Coxcomb Mountains | |
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Highest point | |
Elevation | 4,416 ft (1,346 m) |
Geography | |
Location of Coxcomb Mountains in California [1] | |
Country | United States of America |
State | California (In USA) |
District | Riverside County |
Range coordinates | 33°56′12″N115°20′31″W / 33.93667°N 115.34194°W |
Topo map | USGS Coxcomb Mountains |
The Coxcomb Mountains are a mountain range in eastern Riverside County, Southern California, and to a small extent in San Bernardino County.
The Coxcomb Mountains are within the easternmost area of Joshua Tree National Park. They are east of the Eagle Mountains and Twentynine Palms, north of Interstate 10, and southeast of the Sheep Hole Mountains.
The range's highest point is Spectre Peak, at an elevation of 4,482 feet (1,366 m), located within the park. It is at GPS latitude—longitude coordinates of N 34.026279, W -115.404748. [2]
The Coxcomb Mountains are the most rugged and sharply perpendicular mountains within Joshua Tree National Park. Being in the park's wildest and least-visited northeastern corner, their relative isolation protects their wilderness habitat.
The range is in the ecotone where habitats merge from the higher elevation Mojave Desert ecoregion and the lower elevation Colorado Desert of the Sonoran Desert ecoregion.
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 Mohave people, it is located primarily in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada, with small portions extending into Arizona and Utah.
The Sonoran Desert is a hot desert and ecoregion in North America that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the Southwestern United States. It is the hottest desert in both Mexico and the United States. It has an area of 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 sq mi).
The Great Basin Desert is part of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Range. The desert is a geographical region that largely overlaps the Great Basin shrub steppe defined by the World Wildlife Fund, and the Central Basin and Range ecoregion defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and United States Geological Survey. It is a temperate desert with hot, dry summers and snowy winters. The desert spans large portions of Nevada and Utah, and extends into eastern California. The desert is one of the four biologically defined deserts in North America, in addition to the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts.
The Little San Bernardino Mountains are a short mountain range of the Transverse Ranges, located in southern California in the United States. They extend for approximately 40 mi (64 km) southeast from the San Bernardino Mountains through San Bernardino and Riverside Counties to near the northeast edge of the Salton Sink and Salton Sea.
Colorado Desert is a part of the larger Sonoran Desert located in California, United States, and Baja California, Mexico. It encompasses approximately 7 million acres, including the heavily irrigated Coachella, Imperial and Mexicali valleys. It is home to many unique flora and fauna.
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 Providence Mountains are found in the eastern Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County, California, U.S. The range reaches an elevation of 7,162 feet (2,183 m) at Edgar Peak and is home to the Mitchell Caverns Natural Preserve in the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area, and the Mojave National Preserve.
The Eagle Mountains are located in northeastern Riverside County, California, U.S.
The Sheep Hole Mountains are a mountain range in the Mojave Desert, to the north of Joshua Tree National Park, in San Bernardino County, California. The mountains were once Chemehuevi hunting grounds.
The Turtle Mountains, are located in northeastern San Bernardino County, in the southeastern part of California. The colorful Turtle Mountains vary from deep reds, browns, tans and grays, to black. The area has numerous springs and seeps. The Turtle Mountains are also a National Natural Landmark, with two mountain sections of entirely different composition.
The Morongo Basin is an endorheic basin and valley region located in eastern San Bernardino County, in Southern California.
Ferocactus cylindraceus is a species of barrel cactus which is known by several common names, including California barrel cactus, Desert barrel cactus, compass barrel cactus, and miner's compass. It was first described by George Engelmann in 1853.
The Lower Colorado River Valley (LCRV) is the river region of the lower Colorado River of the southwestern United States in North America that rises in the Rocky Mountains and has its outlet at the Colorado River Delta in the northern Gulf of California in northwestern Mexico, between the states of Baja California and Sonora. This north–south stretch of the Colorado River forms the border between the U.S. states of California/Arizona and Nevada/Arizona, and between the Mexican states of Baja California/Sonora.
Joshua Tree National Park is a national park of the United States in southeastern California, east of San Bernardino and Los Angeles and north of Palm Springs. It is named after the Joshua trees native to the Mojave Desert. Originally declared a national monument in 1936, Joshua Tree was redesignated as a national park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act. Encompassing a total of 795,156 acres – slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island – the park includes 429,690 acres of designated wilderness. Straddling San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, the park includes parts of two deserts, each an ecosystem whose characteristics are determined primarily by elevation: the higher Mojave Desert and the lower Colorado Desert. The Little San Bernardino Mountains traverse the southwest edge of the park.
The deserts of California are the distinct deserts that each have unique ecosystems and habitats. The deserts are home to a sociocultural and historical "Old West" collection of legends, districts, and communities, and they also form a popular tourism region of dramatic natural features and recreational development. Part of this region was even proposed to become a new county due to cultural, economic and geographic differences relative to the rest of the more urban region.
The Arizona transition zone is a diagonal northwest-by-southeast region across central Arizona. The region is a transition from the higher-elevation Colorado Plateau in Northeast Arizona and the Basin and Range region of lower-elevation deserts in the southwest and south.
The Great Basin montane forests is an ecoregion of the Temperate coniferous forests biome, as designated by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Flora of the Colorado Desert, located in Southern California. The Colorado Desert is a sub-region in the Sonoran Desert ecoregion of southwestern North America. It is also known as the Low Desert, in contrast to the higher elevation Mojave Desert or High Desert, to its north.
Castle Mountains National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located in the eastern Mojave Desert and northeastern San Bernardino County, in the state of California.
Sand to Snow National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located in San Bernardino County and northern Riverside County, Southern California.