The Piute Wash of extreme southeastern

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

and northeast

San Bernardino County San Bernardino County ( ), officially the County of San Bernardino and sometimes abbreviated as S.B. County, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of th ...

California is the south-flowing drainage of the

Piute Valley The Piute Valley is a north–south valley southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, and northwest of Needles. The north of the valley is at Searchlight, with some of the valley extending northwest from Searchlight. At the center-north lies Cal-Nev-Ari, ...

. The wash and valley are located northwest of

Needles, California Needles is a city in San Bernardino County, in the Mojave Desert region of Southern California. Situated on the western banks of the Colorado River, Needles is located near the California border with Arizona and Nevada. The city is accessible v ...

. The Piute Wash watershed and Piute Valley drain the eastern flank of the north-south Piute Range; the main wash drains portions of the northwest Newberry Mountains. The wash hugs the eastern portion of the Piute Valley, and in the southeast of the valley, the wash skirts the west of the

Dead Mountains The Dead Mountains are a mountain range in the southeastern Mojave Desert, in San Bernardino County, California. The range borders the tri-state intersection of Nevada, Arizona and California, and the Mohave Valley, with the Fort Mojave Indian ...

, then traverses the southwest and south perimeter of the Dead Mountains, then descends steeply toward its outfall into the

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

adjacent Needles.

I-40 Interstate 40 (I-40) is a major east–west transcontinental Interstate Highway in the southeastern and southwestern portions of the United States. At a length of , it is the third-longest Interstate Highway in the country, after I-90 and ...

also descends steeply in this stretch down to Needles. The Piute Valley and Wash are north–south trending as are the mountains bordering west and east; the wash's abrupt traverse east to its outfall is about an stretch.

South Piute Valley

Southern portions of the wash receive some north flowing drainages from the north of the Sacramento Mountains. Also, west of the western perimeter Piute Range of Piute Valley, the

Sacramento Wash The Sacramento Wash is a major drainage of northwest Arizona in Mohave County. The wash is east of the Black Canyon of the Colorado and drains into the south-flowing Colorado River 45 mi south of Lake Mohave, and 90 mi south of Hoover ...

(Clark County, Nevada) flows south, with the Fenner Valley in the northwest. The Sacramento Wash then turns east to join the Piute Wash. In the southwest a

water divide A drainage divide, water divide, ridgeline, watershed, water parting or height of land is elevated terrain that separates neighboring drainage basins. On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges, and may be in the form of a single ...

separates the Ward Valley draining southwestwards into San Bernardino County.

Piute Wash watershed

The Piute drainage is west of the

and

Lake Mohave Lake Mohave is a reservoir on the Colorado River between the Hoover Dam and Davis Dam in Cottonwood Valley (Arizona/Nevada), Cottonwood Valley defining the border between Nevada and Arizona in the United States. This stretch of the Colorado Rive ...

. A narrow drainage from the Newberry and Dead Mountains drain into the ''Havasu-Mohave Lakes Watershed''. To the north of the Piute Wash watershed and

Searchlight A searchlight (or spotlight) is an apparatus that combines an extremely luminosity, bright source (traditionally a carbon arc lamp) with a mirrored parabolic reflector to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a part ...

is the north-flowing

Eldorado Valley Eldorado Valley, or El Dorado Valley, is a Great Basin valley in the Mojave Desert southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, Las Vegas and southwest of Boulder City, Nevada. The valley is endorheic, containing the Eldorado Dry Lake. The Great Basin Divide, ...

, an

endorheic An endorheic basin ( ; also endoreic basin and endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water (e.g. rivers and oceans); instead, the water drainage flows into permanent ...

basin that forms a

dry lake A dry lake bed, also known as a playa (), is a basin or depression that formerly contained a standing surface water body, which disappears when evaporation processes exceed recharge. If the floor of a dry lake is covered by deposits of alkalin ...

Cal-Nev-Ari, Nevada Cal-Nev-Ari is a census-designated place on U.S. Route 95 in Clark County, Nevada, United States, near the state's southernmost point. As of the 2010 census, the town had a population of 244. The town's name is a syllabic abbreviation of Californ ...

, is in the northern third of the valley. The elevation of Piute Wash outfall at the Colorado River, just north of Needles, is .Arizona Road & Recreation Atlas, Needles, CA, elev. 488, pp. 32–33.

References

{{stack, {{commonscat, Piute Wash

External links

Watersheds
Piute Wash Watershed, Nevada to CaliforniaLas Vegas Wash Watershed
Piute Valley Washes of Nevada Washes of California Tributaries of the Lower Colorado River in California Rivers of Clark County, Nevada Watersheds of California