Utah’s Majestic Mount Nebo

Photographer: Ray BorenSummary Author: Ray Boren

Central Utah’s towering Mount Nebo — sharing its name with a summit in Jordan from which, in the Bible, we are told Moses saw the Promised Land of Israel before he died — is the southernmost and highest summit (at 11,933 feet/3,637 meters) of the Wasatch Mountains. The 160-mile-long (258 km) range also rises above Salt Lake City and other communities of the area’s Wasatch Front, stretching north into southern Idaho. Here, in a photograph taken on December 1, 2024, the mountain is frosted with early-winter snow and offers a specular reflection in a seasonally shallow western bay in Yuba State Park. 

Though popularly referred to as Yuba Lake, the waterway — also featured in a second, panoramic image from the same day — is more properly Sevier Bridge Reservoir and dam, impounding the Sevier River for irrigation and recreation. About 400 miles long (644 km), the Sevier rises in heights to the distant south, near Bryce Canyon National Park, then winds north before looping to the southwest, all within the state of Utah. Like other rivers in the Great Basin of the western United States, the Sevier does not make it to an ocean, and very little of its flow even makes it to the endorheic (and usually dry) Sevier Lake bed, near Delta, Utah.

As is evident in the photographs, Utah’s Nebo looms over the immediate region, including the small towns of Nephi and Mona at its base, and is a familiar landmark to those traveling Interstate 15 between Utah and western metropolises such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The summit is considered “ultra-prominent,” having a topographic prominence of more than 5,508 feet (1,679 meters) above the valleys below.

 

Mount Nebo, Utah Coordinates: 39.8216, -111.7599

Related Links: 

The Wasatch Mountains and Salt Lake ValleyNortheastern Nevada’s Pilot Peak