Trout Creek Mountains
Updated: Wikipedia source
The Trout Creek Mountains are a remote, semi-arid Great Basin mountain range mostly in southeastern Oregon and partially in northern Nevada in the United States. The range's highest point is Orevada View Benchmark, 8,506 feet (2,593 m) above sea level, in Nevada. Disaster Peak, elevation 7,781 feet (2,372 m), is another prominent summit in the Nevada portion of the mountains. The mountains are characteristic of the Great Basin's topography of mostly parallel mountain ranges alternating with flat valleys. Oriented generally north to south, the Trout Creek Mountains consist primarily of fault blocks of basalt, which came from an ancient volcano and other vents, on top of older metamorphic rocks. The southern end of the range, however, features many granitic outcrops. As a whole, the faulted terrain is dominated by rolling hills and ridges cut by escarpments and canyons. Most of the range is public land administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management. There is very little human development in the remote region—cattle grazing and ranching are the primary human uses—but former mines at the McDermitt Caldera produced some of the largest amounts of mercury in North America in the 20th century. Public lands in the mountains are open to recreation but are rarely visited. Vegetation includes large swaths of big sagebrush in addition to desert grasses and cottonwood and alder stands. Sage grouse and mountain chickadee are two bird species native to the range, and common mammals include pronghorn and jackrabbits. Despite the area's dry climate, a few year-round streams provide habitat for the rare Lahontan cutthroat trout. Fish populations in the Trout Creek Mountains declined throughout much of the 20th century. In the 1980s, the effects of grazing allotments on riparian zones and the fish led to land-use conflict. The Trout Creek Mountain Working Group was formed in 1988 to help resolve disagreements among livestock owners, environmentalists, government agencies, and other interested parties. The stakeholders met and agreed on changes to land-use practices, and since the early 1990s, riparian zones have begun to recover.