The Piute Mountains are a
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 aris ...
located in the Eastern
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 ...
and within
Mojave Trails National Monument
Mojave Trails National Monument is a large U.S. National Monument located in the state of California between Interstate 15, Interstates 15 and Interstate 40, 40. The park was created to preserve a wide variety of geological and cultural features i ...
, in
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
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 ...
.
Geography
The range crosses
Interstate 40
Interstate 40 (I-40) is a major east–west transcontinental Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway in the Southeastern United States, southeastern and Southwestern United States, southwestern portions of the United States. At a leng ...
at Mountain Springs Summit, 2,770 feet above sea level. The mountains are located northeast of the
Old Woman Mountains, southwest of the
Piute Range, and east of the
Fenner Valley, which includes the small communities of Essex, Goffs, and Fenner. The
Mojave National Preserve
Mojave National Preserve is a United States National Preserve located in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County, California, US, between Interstate 15 in California, Interstate 15 and Interstate 40. The preserve was established October 31, ...
is to the northwest, and the
Bigelow Cholla Garden Wilderness and
Sacramento Mountains are to the east.
The Piute Mountains exhibit strong color contrast and texture that vary from very angular, jagged volcanics to rounded, smooth granite hills; and the ridges are cut by numerous canyons and washes.
Wilderness
The Piute Mountains Wilderness is in the Piute Mountains and the surrounding
bajadas and extensive
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, below
US Route 66. The wilderness is within
Mojave Trails National Monument
Mojave Trails National Monument is a large U.S. National Monument located in the state of California between Interstate 15, Interstates 15 and Interstate 40, 40. The park was created to preserve a wide variety of geological and cultural features i ...
and 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 ...
(BLM).
Dominant vegetation is
creosote bush scrub
Creosote bush scrub is a North American desert vegetation type (or biome) of sparsely but evenly spaced desert plants dominated by creosote bush (''Larrea tridentata'') and its associates. Its visual characterization is of widely spaced shrubs th ...
, which gradually changes into a
mixed desert scrub at higher elevations. The large bajadas provide excellent habitat for the threatened
desert tortoise
The desert tortoise (''Gopherus agassizii'') is a species of tortoise in the Family (biology), family Testudinidae. The species is native to the Mojave Desert, Mojave and Sonoran Deserts of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico ...
. The entire wilderness area has been identified as critical habitat for the desert tortoise.
Piute Mountains Wilderness
- Wilderness Connect
See also
* Eriogonum breedlovei — ''endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...
native plant
In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often popularised as "with no human intervention") during history. The term is equi ...
''
References
Mountain ranges of the Mojave Desert
Mountain ranges of San Bernardino County, California
Mojave Trails National Monument
Bureau of Land Management areas in California
Mountain ranges of Southern California
{{SanBernardinoCountyCA-geo-stub