Snake Valley (Great Basin)

Snake Valley is a north-south trending valley that straddles the Nevada Utah border in the central Great Basin. It is bound by the Snake Range and the Deep Creek Mountains to the west and the Confusion Range to the east. The valley is the gateway to Great Basin National Park and Lehman Caves, which is located in the western part of the valley and on the southern Snake Range.

Though it is relatively isolated from civilization today, the human presence in Snake Valley goes back 12,000 years. The oldest accessible evidence of this is the Baker Archeological Site, a Fremont culture habitat maintained by the BLM. Current towns in the valley include Baker, Nevada (home to the Great Basin National Park Headquarters, Great Basin Heritage Area office, and Great Basin Visitor's Center), Garrison, Utah, Burbank, Utah, Eskdale, Utah, Callao, Utah, Partoun, Utah, Trout Creek, Utah, Gandy, Utah, and "Border, Utah", a community around a rest stop built across the Utah-Nevada state line called the Border Inn, along U.S. Route 6/U.S. Route 50. Today, the main industries in the valley are farming and ranching, especially sheep ranching.

Snake Valley is noted for a water project involving the Las Vegas Valley, that would target the underlying Basin and Range Carbonate Aquifer, an aquifer that supplies local agriculture and is a relatively large source of water for this region. Though Snake Valley and the surrounding area is arid and part of the Great Basin Desert, the (relatively) high ranges like the Snake Range, Deep Creek Mountains, and the Schell Creek Range allow a large snowpack that recharges the regional aquifer. This 'additional' water manifests itself in the many springs, wetlands, and lakes that make Snake Valley surprisingly lush. Thus, Snake Valley has long been a target of wildlife and farmers, with at least one farm (Dearden Ranch in Burbank, Utah) in continual operation since the 1880s.

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