topography stretches into blue distance, one of
the most spectacular scenes in all creation.

Lehman Caves (national monument since 1922) and many other caves
illustrate superbly still another phase of geology. There is a limestone arch
large enough to span a six-story building. Amazingly, a small glacier
survives in the deep Wheeler cirque, and below it are a rock stream and
other fascinating rock phenomena.

Archeologists have found artifacts in caves and "writing" on cliffs,
indicating three periods of ancient habitation. There are exhibits too of
recent history mine workings and the ruins of an ore mill and saw mills
dating from the period of 1870 to 1917.

Authoritative findings have clearly shown the qualifications of the area
- a 147,000-acre Great Basin outdoor museum and recreation ground-
for national park status.

Additional copies of this folder are available from

WHEELER PEAK, 13,063 FEET ABOVE SEA

GREAT BRISTLECONE PINES
JEWEL-LIKE MOUNTAIN LAKES

UNFORGETTABLE PANARA LA OF MOUNTAINS, VALLEYS

FIVE LIFE ZONES WITHIN FIVE MILES

LINCOLN CANYON is a hidden

chosm with varied forests on its
floor, surrounded by spectacular
limestone cliffs and pinnacles tower-
ing thousands of feet toward the
sky.

HISTORY

OF PARK MOVEMENT

Efforts to create Great Basin National Park
were started by the White Pine Chamber of Com-
merce and Mines at Ely in 1955 after a confer-
ence with Weldon F. Heald of Tucson, Arizona,
who had discovered the desert-bound glacier.
Heald's articles gained nation-wide circulation,
bringing conservation-group endorsements, while
the chamber at Ely built Nevado support.

The Nevada Department of Economic Devel-
opment, a key supporter, helped produce a 30-
inute, 16 mm., color-sound movie of the area
(available for showings) and supplied funds for
this folder. The department's 17-man advisory board unanimously endorsed
the pork, and members have worked for it individually. Senator Alan Bible
of Nevada persuaded the National Park Service to study the area. Scien-
tists of the University of Nevado made geologic and biologic investigations.

Nation-wide help was given by National Parks Association, Federation
of Western Outdoor Clubs, American Nature Association, National Coun-
cil of State Garden Clubs, Nature Conservancy, Wilderness Society, Sierra
Club, Desert Protective Council, and others. In Nevada, support was given
by Nevada Association of County Commissioners, Nevada Municipal As-
sociation, Nevada Jaycees, Lions and American Legion, conventions of both
political parties, Nevada Chamber of Commerce Association, Nevada
Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Governor Grant
Sawyer, and many others.

Great Basin National Park Association (Box 688, Ely, Nevada) was
formed in 1957 (Darwin Lambert, Ely editor, president) and is now inter-
national in membership. In 1959 the Advisory Board on National Parks of
the U.S. Department of the Interior recommended the proposed park area
as nationally significant and representative of the Great Basin. The Nevada
Foundation for a National Park was formed with headquarters at Carson
City. The state's only two living former governors - Vail M. Pittman (Demo-
crat) and Charles H. Russell (Republican)-are co-chairmen of this founda-
tion, and prominent men in various parts of Nevada are trustees.

In late 1959 bills to establish the park were introduced in Congress by
the entire Nevada delegation-Senotars Alan Bible and Howard W. Can-
non sponsoring 5-2664 and Representative Walter S. Baring, the identical
HR-9156. Park advocates are asked to spread the facts and urge congres-
sional delegations and the Interior and Insular Affairs committees of both
houses to support the legislation.

THIS VIEW over Emerald Lake and down Snake Creek shows the amo sing variety of the proposed notional park-from Arctic tundra thru extensive forests to desert, distant ranges and valleys of the Great Basin.

ECONOMIC MEANING

Regional gain is not a reason for establishing a national park, but it
should be known that possible economic losses in the Wheeler area are
insignificant while probable gains are great.

There is no timber industry. The few mineralized areas within the pro-
posed park are covered by claims which will remain valid. No fishing will
be lost. The deer kill of opproximately a hundred year even if not
made up by a late hunt outside the boundaries where deer migrate as
cold weather comes-will be a small loss. Grazing permits, on both Forest
Service and Bureau of Land Management areas involved, cover 650 cattle
for less than four months a year and 3000 sheep for two weeks to three
months. Park policy calls for continuing grazing permits for the lifetime of
permit holders.

Economic gains, by contrast, will be of real importance, especially to
Nevada and Utah. Authoritative study indicates more than half a million
people a year will be attracted by the park, adding approximately
$10,000,000 a year to the economy.

THE PARACHUTE" in Lehmen Cares National
Monumam, a feature of the proposed pork, dius-
wates the rare aleeld type of formation for which
the rave is world-famous There are many cover
this moun ange

OUTDOOR RECREATION will be enjoyed by hun-
dreds of thousands of people in Great Bosin
National Park. Here a riding club group is shown
on the Lehman Creek trad beneath 13,063 foot
Whester Peak