This rest area is also home to a remarkable petroglyph site.

This railroad magnate's 19th century tower is more than a little bit out of place in the Nevada desert.

Officially named the "Loneliest Road in America," this barren stretch of Nevada road offers almost nothing but sky and open fields.

The precious-metals strikes dating back to the 1860s are now mostly inactive, but this area has become the United States' only domestic source of lithium.

This tiny cluster of abandoned buildings looks like the future of the ghost town - today!

Thousands of acres of beautiful wild landscape in the Great Basin.

This Gold Rush ghost town was once the subject of a territorial dispute between California and Nevada.

Standing in a state of "arrested decay," this ghost town allows for a detailed peek into Gold Rush life in an unusually harsh climate.

This trench, some 2,300 feet long, is only the most prominent relic of a largely forgotten episode of placer mining on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada.

Deep vertical fissures like miniature slot canyons cut across the cemented volcanic rock of Black Point above Mono Lake.

Aqueducts have dramatically changed this old lake, now home to tufa towers and its very own species of tiny brine shrimp.

A volcanic cone that formed over 600 years ago.

This naturally heated mountainous creek has created a group of neon blue pools of potentially deadly boiling water.

A natural dome made of volcanic glass in Inyo National Forest.