The Pilot Range is a mountain range

Mountain range

A mountain range is a single, large mass consisting of a succession of mountains or narrowly spaced mountain ridges, with or without peaks, closely related in position, direction, formation, and age; a component part of a mountain system or of a mountain chain...

 located in Box Elder County, Utah

Box Elder County, Utah

Box Elder County is a county located in the U.S. state of Utah. It lies on the north end of the Great Salt Lake, covering a large area north to the Idaho border and west to the Nevada border. Included in this area are large tracts of barren desert, contrasted by high, forested mountains. The...

 and Elko County, Nevada

Elko County, Nevada

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 45,291 people, 15,638 households, and 11,493 families residing in the county. The population density was 3/sq mi . There were 18,456 housing units at an average density of 1/sq mi...

, in the Great Basin

Great Basin

The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...

 region, near the northwest side of The Great Salt Lake

The Great Salt Lake

"The Great Salt Lake" is the second single taken from Band of Horses' debut album Everything All the Time, which was released on March 21, 2006.-History:...

.

The Pilot Range begins about 15 miles (24.1 km) north of the community of West Wendover

West Wendover, Nevada

West Wendover is a city in Elko County, Nevada, United States. The population was 4,721 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Elko Micropolitan Statistical Area. West Wendover is located on the eastern border of Nevada and the western edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert, and is contiguous with...

, and continues north-northeastwards for approximately 30 miles (48.3 km). The abandoned railroad town of Lucin, Utah

Lucin, Utah

Lucin is an abandoned railroad community in Box Elder County, Utah, United States, along the western side of the Great Salt Lake, northwest of Salt Lake City.- History :...

 was two miles northeast of the Pilot Range.

The Pilot Range runs SSW to NNE, with various canyon

Canyon

A canyon or gorge is a deep ravine between cliffs often carved from the landscape by a river. Rivers have a natural tendency to reach a baseline elevation, which is the same elevation as the body of water it will eventually drain into. This forms a canyon. Most canyons were formed by a process of...

s running east and west off a prominent ridgeline. It covers an area of about 51200 acres (20,719.9 ha). It varies in elevation

Elevation

The elevation of a geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface ....

 from a base of 5000 feet (1,524 m) feet to summits

Summit (topography)

In topography, a summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a local maximum in elevation...

 that reach up to 10000 feet (3,048 m). The highest peak is Pilot Peak, at 10716 feet (3,266.2 m). Other significant peaks in the range are Copper Mountain, Bald Eagle Mountain, and Rhyolite Butte. To the east of the Pilot Range is the Pilot Valley Playa

Pilot Valley Playa, Utah

The Pilot Valley Playa is a playa and salt pan in Box Elder County, Utah and Elko County, Nevada that is a remnant of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville. Located in northwestern Utah and northeastern Nevada, the Pilot Valley Playa varies from five to ten miles wide, and is thirty miles long, with an...

 and beyond that, the Silver Island Mountains

Silver Island Range, Utah

The Silver Island Range is a mountain range in Utah, in the northwest corner of Tooele County and the southwest corner of Box Elder County, about northeast of Wendover.- Geography :...

, and to the west is the north section of Pilot Creek Valley.

Several fresh and salty springs flow from the base of the alluvial fans at the base of the range. The largest is Bettridge Creek, a habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

 for the threatened Lahotan cutthroat trout

Cutthroat trout

The cutthroat trout is a species of freshwater fish in the salmon family of order Salmoniformes. It is one of the many fish species colloquially known as trout...

. Vegetation

Vegetation

Vegetation is a general term for the plant life of a region; it refers to the ground cover provided by plants. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characteristics. It is broader...

 varies from pinyon pine

Pinyon pine

The pinyon pine group grows in the southwestern United States and in Mexico. The trees yield edible pinyon nuts, which were a staple of the Native Americans, and are still widely eaten...

, mountain mahogany, and juniper

Juniper

Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, there are between 50-67 species of juniper, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the...

 in the higher elevations and north-face slopes, sagebrush

Artemisia tridentata

Artemisia tridentata is a shrub or small tree from the family Asteraceae. Some botanists treat it in the segregate genus Seriphidium, as S. tridentatum W. A. Weber, but this is not widely followed...

 and grass

Grass

Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...

 in the south-face slopes and ridge-tops, and rabbitbrush

Asteraceae

The Asteraceae or Compositae , is an exceedingly large and widespread family of vascular plants. The group has more than 22,750 currently accepted species, spread across 1620 genera and 12 subfamilies...

, grass, and greasewood

Greasewood

Greasewood, Sarcobatus, is a genus of one or two species of flowering plants. Traditionally it has been treated in the family Chenopodiaceae, but the APG II system, of 2003, places it in the family Sarcobataceae....

 in the lower elevations. The Pilot Range cinquefoil

Potentilla cottamii

Potentilla cottamii is a rare species of flowering plant in the rose family known by the common names Cottam's cinquefoil and Pilot Range cinquefoil. It is native to Nevada and Utah in the United States. It occurs in the Pilot Range of Elko County, Nevada, and a small area of adjacent Utah.This...

 (Potentilla cottamii) is a rare species of plant which can be found in the Pilot Range and a few other ranges nearby.

The Pilot Range is used for mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

, livestock grazing

Grazing

Grazing generally describes a type of feeding, in which a herbivore feeds on plants , and also on other multicellular autotrophs...

, and seasonal elk

Elk

The Elk is the large deer, also called Cervus canadensis or wapiti, of North America and eastern Asia.Elk may also refer to:Other antlered mammals:...

 and deer

Deer

Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...

hunting.