The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California just to the west and the Basin and Range region to the east. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily in Nevada.

Its magnificent skyline and spectacular landscapes make it one of the most beautiful physical features of the United States. It is home to the largest trees, the giant sequoias as well as the oldest non clonal trees, the bristle cone pine, making the Sierra Nevada range biologically important.

The Sierra Nevada is an upfaulted, tilted block of the Earth′s crust. A major fault zone bounds the block on the east, and it was along this that the great mass that became the Sierra Nevada was uplifted and tilted westward. This explains the asymmetry of the range. As the block was uplifted, the abrupt, east-facing escarpment was cut into by the erosive action of wind, rain, temperature change, frost, and ice, and a series of steep-gradient canyons developed.

The western sides is a more gently slope and streams flow more gently down the geologic dip slope, creating massive alluvial fans that encroach into the Central Valley of California.

It is believed that the massive uplift began many millions of years ago but that much of it occurred in the past two million years. The present-day relief of 10,000 to 11,000 feet along the eastern slopes in the southern Sierra Nevada attests to the tremendous uplift.

The Sierra Nevada is an asymmetrical range with its crest and high peaks notably toward the east. The high peaks range from 11,000 to 14,000 feet above sea level, with Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States, at 14,494 feet.

Summits in the northern section of the range, above Lake Tahoe are much lower, reaching altitudes of only 7,000 to 9,000 feet.

This range extends more than 250 miles northward from the Mojave Desert to the Cascade Range of northern California and Oregon. The width varies from about 80 miles wide at Lake Tahoe to about 50 miles wide in the south.

Uto-Aztecan Numic Family Groups

Tuttle Creek

Bald Eagle Mountain (7,183 feet); Kettle Rock (7,820 feet); Smith Peak (7,693 feet); Bunker Hill (6,967 feet); Sardine Peak (8,134 feet); Mokelumne Peak (9,334 feet); Eagle Peak (11,845 feet); Petit Peak (10,788 feet); Glass Mountain (11,123 feet); Red Slate Mountain (13,163 feet);

White Mountain (White Mountains) (14,246 feet); Mount Morgan (John Muir Wilderness) (13,005 feet); Mount Darwin (13,830 feet); Mount Woodworth (12,219 feet); Mount Whitney (14,494 feet); Sherman Peak (9,909 feet); Sugarloaf Mountain (6,244 feet)

Kings Canyon national park

Sequoia national park

Manzanar National Historic Site

Alabama Hills BLM

Owens River Valley

John Muir Trail

Pacific Crest Trail

Inland Desert Route

Awake early, dress in my winter blues, walk inside the w-mart, purchase a large coffee, then return to the jammer and start the engine. Since it is so cold outside, I don a pair of socks, my gloves and my sweater cap to stay warm. I do this because the jammer, for some reason unknown to me lost the ability to blow hot air when the heater is on; it only blows cold air now.

I leave out of the parking lot, turn left on US 395 and continue my journey south for another twenty miles before I reach the California state line at which time, I continue into this state with a nearly full take of fuel, hoping not to have to pay the much higher prices within. (While here, I see prices over seven dollars per gallon; I have been paying just over five dollars in Oregon and less than five dollars in Washington.) I continue on US 395 which skirts the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, borders the Central Basin to the east and the valley that I am traversing southward is called the Owens Valley.

Also know as the High Sierras, this area of the range includes Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the Sierra Nevada as well as the tallest in the contiguous forty-eight.