A place to be

Sierra Nevada, also called Sierra Nevadas, major mountain range of western North America, running along the eastern edge of the U.S. state of California. Its great mass lies between the large Central Valley depression to the west and the Basin and Range Province to the east. Extending more than 250 miles northward from the Mojave Desert to the Cascade Range of northern California and Oregon, the Sierra Nevada varies from about 80 miles wide at Lake Tahoe to about 50 miles wide in the south.

Its magnificent skyline and spectacular landscapes make it one of the most beautiful physical features of the United States. Biologically, it is home to the largest trees in the world—the giant sequoias. As a recreation centre, its year-round facilities prove a magnet to the inhabitants of the huge urban areas of California, and it has considerable importance as a source of power and water. It was the focus of the celebrated California gold rush.

brittanica - Sierra Nevada

History

On the second Juan Bautista de Anza expedition to populate northern California, in April 1776, Padre Pedro Font gave the name Sierra Nevada, or "snowy range," in Spanish, to the mountains he saw to the east in the distance. The earliest identified inhabitants of the Sierra Nevada were the Paiute tribe on the east side and the Miwok tribe on the west. Both tribes traded goods by meeting at, and traveling over, mountain passes. Obsidian arrowheads can still be in some of the passes.

Between 1892 and 1897, Theodore Solomons was the first explorer to attempt to map a route along the crest of the Sierra (what would eventually become the John Muir Trail, along a different route). On his 1894 expedition, he took along Leigh Bierce, son of writer Ambrose Bierce. The Sierra Nevada’s most common nickname is the "Range of Light." The description is due to the unusually light-colored granite exposed by glacial action. The nickname originates with John Muir, who in 1894, wrote The Mountains of California.

U-S History - Sierra Nevada Mountains

Ecology

The ecology of the Sierra Nevada, located in the U.S. state of California, is diverse and complex: the plants and animals are a significant part of the scenic beauty of the mountain range. The combination of climate, topography, moisture, and soils influences the distribution of ecological communities across an elevation gradient from 1,000 to 14,500 feet (300 to 4,400 m). Biotic zones range from scrub and chaparral communities at lower elevations, to subalpine forests and alpine meadows at the higher elevations. Particular ecoregions that follow elevation contours are often described as a series of belts that follow the length of the Sierra Nevada. There are many hiking trails, paved and unpaved roads, and vast public lands in the Sierra Nevada for exploring the many different biomes and ecosystems.= The western and eastern Sierra Nevada have substantially different species of plants and animals, because the east lies in the rain shadow of the crest. The plants and animals in the east are thus adapted to much drier conditions. The altitudes listed for the biotic zones are for the central Sierra Nevada. The climate across the north-south axis of the range varies somewhat: the boundary elevations of the biotic zones move by as much as 1,000 feet (300 m) from the north end to the south end of the range.

Wikipedia - Ecology of the Sierra Nevada

Animals that inhabit the Sierra Bioregion include lodgepole chipmunk, mountain beaver, California mountain king snake, black bear, wolverine, California big horn sheep, Pacific fisher, mule deer, and mountain lion. The California Golden Trout -- the state fish -- is native to the Southern Sierra.

Summit Post - Sierra Nevada Wildlife

Conservation

Below are some groups helping to preserve the Sierra Nevada

The Center for Sierra Nevada Conservation

The Sierra Nevada Group

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