Next leg was from Truckee to Sunriver, across the western ridge of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

FORBES: Bleary-Eyed In Bozeman

Lake Tahoe is a vast blue bowl of snowmelt ringed by the Sierra Nevada mountains.

FORBES: Family Ski Vacation: The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Tahoe

Soon, I will climb to a cruise altitude of 15, 500 feet to clear the highest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

FORBES: Flying to Aspen--Almost

The 400-mile stretch of the Sierra Nevada mountains got 61 feet of snow last winter, second only to the 1950-51 season.

FORBES: Record Snowfall To Bring Lower Natural Gas Prices

Las Vegas lies at the edge of the vast Mojave Desert, in a bowl-shaped valley in the parched rain-shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

BBC: Discover life in the Nevada desert

Investigators did a door-to-door sweep of homes, storage sheds and horse stables scattered across the oak-studded hills foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

NPR: Brother Arrested In Fatal Calif. Stabbing Of Girl

Ensconced on the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Inyokern covers 11 square miles of Kern County in the dust-choked Mojave Desert.

FORBES: America's Best Places For Alternative Energy

Grass Valley, California (CNN) -- In the foothills of California's Sierra Nevada mountains, artists are partnering with doctors and scientists to create life-changing products.

CNN: Hearts of glass: Where medical science meets art

The Los Angeles Police Department's SWAT guys are pretty tough fellas, but several of them had to be airlifted out of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the middle of an adventure race.

FORBES: Hypothermia for Fun and Profit

From this traditional ranching land, the road follows the Sierra Nevada Mountains northeast through the baking Mojave Desert to a place where no ranching actually takes place, yet the most famous cowboys of them all have come to strut their stuff.

BBC: The road to Hollywood, California