Yeah, the American West has a huge variety of very distinct biomes. For the purpose of telling a story though, one rocky desert or forested mountain vale or whatever is as good as another, leaving us, the audience, largely unaware and misled. We mostly only notice when they do that to areas we’re familiar with.
Reminds me of the movie The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson. There’s a scene where he is at his home in what is clearly the upcountry of South Carolina not too far from the Appalachians and he takes a walk down his garden path to visit his wife’s grave, which is located in the South Carolina lowcountry, by the coast, somehow skipping past over a hundred miles of pine forest that would have been between those areas. If you’re not familiar with those areas, they both just look like areas in the American Southeast, but if you are familiar, it’s very jarring.