How this picture was made
Photorealistic landscape photograph at golden hour along the eastern Sierra front near the Nevada line: a wide open sagebrush basin with a steep fault-block mountain range rising abruptly beyond, a ribbon of golden autumn aspen following a creek across the basin, snow-streaked peaks on the skyline, big Great Basin sky, warm low sun and long shadows, no people, no buildings, no signs. 35mm lens, natural color, faint film grain.
Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest
Camp here — Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest
94 camps mapped in this forest, 40 of them free. Tap one for its topo and aerial, the weather, the water, and how far you will be from fuel and a shower.
- FreeAlpine County
- FreeNye County
- FreeElko County
- FreeWhite Pine County
- FreeElko County
- FreeUSFS dispersed camp — Mono County, CA
- FreeCenterville Flat Campground
- FreeLower Bluster Campground
Where dispersed camping is listed — Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest
The Forest Service lists dispersed camping as an activity at these 23 places. That is the agency saying it is allowed somewhere in the area — not a campsite we have mapped, and not a spot we can put a pin on. Read their page, then check the district for the rules that apply on the day.
- Ash Canyon Trailhead
Description Coming soon!
the Forest Service page for it → - Barley Creek Trailhead
Generally open May to October as weather and conditions allow. Access/entry point for the Table Mountain Wilderness. Loop trail to Cottonwood trail.
the Forest Service page for it → - Bonanza Trailhead
Trailhead is for day use only and generally open year round, as weather and conditions allow. Acess/entry point to the Mt. Charleston Wilderness. Very limited dispersed camping in area near the trailhead.
the Forest Service page for it → - Camp Draw Trailhead
Generally, open July to November as weather and conditions allow. Access/entry point to the Jarbidge Wilderness Area.
the Forest Service page for it → - Carson Ranger District
The Carson Ranger District office is located in Carson City (pop. 54,414), which is Nevada’s capital. The District lies in seven counties including Carson City, Douglas, and Washoe in Nevada and Alpine, Nevada, Lassen, and Sierra…
the Forest Service page for it → - Centerville Flat Dispersed Campground
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the Forest Service page for it → - Cow Canyon Trailhead
Generally open May to October, as weather and conditions allow. Access/entry point to the Arc Dome Wilderness and access to Reese River.
the Forest Service page for it → - Ely Ranger District Office
The Ely Ranger District office is located in Ely (pop. 3,968), Nevada. The District also lies in Lincoln, Nye, and White Pine Counties. Located on the eastern edge of Nevada, the Ely Ranger District is around one million acres.…
the Forest Service page for it → - Horizon Hills Trailhead
The Horizon Hills Trail is located at 41645 Sec 17 on the Northeast side of Peavine Mountain. A variety of OHV opportunities are available in the area: including OHV and 4x4. Open routes are marked with a route number and type of…
the Forest Service page for it → - Hummingbird Trailhead
Generally, open June to November as weather and conditions allow. Access/entry point to the Jarbidge Wilderness Area.
the Forest Service page for it → - Jarbidge Area
The Jarbidge area on the Mountain City-Ruby Mountains-Jarbidge Ranger Districts offers relatively undiscovered recreation opportunities.
the Forest Service page for it → - Lower Bluster Campground
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the Forest Service page for it → - Mountain City Area
The Mountain City area on the Mountain City-Ruby Mountains-Jarbidge Ranger District lies approximately 84 miles North of Elko, Nevada on Nevada State Route 225 or 12 miles South of Owyhee, Nevada on highway 225.
the Forest Service page for it → - Pavlak Campground
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the Forest Service page for it → - Raleigh Heights Trailhead
The Raleigh Heights Trailhead is located at 41664 sec. 21 on the East side of Peavine Mountain. A variety of off-highway opportunities are available in the area: including OHV and 4x4. Open routes are marked with a route number…
the Forest Service page for it → - Roads End Trailhead
Generally, accessible July to November as weather and conditions allow. Access/entry point to the Ruby Mountains Wilderness, the Ruby Crest National Recreation Trail, and Island Lake Trail. Road's End Trailhead has access to many…
the Forest Service page for it → - San Juan Dispersed Campground
Dispersed Campground in an open setting with views of the canyon. Access to Toiyabe Crest National Recreation Trail by the San Juan Trailhead. County Road 21 intersects, and in places follows, the Austin-Grantville Stage Route…
the Forest Service page for it → - Shingle Mill Flat Picnic Site
Picnic by the Walker River on Hwy 395.
the Forest Service page for it → - Slide Creek Trailhead
Generally, open June to November as weather and conditions allow. Access/entry point to the Jarbidge Wilderness Area.
the Forest Service page for it → - Soldier Creek Trailhead
Generally open May to November, as weather and conditions allow. Access/entry point to the Ruby Mountains Wilderness.
the Forest Service page for it → - Toms Canyon Trailhead
Generally open May to October, as weather and conditions allow. Access/entry point to Arc Dome Wilderness and Toiyabe Crest National Recreation Trail.
the Forest Service page for it → - Upper Bluster Campground
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the Forest Service page for it → - West Keystone Trailhead
The West Keystone Trailhead is located at 41653 sec. 32. on the south side of Peavine Mountain. A variety of opportunities are available in the area: including , Mt. Biking, OHV and 4x4. Open routes are marked with a route number…
the Forest Service page for it →
Where the camps cluster
The place
Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest sprawls across the heart of the Great Basin, the vast interior desert of basins and ranges that fills most of Nevada. Unlike a typical forest, it isn't one connected block of trees -- it's a loose archipelago of non-contiguous mountain ranges scattered over most of the state, plus a portion of eastern California along the Sierra front. This is classic basin-and-range country: long, flat sagebrush valleys separated by narrow mountains that rear up abruptly, and it's on those cool, high ranges -- the Santa Rosas, Rubies, Toiyabes, Toquimas, Jarbidge, and Spring Mountains among them -- that the forest actually lives. Each range is its own sky island, catching just enough snow and moisture to grow pinyon-juniper woodland, aspen, and stands of high-country conifer above an ocean of desert. Run from a headquarters in Sparks, just outside Reno, it is by area the largest national forest anywhere in the country outside Alaska.
History
The forest grew out of two of the West's early forest reserves. The Toiyabe National Forest was proclaimed on March 2, 1907, and the Humboldt National Forest followed on July 1, 1908 -- both part of the great wave of public-land conservation under President Theodore Roosevelt and his forester Gifford Pinchot. For most of the 20th century they were run as two separate forests covering the northern and the central-and-southern reaches of Nevada. In 1995 the Forest Service combined them administratively into a single unit, the Humboldt-Toiyabe, managed from Sparks, Nevada. Today that one forest reaches from the sagebrush ranges of far northern Nevada, near the Oregon and Idaho lines, all the way south to the edge of Las Vegas -- looked after through seven ranger districts that each mind a different cluster of desert mountains.
Wildlife & plants
The forest's mountains hold one of the oddest birds in North America: the Himalayan snowcock, a chicken-sized game bird native to the mountains of central Asia that was introduced to the high Ruby Mountains last century and took to the crags so well it now lives there and nowhere else on the continent. Elsewhere across the ranges, bighorn sheep and mountain goats work the cliffs while Rocky Mountain mule deer browse the aspen and mountain-brush -- the Rubies are famous for growing some of the largest mule deer in Nevada. The plant life stacks up with elevation on every range: sagebrush and rabbitbrush on the valley floors, then pinyon pine and juniper woodland, then aspen groves and curl-leaf mountain mahogany, and finally scattered conifers and alpine meadow on the highest, snow-holding peaks.
Notable features
For all its desert reputation, the Humboldt-Toiyabe's showpieces are genuinely alpine. The Ruby Mountains, above the town of Elko, are the forest's crown jewel -- a compact range so thoroughly carved by Ice Age glaciers that its centerpiece, Lamoille Canyon, is a textbook U-shaped glacial valley hung with cirques and alpine lakes. The 90,000-acre Ruby Mountains Wilderness, designated in 1989, guards the high country, and the roughly 40-mile Ruby Crest National Recreation Trail runs the spine of the range up toward 11,387-foot Ruby Dome. In central Nevada, the Toiyabe Range -- the forest's namesake -- rises to Arc Dome at 11,780 feet inside its own wilderness, a long backbone of high country marooned in the middle of the desert. And far to the south, right on the doorstep of Las Vegas, the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area lifts a whole cool, forested sky island out of the Mojave, crowned by Charleston Peak at 11,918 feet -- a snow-topped escape less than an hour from the Strip.
Camps are sourced from public U.S. Forest Service recreation data and have not been personally visited. Roads shown are Forest Service passenger-car routes (maintenance level 3–5) and may be seasonal or gated. Always confirm access, fees and fire rules with the ranger district before you go. Found a fee where we show free? Tell us on the contact page.