Book excerpt: A guide to the attractions, natural history, and cultural history of the Great Basin—perfect for tourists, naturalists, and historians. Great Basin National Park, Snake Valley, and Spring Valley cover more than 3,000 square miles across portions of Nevada and Utah, but few people know much about this diverse area. In her guidebook to Great Basin National Park, Gretchen Baker covers everything a potential visitor needs to know about one of the country’s best-kept secrets. The park sits in one of America’s driest, least populated, and most isolated deserts. It is a place of significant geological and scenic value, offering unspoiled vistas, abundant wildlife, clean air, and natural attractions. That contrast is one facet of the diversity that characterizes this region. Within and outside the park are phenomenal landscape features, biotic wonders, unique environments, varied historic sites, and the local colors of isolated towns and ranches. Vast Snake and Spring Valleys, bracketing the national park, are also subjects of one of the West’s most divisive environmental contests. At stake is what on the surface seems almost absent but underground is abundant enough for sprawling Las Vegas to covet—water. This guidebook not only describes the peaks, glaciers, subalpine lakes, caves, hiking trails, campgrounds, and historical sites, but also explores the cultural history of the park and surrounding area. Each chapter addresses the physical attributes and navigational issues of a specific area and includes an in-depth historical overview. The text is complemented by useful maps and historical photographs and makes Great Basin National Park: A Guidebook to the Park and Surrounding Area the most comprehensive book on the region available.