See my post #13. The highest mountains in the U.S. outside Alaska are here along with thousands of miles of Great Basin High Desert (not flat) territory.
I’ve tried to explain the terrain and area to many people.
Thanks to the idiots in the media and Hollywood, everyone thinks that Nevada is as flat as Kansas, but with jackrabbits and tumbleweeds blowing along a surface of dust and sand.
I’ve tried to explain to people just how tight, high and unexplored many of those canyons are in that area, to no avail. The majority of people in the US really have no idea what northern Nevada looks like. Never will.
In Nevada, we discover plane wrecks from decades ago every couple of years. The mountains in Nevada positively eat planes - often without a trace until you’re on the ground, on the spot, in the correct light, at the right time of day. Even crashes of military aircraft can evade easy discovery for months and months. A B-17 crashed in the East Humboldt Mountains south of Wells, NV in WWII. It took the USAAC six months to find the wreckage of a big, 4-engine aluminum airplane there.
Even today, the wreckage is still there. You can’t see it until you climb up Weeks’ Canyon from Clover Valley, go a bit south into the bowl where the plane dropped, and then have the sun overhead at about 10 AM local time.
I used to live in Tonopah and would drive to Bishop on occasion. Very rugged on that border.