The Mount Trumbull Wilderness is a 7,880 acre (31 km²)

wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural) are Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human activity, or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally ...

located on the Uinkaret Plateau in the

Arizona Strip The Arizona Strip is the part of Arizona lying north of the Colorado River. Despite being larger in area than several U.S. states, the entire region has a population of fewer than 10,000 people. Consisting of northeastern Mohave County and ...

. It is managed by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

. The Mount Trumbull Wilderness is north of

Grand Canyon National Park Grand Canyon National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in northwestern Arizona, the 15th site to have been named as a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyo ...

and in the

Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor Places * Grand, Oklahoma, USA * Grand, Vosges, village and commune in France with Gallo-Roman amphitheatre * Grand County (disambiguation), ...

. It is approximately 60 miles southwest of

Fredonia, Arizona Fredonia is a town in Coconino County, Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 1,314. Fredonia is the gateway to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. History Fredonia was laid out in 1886. Its name is said to mean th ...

and about 60 miles south of

St. George, Utah St. George or Saint George is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Utah, United States. Located in southwestern Utah on the Arizona border, it is the principal city of the St. George metropolitan statistical area (MSA). The cit ...

. It is about 7 miles north of the Mount Logan Wilderness. The namesake of the wilderness, Mt. Trumbull, is 8,028 feet (2,446m) at its highest point.
2.5 mile trail
to the top can be accessed from

Mohave County Mohave County occupies the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona, one of 15 counties in the state. As of the 2020 census, its population was 213,267. The county seat is Kingman, and the largest city is Lake Havasu City. It is th ...

Road 5. The mountain was named by

John Wesley Powell John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. He ...

after the

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

Lyman Trumbull Lyman Trumbull (October 12, 1813 – June 25, 1896) was an American lawyer, judge, and politician who represented the state of Illinois in the United States Senate from 1855 to 1873. Trumbull was a leading abolitionist attorney and key polit ...

.Powell, John Wesley. '' The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons''. 1961, Dover Publications, New York.

Flora

At lower elevations the vegetation of the wilderness consists of

Utah juniper ''Juniperus osteosperma'' (Utah juniper; syn. ''J. utahensis'') is a shrub or small tree native to the southwestern United States. Description The plant reaches , rarely to 9 m, tall. The shoots are fairly thick compared to most junipers, in ...

(''Juniperus osteosperma''),

pinyon pine The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in southwestern North America, especially in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah, with the single-leaf pinyon pine just reaching into southern Idaho. The trees yield edible Pine nut, nuts, which are a sta ...

Mojave yucca ''Yucca schidigera'', also known as the Mojave yucca or Spanish dagger, is a perennial plant in the asparagus family Asparagaceae, native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. It is most common in the Mojave Desert, but also ...

(''Yucca schidigera''), and

sagebrush Sagebrush is the common name of several woody and herbaceous species of plants in the genus ''Artemisia (plant), Artemisia''. The best-known sagebrush is the shrub ''Artemisia tridentata''. Sagebrush is native to the western half of North Amer ...

(''Artemisia tridentata''). Moving up, the vegetation slowly changes into

ponderosa pine ''Pinus ponderosa'', commonly known as the ponderosa pine, bull pine, blackjack pine, western yellow-pine, or filipinus pine, is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to mountainous regions of western North America. It is t ...

s. The area was heavily logged in the late 19th century resulting in most ponderosas being new growth, thus small, but some towering old growth ponderosa pines can be seen in the Wilderness that are more than 500 years old. There are also various types of grasses which grow intermittently throughout the wilderness.

Fauna

The wilderness is home to a variety of animals.

Mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whit ...

are a common sight in the mornings and late afternoons. There are a large number of squirrels including the

Kaibab squirrel The Kaibab squirrel (''Sciurus aberti kaibabensis'') is a tassel-eared squirrel that lives in the Kaibab Plateau in the Southwest United States, in an area of . The squirrel's habitat is confined entirely to the ponderosa pine forests of the N ...

, transplanted to the area from the south rim of the Grand Canyon in the 1970s. Other more rare animals include pronghorn deer and

mountain lions The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, '' KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North, Central and South America, making it the most widely distributed wild ...

. There are also a variety of

lizards Lizard is the common name used for all squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The ...

in the area including

horned lizard ''Phrynosoma'', whose members are known as the horned lizards, horny toads, or horntoads, is a genus of North American lizards and the type genus of the Family (biology), family Phrynosomatidae. Their common names refer directly to their horns or ...

s. Birds present include

red crossbill The red crossbill or common crossbill (''Loxia curvirostra'') is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. Crossbills have distinctive mandibles, crossed at the tips, which enable them to extract seeds from conifer cones and other ...

Steller's jay Steller's jay (''Cyanocitta stelleri'') is a bird native to western North America and the mountains of Central America, closely related to the blue jay (''C. cristata'') found in eastern North America. It is the only crest (feathers), crested jay ...

common raven The common raven or northern raven (''Corvus corax'') is a large all-black passerine bird. It is the most widely distributed of all Corvidae, corvids, found across the Northern Hemisphere. There are 11 accepted subspecies with little variatio ...

s and many others.

Geology

The Mt. Trumbull mesa is capped by a 3.6 million year old dark grey basalt lava flow, one of the first eruptions in the Uinkaret volcanic field. The volcanic field has spawned at least 213 known eruptions since then, including seventeen lava flows that poured into the Grand Canyon and dammed the Colorado River. The most recent eruption was at Little Springs approximately 960 years ago. Its lava flow can be seen just south of Mt. Trumbull along BLM road 1044. The Mt. Trumbull lava flow cap protects the colorful

Moenkopi Formation The Moenkopi Formation is a geological formation that is spread across the U.S. states of New Mexico, northern Arizona, Nevada, southeastern California, eastern Utah and western Colorado. This unit is considered to be a Geological unit, group ...

beneath that would have otherwise been eroded away long ago. An undated and unnamed cinder cone sits on top of the mesa. It erupted through the original 3.6 million year old basalt cap likely in the last few hundred thousand years based on minimal surface erosion. It ejected bright red volcanic cinders and lava bombs which can be seen along the switchback trail.

Archaeology

The wilderness contains both

prehistoric Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

and

historic History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categ ...

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

sites. The

Ancestral Puebloans The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as Ancestral Pueblo peoples or the Basketmaker-Pueblo culture, were an ancient Native American culture of Pueblo peoples spanning the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southe ...

are known to have inhabited the area, and an archaeological field school is conducted in and around the area each summe
1
In historic times the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints used the area to harvest lumber to build many of the structures in St George, Utah.

References

External links