Whitewater Baldy is the highest point of the

Mogollon Mountains The Mogollon Mountains or Mogollon Range ( or ) are a mountain range in Grant County and Catron County of southwestern New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States. They are primarily protected within the Gila National Forest. Geography The Mo ...

and the 3rd highest mountain in Southern New Mexico, after Sierra Blanca Peak and Lincoln County's

Lookout Mountain Lookout Mountain is a mountain ridge located at the northwest corner of the U.S. state of Georgia, the northeast corner of Alabama, and along the southeastern Tennessee state line in Chattanooga. Lookout Mountain was the scene of the 18th-cen ...

. It is located in Catron County in the

Gila Wilderness Gila Wilderness was designated the world's first wilderness area on June 3, 1924. Along with Aldo Leopold Wilderness and Blue Range Wilderness, the 558,014 acre (225,820 ha) (872 sq. mi.) wilderness is part of New Mexico's Gila National Forest. ...

, part of the

Gila National Forest The Gila National Forest is a protected national forest in New Mexico in the southwestern part of the United States established in 1905. It covers approximately of public land, making it the sixth largest National Forest in the continental U ...

. It lies about east of the town of Glenwood (on U.S. Route 180). Like all of the surrounding mountains, Whitewater Baldy is part of the

Mogollon-Datil volcanic field The Mogollon-Datil volcanic field is a large () silicic volcanic field in western New Mexico (Mogollon Mountains- Datil, New Mexico). It is a part of an extensive Eocene to Oligocene volcanic event which includes the San Juan volcanic field in s ...

, and consists of

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

materials formed between forty and twenty-five million years ago.Butterfield, Mike, and Greene, Peter, ''Mike Butterfield's Guide to the Mountains of New Mexico'', New Mexico Magazine Press, 2006, It is drained on the west side by Whitewater Creek, and on the east by Iron Creek. Despite its name, Whitewater Baldy is forested up to its summit. It can be accessed by trail from the west along the Crest Trail (Forest Trail 182). It can also be accessed from the east side of the

. The area was severely impacted by the Whitewater-Baldy Complex Fire in 2012.

References

Mountains of New Mexico Landforms of Catron County, New Mexico Mountains of Catron County, New Mexico {{NewMexico-geo-stub