Scott's Basin

Flanked on the east by the Great Salt Lake Desert and on the west by the Deep Creek Valley, the Deep Creek Mountains are the highest landmark in all of western Utah. As an isolated “island” ecosystem and the fourth highest range in the Great Basin, the “Deeps” dominate the Great Salt Lake Desert in altitude, sheer mass, and biotic richness. From a barren landscape of alluvial outwash and playa basins, two 12,000 foot peaks rise 7,800 feet above the desert floor transitioning through sagebrush-grassland benches, pinyon-juniper forest, evergreen and aspen forests, and alpine meadows to form nine perennial streams and numerous canyons that twist through massive granite formations or quartzite cliffs.