The montane forests are often found on sky islands at elevations above the Great Basin Desert or xeric shrublands.

The forests are within the Central or Northern Basin and Range ecoregions defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The WWF took ecoregion 13 and split it according to elevation, naming the higher sub-ecoregions the "Great Basin montane forests".

These mountains are in the zone of summer rain, although much of the precipitation percolates through the porous rock to reemerge at lower elevations as springs.

Still, these carbonate-dominated mountains support a wider variety of conifers, such as white fir, Douglas-fir, and Engelmann spruce, and a greater diversity of understory species than other ranges in Nevada at similar elevations.

Pinyon pine grows with juniper on the Stillwater Range and on Fairview Peak in the southeast portion of the Lahontan Basin, but it is otherwise absent from this ecoregion.

Since the beginning of fire suppression early in the last century, juniper–pinyon woodland has increased in density and expanded into lower sagebrush zones.

There are more springs and live streams in this ecoregion than in western non-carbonate woodlands, because the carbonate substrate is soluble and porous, allowing rapid infiltration.

[7] The Tonopah Uplands ecoregion includes woodland- or shrub-covered hills and mountains ranging from 6,000 to 9,500 feet (1,800 to 2,900 m) in elevation.

As elsewhere in the Tonopah region, Great Basin and Mojave Desert elements blend together especially toward the south and east, where some mountain brush and interior chaparral components, including Gambel oak, become more common.

Smaller instances of this ecoregion are preserved within Death Valley and Great Basin National Parks.