Lake Mead National Recreation Area is a U.S. national recreation area in Southeastern Nevada and Northwestern Arizona. Operated by the National Park Service, Lake Mead NRA follows the Colorado River corridor from the westernmost boundary of Grand Canyon National Park to just north of the cities of Laughlin, Nevada and Bullhead City, Arizona. It includes all of the eponymous Lake Mead as well as the smaller Lake Mohave – reservoirs on the river created by Hoover Dam and Davis Dam, respectively – and the surrounding desert terrain and wilderness.
The protected areas of the United States are managed by an array of different federal, state, tribal and local level authorities and receive widely varying levels of protection. Some areas are managed as wilderness, while others are operated with acceptable commercial exploitation. As of 2022, the 42,826 protected areas covered 1,235,486 km2 (477,024 sq mi), or 13 percent of the land area of the United States. This is also one-tenth of the protected land area of the world. The U.S. also had a total of 871 National Marine Protected Areas, covering an additional 1,240,000 sq mi (3,200,000 km2), or 26 percent of the total marine area of the United States.
The Tonto National Forest, encompassing 2,873,200 acres, is the largest of the six national forests in Arizona and is the ninth largest national forest in the United States. The forest has diverse scenery, with elevations ranging from 1,400 feet in the Sonoran Desert to 7,400 feet in the ponderosa pine forests of the Mogollon Rim. The Tonto National Forest is also one of the most visited "urban" forests in the United States.
The Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness is a 112,500 acres (455 km2) wilderness area located in northern Arizona and southern Utah, United States, within the arid Colorado Plateau region. The wilderness is composed of broad plateaus, tall escarpments, and deep canyons.
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 northwestern Coconino County, the largest settlements in the Strip are Colorado City, Fredonia, and Beaver Dam, with smaller communities of Scenic, Littlefield and Desert Springs. The Kaibab Indian Reservation lies within the region. Lying along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon creates physical barriers to the rest of Arizona. Only three major roads traverse the region: I-15 crosses the northwestern corner, while Arizona State Route 389 and U.S. Route 89A cross the northeastern part of the strip, and US 89A crosses the Colorado River via the Navajo Bridge, providing the only direct road connection between the strip and the rest of the state. The nearest metropolitan area is the St. George, Utah metro area, to which the region is more connected than to the rest of Arizona.
The National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) of the United States protects federally managed wilderness areas designated for preservation in their natural condition. Activity on formally designated wilderness areas is coordinated by the National Wilderness Preservation System. Wilderness areas are managed by four federal land management agencies: the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.
The Big Maria Mountains are located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of California, near the Colorado River and Arizona. The range lies between Blythe and Vidal, and west of U.S. Route 95 in California and east of Midland. The mountains are home to the Eagle Nest Mine and reach an elevation of 1,030 m (3,380 ft). A power line that runs from Parker Dam to Yuma, Arizona runs through the range. A smaller range, the Little Maria Mountains, lie to the west of the Big Marias.
The Little Picacho Wilderness is a 38,214-acre (15,465 ha) wilderness area under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management. The wilderness is found in a southeast extension of the Chocolate Mountains adjacent to the Colorado River, in the southeastern part of California. It should not be confused with the Picacho Peak Wilderness which is located to the northeast.
The Gila National Forest is a United States National Forest in New Mexico. Established in 1905, it now covers approximately 2,710,659 acres (10,969.65 km2), making it the sixth largest National Forest in the continental United States. The Forest administration also manage the part of the Apache National Forest in New Mexico which covers 614,202 acres for a total of 3.3 million acres managed by the Gila National Forest. Within the forest, the Gila Wilderness was established in 1924 as the US's first designated wilderness. The Aldo Leopold Wilderness and Blue Range Wilderness are also found within its borders. The Blue Range Primitive Area lies within Arizona in the neighboring Apache National Forest.
The Bigelow Cholla Garden Wilderness is in the eastern Mojave Desert and within Mojave Trails National Monument, located in San Bernardino County, California.
National Conservation Lands, formally known as the National Landscape Conservation System, is a 35-million-acre (140,000 km2) collection of lands in 873 federally recognized areas considered to be the crown jewels of the American West. These lands represent 10% of the 258 million acres (1,040,000 km2) managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The BLM is the largest federal public land manager and is responsible for over 40% of all the federal public land in the nation. The other major federal public land managers include the US Forest Service (USFS), National Park Service (NPS), and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
The Vermilion Cliffs are the second "step" up in the five-step Grand Staircase of the Colorado Plateau, in northern Arizona and southern Utah in the southwestern United States. They extend west from near Page, Arizona, for a considerable distance, in both Arizona and Utah.
The Cedar Mountain Wilderness is located in northwestern Utah, United States, just south of Interstate 80. The vegetation on the upper elevations of the Cedar Mountains is dominated by junipers. The foothill and valley regions include mixed desert shrubs. Cheatgrass is prevalent over large areas burned by range fires. The remains of an aragonite mining camp can also be found in the foothills.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is a national monument protecting an archaeologically significant landscape located in the southwestern region of the U.S. state of Colorado. The monument's 176,056 acres (712.47 km2) are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, as directed in the presidential proclamation which created the site on June 9, 2000. Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is part of the National Landscape Conservation System, better known as the National Conservation Lands. This system comprises 32,000,000 acres (130,000 km2) managed by the Bureau of Land Management to conserve, protect, and restore these nationally significant landscapes recognized for their outstanding cultural, ecological, and scientific values. Canyons of the Ancients encompasses and surrounds three of the four separate sections of Hovenweep National Monument, which is administered by the National Park Service. The monument was proclaimed in order to preserve the largest concentration of archaeological sites in the United States, primarily Ancestral Puebloan ruins. As of 2022, over 8,500 individual archeological sites had been documented within the monument.
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 wilderness is part of New Mexico's Gila National Forest. The wilderness is approximately 27 miles (43 km) from north to south and 39 miles (63 km) east to west.
The Beaver Dam Wash is a seasonal stream near the southwestern Utah-Nevada border in the United States. At its southern end in northern Arizona, near the point where it empties into the Virgin River, the stream flows throughout the year. Part of the wash is in the Beaver Dam Wash National Conservation Area, managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The wash was so named on account of beaver dams which once were built on its course.
Spirit Mountain Wilderness Area is a 33,518-acre (13,564 ha) wilderness area located in the Newberry Mountains in Clark County, Nevada, 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Laughlin. Spirit Mountain lies within the area. It is managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service.
The Whipple Mountains Wilderness is a 76,122-acre (30,805 ha) wilderness administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Most of the Whipple Mountains are within the wilderness area. It is located in the northeastern Colorado Desert near the Colorado River. Lake Havasu and Lake Havasu City are 25 miles (40 km) to the North. Earp, California and Parker, Arizona are 20 miles (32 km) to the South. The Parker Dam is 8 miles (13 km) due east.
Scenic is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Mohave County in extreme northwestern Arizona, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,321, down from 1,643 in 2010.
The Beaver Dam Wash National Conservation Area is a 63,500-acre (257 km2) United States National Conservation Area located in southwest Utah west of St. George along the borders with Arizona and Nevada. It is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as part of the National Landscape Conservation System, and was authorized in the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009.
