A partnership between Millard County in Utah and White Pine County in Nevada, this area highlights the passages of peoples as well as the striking landscape.

Fremont, Shoshone, Ute and Paiute Indians, explorers, trappers, miners, farmers and ranchers and even Japanese POWs all came through here. Some stayed and found ways to live off the desert land, others were temporary visitors. They all have left a rich cultural heritage.

The Great Basin is the largest American desert, covering some 190,000 square miles stretching from the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the west to the Wasatch Mountains on the east. You can learn about that heritage at Great Basin National Park west of Baker, Nev. It is also home to the famed Lehman Caves.

Other attractions are found on both sides of the border:

Millard County — Must-sees include: Territorial Statehouse and Square, Cove Fort, Topaz Internment Camp, Great Basin Museum in Delta, Leamington Town Square, Fort Deseret and the Clear Lake Wildlife Management Area.

White Pine County — Must-sees include: Great Basin National Park, White Pine Public Museum, Nevada Northern Railway Museum, Ely Historic Mural Project, McGill Drugstore Museum, Pony Express Interpretive Site, Ward Charcoal Ovens State Park and Cave Lake State Park.

For more information, visit www.greatbasinheritage.org

Trail of the Ancients

Go back to a time and place long before the United States existed, even before the Spaniards came north from what is today Central America. Some of the ruggedly beautiful areas in the southeast corner of Utah and southwest corner of Colorado have not changed all that much since the 14th Century.

Archaeologists will tell you that people have lived in this area from at least 10,000 B.C., hunting animals and gathering seeds and berries.

Heritage sites abound. There are more than 4,000 known archaeological sites in Mesa Verde National Park alone. But the area is not just about what went before. There are scenic wonders, rivers that make floatable byways and the only place in the country you can stick body parts in four states at one time.

Among the offerings along the Trail of the Ancients are these:

Utah side: Butler Wash Indian Ruins, Edge of the Cedars State Park and Museum, the town of Bluff, Four Corners Monument, Grand Gulch Primitive Area, Hovenweep National Monument, Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, Natural Bridges National Monument, Three Kiva Pueblo.

Colorado side: Mesa Verde National Park, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, the communities of Cortez and Dolores, Lowry Pueblo, Ute Mountain Tribal Park.

For more information, visit www.byways.org/explore/ byways/2597/places/

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E-mail: carma@desnews.com