Sierra Nevada

The Sierra Nevada stretches north and south between California's Central Valley and the Great Basin. Glaciers carved valleys into its granite, leaving cliffs, high passes and lakes among the mountains. The Sierra Miwok lived on the western side, while Northern Paiute lands lay to the east; routes over the passes carried trade between mountain communities. In 1827 the fur trapper Jedediah Smith and his party crossed the range north of Yosemite, and in 1833 Joseph Walker led an expedition west across the Sierra to California.