The Sagebrush Ocean: A Natural History of the Great Basin

The Sagebrush Ocean: A Natural History of the Great Basin by Trimble, Stephen. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780874171280.

The Great Basin (from the Sierras to the Rockies, from the Snake River Plain to the Mojave Desert) is one of the least novelized, least painted, least eulogized of Americas landscapes. The Sagebrush Ocean summarizes a vast amount of information in a text of synthesis and celebration. Trimble mixes eloquent accounts of personal experiences with clear explication of natural history, and his photographs capture some of the most spectacular but least-known scenery in the western states--and won the Ansel Adams Award for Photography and Conservation from the Sierra Club. The Great Basin Desert—an ocean of sagebrush—sweeps from the Sierra to the Rockies, from the Snake River Plain to the Mojave Desert. "Biogeography" best sums up Trimbles focus on this land: what lives where, and why. He introduces concepts of desert ecology and discusses living communities of animals and plants that band Great Basin mountains—from the exhilarating emptiness of dry lake-beds to alpine regions at the summits of the 13,000-foot Basin ranges. Trimbles territory is the Nevada desert, Utahs West Desert, southeastern Idaho, southeastern Oregon, and California east of the Sierra. This is the best general introduction to the ecology and spirit of the Great Basin.