The Red desert in Utah is located in the extreme northeast area of Utah and is adjacent to a much larger area of the Red desert in Wyoming. The Red Desert is within the Utah ecoregion that is called the Wyoming Basin.

The Wyoming Basin ecoregion (3H) is a broad intermontane basin containing rolling plains, high hills, mesas, and low mountains. It is dominated by arid grasslands and shrublands. The Wyoming Basin ecoregion is somewhat drier than the Northern Great Plains (WY-4C) to the northeast, lacks the extensive pinyon-juniper woodland of the Colorado Plateau (UT-2I) to the south, and does not have the extensive forests of the neighboring Middle Rockies (UT-3G) which include the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains ranges.

Much of the Wyoming Basin ecoregion is used for livestock grazing, although many areas lack sufficient vegetation to adequately support this activity in the long term. The Wyoming Basin Ecoregion also contains major oil and natural gas fields.

The Red Desert is known to have significant wildlife, habitat, historical, geological, and cultural values.

The Wyoming Basin ecoregion in Utah that spills over from the Wyoming Basin ecoregion in Wyoming are all part of what is called the Red Desert and this ecoregion and the Utah ecosystem contains the some of the same sub-ecoregions found in the southwest state of Wyoming, which sub-ecoregions include: (1) rolling sagebrush steppes, (2) foothill shrublands and Low Mountains, and some of the (3) sub-irrigated high valleys.

Despite its scarcity of water and vegetation, the Red Desert supports an abundance of wildlife. The largest migratory herd of pronghorn in the contiguous states and a rare desert elk herd, said to be the largest in the world, live in the desert.

Herds of wild, free-roaming horses protected under the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 roam the area, despite roundups and population control efforts by the BLM. Bison were once common as well and their skulls and horns can occasionally be found there.

American Kestrel, Bald Eagle, Brewer′s sparrow Burrowing owl, Coopers hawk, Golden eagle, Greater horned owl, Greater Sage grouse, Ferruginous hawk, Loggerhead Shrike, Long-billed curlew, Long-eared owl, Northern goshawk, Northern Harrier, Peregrine falcon, Prairie falcon, Red-tailed hawk, Sage Sparrow, Sage Thrasher, Sharp-shinned hawk. Short-eared owl, Swainsons hawk, Trumpeter swans White-faced Ibis, White pelican.

The area is primarily made up of sagebrush shrubland with some aspen pockets, spring-seeps, cliff-rocks, and conifer habitats. This incredibly unique area of northeast Utah, southwestern Wyoming and southeast Idaho is primarily administered by the BLM

The Red Desert is comprised of sagebrush-grasslands and shrub-steppe habitat punctuated by sky islands of rock, springs and seeps, stands of aspen and pine with an understory of deciduous shrubs including: desert begonnia and vetch.

The seasonal wetlands and dunal ponds in spring are primarily created by melting snow drifts that are buried and insulated under the sand. Here, the Continental Divide splits to surround the basin, which drains neither east nor west.

Awake, rise, dress, drive to the w-mart for coffee, com and to begin my journal entry. Then at eight this morning, I pack out, drive east on Dewar Street to a hair salon to get a hair cut. Afterwards, I drive back past the w-mart, then onto the IH 80 west to exit 99, the Purple Sage exit and continue south on US 191, driving towards the Red Desert in Utah.

My first stop comes when I arrive at the Green River that travels through the Red Canyon in the Flaming Gorge Recreation Area.