Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park is located near the center of Nevada, among the pinyon pines and junipers of the Shoshone Mountains, off a path already off the beaten path.

A massive hydrothermal belt interspersed with hot springs runs north and south along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. Explorers and immigrants trekking across the Great Basin discovered hot springs in their travels and bathed in the water if it was not scalding. Heated mineral water was, and still is, believed to have curative properties. By the time communities were established near the western Great Basin's Carson Range in the 1850s, early settlers had claimed most of the hydrothermal springs in the region.

Hoover Dam, often called Boulder Dam, is located on the Colorado River at the southern tip of Nevada and the Arizona border. In the early 1900s, after many failed efforts to control the lower Colorado River with levees and irrigation canals, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation decided the best solution for the arid Southwest would be to dam the river and create a year-round water supply. Surveyors investigated seventy sites along the entire river's course and settled on Nevada's Boulder and Black Canyons, both offering a potential reservoir of more than thirty million acre-feet.

Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) are large, chicken-like birds found in sagebrush habitats in the western United States. They are the largest North American grouse—males weigh up to 7 lbs—and are known for the impressive aggregations of displaying males at traditional mating sites (leks.) Recently, the decline of these charismatic birds has been associated with the loss or degradation of sagebrush habitats.