The Santa Rosa Mountains are a short

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have ari ...

in the

Peninsular Ranges The Peninsular Ranges (also called the Lower California province) are a group of mountain ranges that stretch from Southern California to the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula; they are part of the North American Coast Ranges, which ...

system, located east of the

Los Angeles Basin The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an anomalous group of east-west trending chains of mountains collectively known as the ...

and northeast of the San Diego metropolitan area of southern

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, in the southwestern United States.

Geography

The Santa Rosa Mountains extend for approximately along the western side of the

Coachella Valley , map_image = Wpdms shdrlfi020l coachella valley.jpg , map_caption = Coachella Valley , location = California, United States , coordinates = , width = , boundaries = Salton Sea (southeast), Santa Rosa Mountains (southwest), San Jacin ...

within Riverside,

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

, and

Imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, Texas ...

Counties in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...

. The range connects to the San Jacinto Mountains on its northern end, where the Pines to Palms Highway— California State Route 74, crosses them. The highest peak in the range is Toro Peak (elevation ), located approximately south of Palm Springs, just south of Route 74, and on the northeast side of Anza-Borrego's Upper Coyote Canyon. The Santa Rosa Mountains are also a

Great Basin Divide The Great Basin Divide in the western United States is the ridgeline that separates the Great Basin from the Pacific Ocean watershed, which completely surrounds it. The Great Basin is the largest set of contiguous endorheic watersheds of No ...

landform for the

Salton Sink The Salton Sink is the low point of an endorheic basin, a closed drainage system with no outflows to other bodies of water, in the Colorado Desert sub-region of the Sonoran Desert. The sink falls within the larger Salton Trough and separates the ...

Watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...

on the east. Besides Toro Peak, other significant mountains in the range include Santa Rosa Mountain, Martinez Mountain in the north and

Rabbit Peak Rabbit Peak is a mountain in the southern part of the Santa Rosa Mountains in the Peninsular Ranges in California. It is located in Riverside County in the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument near the border of San Diego C ...

in the south.

History

The oldest accounts of the southeastern reaches of the Santa Rosa Mountains survive from the 1774 Spanish expedition led by explorer

Juan Bautista de Anza Juan Bautista de Anza Bezerra Nieto (July 6 or 7, 1736 – December 19, 1788) was an expeditionary leader, military officer, and politician primarily in California and New Mexico under the Spanish Empire. He is credited as one of the founding f ...

into colonial

Las Californias The Californias (Spanish: ''Las Californias''), occasionally known as The Three Californias or Two Californias, are a region of North America spanning the United States and Mexico, consisting of the U.S. state of California and the Mexica ...

through the Coachella Valley from the populated Viceroyalty of New Spain region (present day

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

). 19th century maps of the region show the Santa Rosas as a southern extension of the higher northern San Jacinto Mountains. The name "Santa Rosa Mountains" first came into use by the

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

in 1901.

Flora and fauna

The Santa Rosa range lies within the Colorado Desert (lower elevations) and California montane chaparral and woodlands (higher elev.) ecoregions of flora and fauna. The California desert chaparral flora and fauna community is found here on the eastern rainshadow side. The mountain peaks contain plants such as the rock draba, Ziegler's aster, shaggy-haired alumroot and Davidson's stonecrop. Also in the eastern Santa Rosa Mountains, in canyons with natural oases, the

native Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and entert ...

California Fan Palm (''Washingtonia filifera'') is found. They are also the home of a population of endangered Peninsular

Bighorn Sheep The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subsp ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to the Peninsular Ranges and distinct from the

Desert Bighorn Sheep The desert bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis nelsoni'') is a subspecies of bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') that is native to the deserts of the United States' intermountain west and southwestern regions, as well as northwestern Mexico. The ...

Parks and conservation

Most of the northern portion of the range, in Riverside County, is within the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument. It was created in 2000 and is administered jointly by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and

U.S. Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...

— San Bernardino National Forest (SBNF). The southern portion of the range, with Toro Peak, is west of the

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline body of water in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the Salton Trough that stretches to the Gul ...

and within the northeastern Borrego Badlands area of the expansive Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Both provide interpretive visitor centers, trailheads, and many trails for experiencing the Santa Rosa Mountains at all elevations. In 1990 the California Legislature created the Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy to protect this and other mountain ranges surrounding the Coachella Valley.ca.gov: Coachella Valley Mountains Conservancy website
. accessed 5.11.2011

References

External links