6 Coziest Mountain Towns In Nevada
What makes Nevada home to more mountain ranges than any other state in the country? More than 300 distinct ranges run north-south across its interior, creating basins and uplands where towns sit between 5,000 and 7,000 feet in elevation. Settlement followed these elevations: mining camps from the Comstock era in the 1860s, supply posts on the Pony Express and Overland Stage routes, and later railroad junctions developed into stable communities once silver processing, ranching, and freight lines took hold. Many of these towns still preserve their 19th-century street patterns, early commercial buildings, and access to alpine trails, which now give them their small-scale mountain character. Pack your things, fuel the car, and follow the back roads into six Nevada towns that still show how geography and history shaped mountain life.
Ely
Did you know Ely still operates a working 1900s railroad and preserves entire streets of miners’ homes from its earliest years? The majority of tourists begin their trip with a visit to the Nevada Northern Railway Museum, where they can ride vintage locomotives (both steam and diesel) on the museum’s original rail line. The museum also allows guests to tour the 1907-era train house and historic railroad depot. From there, it is approximately a six-minute drive to the Ely Renaissance Village, which was formed by the Ely Renaissance Society when they acquired 11 homes from the early 20th century and an old barn. Each home is dedicated to a particular ethnic group of immigrants who settled in the area as miners. It also showcases artifacts and day-to-day items from Italian, Basque, Greek, and Slavic families.
Guests then typically travel down Aultman Street to the Economy Drug and Old Fashioned Soda Fountain, which has been in business since the 1950s and has a soda fountain that dates back to that era. The employees use many of the same mid-century pieces of equipment that were once used to mix medications with flavorings to make palatable remedies. South of downtown Ely, the road to Ward Charcoal Ovens State Historic Park will take you to six large beehive-shaped charcoal kilns that were built between 1876 and 1879 for smelting silver ore. At one point, the kilns were used by travelers as shelter and later as hiding places for outlaws and bandits.
Baker
Baker sits within one of the nation’s least light-polluted regions, a fact that shapes much of what visitors come to see. When travelers enter Baker, they will see the Permanent Wave Society, a line of signs at the roadside made from recycled tools and scrap metal. These displays have also developed as an unofficial site marker to help people find their way to Great Basin National Park. Then, visitors make their way to the Lehman Caves, where Park Service personnel provide guided tours throughout the marble caves, allowing visitors to view rare cave shields, narrow drapes, and calcite formations found in only a handful of caves in the world.
After exiting the Lehman Cave area, the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive ascends up the mountain to the sub-alpine zone, providing panoramic views of cirque-shaped valleys, moraines, and the desert below. At the upper pullouts of the drive, visitors can take a short hike to the Bristlecones of the Great Basin, the oldest living non-clonal organisms in the world, even older than the Egyptian Pyramids. Near the Visitor Center, the Dark Sky program provides a final activity for the day by allowing visitors to use telescopes to view star clusters, nebulae, and planets in what is considered to be one of the darkest night skies in the United States.
Gardnerville
A small detail many miss is that Gardnerville started with one building, moved by wagon, which turned into the hub for ranchers and travelers along the old valley route. Many visitors start the day with the early-morning balloon rides offered by Balloon Nevada, which offer views of the Carson River and the Carson Range during fall and winter flights. The calmness of the morning allows riders to see Jobs Peak in the distance and observe wildlife such as bald eagles, hawks, owls, coyotes, and white-tailed deer roaming the fields below. In particularly clear weather, Lake Tahoe is visible beyond the ridge.
After landing back on Earth, most continue their visit in the late morning hours at the Dangberg Home Ranch Historic Park. At this park, you will find the original ranch house, barns, and family collections that tell the story of how the valley developed its cattle and hay operations. A short ride takes you to the Carson Valley Museum and Cultural Center, where there are exhibits featuring Washoe history, Basque sheep herding, and the valley’s first schools. Most visitors end their day at Sharkey’s Casino, which was built in 1971 by boxing promoter Sharkey Begovich. This casino offers a small gaming area and has walls covered with photographs of rodeos and boxers.
Incline Village
Get ready. This town has something no other does. The Flume Trail in Incline Village was built in the 19th century to supply water from the top of Mount Rose down to Squaw Valley, and most of the original route still exists in front of the town’s view today. As you make your way up the mountain on this old path, you will be over 8,100 feet high and will have cliffside views of Lake Tahoe, some of these being 1,600 feet above the water. Although the wooden flume has been removed, the trail continues to be used by a modern pumping and siphoning system. This makes the Flume Trail an engineering marvel and an alpine view paradise at the same time. After finishing the morning hike, take a short ride to the UC Davis Tahoe Science Center, where you can see displays about lake clarity, snowpack research, and watershed changes using interactive models.
Then, head over to Diamond Peak Ski Resort. Here you will find wooded areas with lake-facing views that help visitors relax. Finish your day with a tour of the Thunderbird Lodge. Tours are given by a guide and include the property owned by Captain Whittell, which includes his stone tunnels, card house, and the Thunderbird yacht if it is at the lodge when the tour takes place.
Virginia City
To paraphrase William Faulkner, Virginia City is one of those rare places where the past is not dead; some say it is not even past. The day usually begins at the Washoe Club Museum and Saloon, which hosts evening ghost tours and all-night paranormal investigations through areas of the building associated with the mining wealth of the Comstock era, including a second-floor museum documenting verifiable paranormal activity.
A few blocks from there, the Virginia City Outlaws perform Wild West shootouts in their outdoor theater, and they lead the Murder, Mystery and History Tour, which uses documented nineteenth-century crimes to guide visitors through the back alleys and old boarding houses of the town. Next, visitors go to Garters and Bloomers to take staged old-time photographs using period items and saloon backgrounds. The afternoon concludes with Party Like it is 1859, walking down C Street’s remaining Victorian saloons, such as the Bucket of Blood, where the interior maintains bar counters and mining artifacts.
Genoa
Established in 1851 as Mormon Station, Genoa became Nevada’s first permanent settlement and served as a supply stop for travelers on the California Trail. Begin your journey at the Genoa Courthouse Museum, which offers insight into the history of the town’s early ranching families as well as their historical ties to wagon routes. The Genoa Bar and Saloon, located a short walk from the museum, features a historic mirror imported from Scotland during the 1850s and is surrounded by other historical items from the territorial era.
A short drive into the mountains will lead you to the Genoa Canyon Trail, which takes you on a steady climb up a pine-covered hillside and along granite cutbanks while offering expansive views of the Carson Valley. In the evenings, people usually come to relax at Holiday Inn Club Vacations David Walley's Resort, an IHG Hotel, where the geothermal pools have been providing warm water since the 1860s.
Comfort In The Nevada Highlands
Nevada’s mountain towns continue to reflect how elevation, old freight routes, and small-scale industries shaped daily life across the state. Ely preserves turn-of-the-century neighborhoods and mining heritage through the Ely Renaissance Village and Ward Charcoal Ovens. Gardnerville opens its mornings with balloon flights over the Carson Range before leading visitors into Basque traditions along Main Street. Virginia City keeps its nineteenth-century identity intact through ghost tours, gunfight shows, and preserved saloons. Incline Village combines restored estates, guided lakefront tours, and historic flume routes high above Tahoe. Baker links Great Basin research with ancient bristlecone pines and dark-sky astronomy. Genoa maintains Nevada’s earliest settlement through its original bar, frontier museum, and long-running hot springs.
