The Palen Mountains are located in the southern

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...

– northern

Colorado Desert The Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert located in California, United States, and Baja California, Mexico. It encompasses approximately , including the heavily irrigated Coachella, Imperial and Mexicali valleys. It is home to ...

in eastern

Riverside County, California Riverside County is a County (United States), county located in the Southern California, southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, its population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most ...

, US. The range lies southeast of the

Coxcomb Mountains The Coxcomb Mountains are a mountain range in eastern Riverside County, California, Riverside County, Southern California, and to a small extent in San Bernardino County, California, San Bernardino County. Geography The Coxcomb Mountains are ...

, and northeast of the

Chuckwalla Mountains The Chuckwalla Mountains are a mountain range in the transition zone between the Colorado Desert—Sonoran Desert and the Mojave Desert, climatically and vegetationally, in Riverside County of southern California. The mountains are named after ...

near

Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost transcontinental highway in the Interstate Highway System of the United States. It is the fourth-longest Interstate in the country at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. It was part of the origina ...

. The mountains lie in a southwest-northeasterly direction and are approximately 15 miles long and nine miles wide at their widest point.

Desert Lily Preserve

Palen Pass, at 1,472 feet above sea level, lies at the northern end of the chain, with Palen Dry Lake and 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 ...

designated and managed

Edmund C. Jaeger Edmund Carroll Jaeger, D.Sc.,University of California, Riverside, Science Library (January 28, 1887 – August 2, 1983) was an American biologist known for his works on desert ecology. He was born in Loup City, Nebraska to Katherine (née Gunth ...

Nature Sanctuary to the west of the range in the southern Palen Valley. It preserves the beautiful Desert Lily (''Hesperocallis undulata''), many other native desert plants, and an important undeveloped "land bridge"

wildlife corridor A wildlife corridor, also known as a habitat corridor, or green corridor, is a designated area habitat (ecology), that connects wildlife populations that have been separated by human activities or structures, such as development, roads, or land ...

Palen/McCoy Wilderness Area

The Palen Mountains are in the Palen/McCoy Wilderness Area, managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Within the Palen-McCoy Wilderness are the Palen, Granite,

Arica Arica ( ; ) is a commune and a port city with a population of 222,619 in the Arica Province of northern Chile's Arica y Parinacota Region. It is Chile's northernmost city, being located only south of the border with Peru. The city is the ca ...

, Little Maria, and

McCoy Mountains The McCoy Mountains are located in southeastern California in the United States. The southeast terminus of the range lies adjacent the western edge of the Parker Valley in a southern stretch of the Lower Colorado River Valley corridor. Geography ...

, which are five distinct mountain ranges separated by broad sloping

alluvial fan An alluvial fan is an accumulation of sediments that fans outwards from a concentrated source of sediments, such as a narrow canyon emerging from an escarpment. They are characteristic of mountainous terrain in arid to Semi-arid climate, semiar ...

s- bajadas. Because this large area incorporates so many major geological features, the diversity of vegetation and

landform A landform is a land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. They may be natural or may be anthropogenic (caused or influenced by human activity). Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement ...

s is exceptional. The desert-wash woodland found here provides food and cover for burro deer, coyote,

bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the wildcat, bay lynx, or red lynx, is one of the four extant species within the medium-sized wild cat genus '' Lynx''. Native to North America, it ranges from southern Canada through most of the c ...

, gray fox, and

mountain lion The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, ''Help:Pronunciation respelling key, KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North America, North, Central America, Cent ...

Desert pavement A desert pavement, also called reg (in western Sahara), serir (in eastern Sahara), gibber (in Australia), or saï (in central Asia) is a desert surface covered with closely packed, interlocking angular or rounded rock fragments of pebble and ...

, bajadas, interior valleys, canyons, dense ironwood forests, canyons, and rugged peaks form a constantly changing landscape pattern.http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/prog/wilderness/wa/photos/palenmccoy.html . accessed 6/24/2010 . BLM

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

sourced

References

* *

External links

Palen-McCoy Wilderness Area
BLM Official Website

BLM Palen-McCoy Wilderness Map

{{authority control Mountain ranges of the Colorado Desert Protected areas of the Colorado Desert Protected areas of the Mojave Desert Mountain ranges of the Mojave Desert Mountain ranges of Riverside County, California Protected areas of Riverside County, California Bureau of Land Management areas in California Blythe, California

Desert Lily Preserve

Palen/McCoy Wilderness Area

See also

References

External links