The Providence Mountains State Recreation Area is located in the Providence Mountains, within the Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County, California. It is also home to the Mitchell Caverns Natural Preserve. [1]
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The Providence Mountains State Recreation Area is located in the Providence Mountains, within the Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County, California. It is also home to the Mitchell Caverns Natural Preserve. [1]
The Recreation Area is located on the east side of the Providence Mountain range and has dramatic views of the surrounding Mojave Desert.
On approaching the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area one can see layers of tilted grey rock that are ancient limestone formed during the Paleozoic Era. [2] The base elevation of the park is 4,300 feet with the Providence Mountains reaching to 7000 feet. [3]
Vegetation on the lower parts of the mountains is xeric shrublands scrub habitat, composed of creosote bush (Larrea tridentata), California barrel cactus (Ferocactus cylindraceus), and Mojave yucca (Yucca schidigera).
The habitat dramatically shifts with elevations above 4000 feet to a sky island where numerous animals and plants flourish in the added moisture caught by the mountains. The plant habitat includes forests of single-leaf pinyon (Pinus monophylla) and California juniper (Juniperus californica), and remnant chaparral and woodlands with oaks (Quercus turbinella) and manzanita in these higher parts of the mountains.
Mitchell Caverns is home to two endemic species of insects found nowhere else.
The Providence Mountains State Recreation Area is located at the north-western end of Essex Road, off of Interstate 40 (the Needles Freeway). The visitor center is located in a historic 1934 stone dwelling. The campground is currently closed. [1]
Providence Mountain Recreation Area was one of the 48 California State Parks proposed for closure in January 2008 by California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as part of a deficit reduction program. [4] It closed temporarily in January 2011.
Providence Mountains State Recreation Area and Mitchell Caverns reopened on November 3, 2017, after being closed for nearly seven years due to major infrastructure upgrades. [5]
The Mojave Desert is a xeric desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada, with small portions extending into Arizona and Utah.
Mojave National Preserve is a United States National Preserve located in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County, California, USA, between Interstate 15 and Interstate 40. The preserve was established October 31, 1994, with the passage of the California Desert Protection Act by the US Congress, which also established Joshua Tree National Park and Death Valley National Park as National Parks. Previously, some lands contained within the Preserve were the East Mojave National Scenic Area, under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management. At 1,542,776 acres (6,243 km2), within the contiguous United States it is the third largest unit of the National Park System and the first largest National Preserve. The preserve was created within the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service and remains within that jurisdiction today.
Mitchell Caverns, within the Mitchell Caverns Natural Preserve, is three solution limestone caves, only two of which are open to the public, located on the east side of the Providence Mountains at an elevation of 4,300 feet (1,300 m), within the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area. It is located in the Mojave Desert, in San Bernardino County, California.
Kelso Dunes, also known as the Kelso Dune Field, is the largest field of aeolian sand deposits in the Mojave Desert. The region is protected by the Mojave National Preserve and is located near the town of Baker, San Bernardino County, California, and the Preserve Visitor Center. The dune field covers 45 square miles (120 km2) and includes migrating dunes, vegetation-stabilized dunes, sand sheets, and sand ramps. The tallest dunes rise up to 650 feet (200 m) above the surrounding terrain.
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 Coxcomb Mountains are a mountain range located in eastern Riverside County, Southern California.
The Clipper Mountains are located in the eastern Mojave Desert and protected within Mojave Trails National Monument, in San Bernardino County, California.
Cima is a small unincorporated community in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County, California, in the United States. It lies in a mountain pass on the divide between the Ivanpah Valley and the Mojave River basin, at an elevation of 4,175 feet (1,273 m). The Ivanpah Mountains and Interstate 15 are to the north, the New York Mountains are to the east, and the Providence Mountains are to the south. To the northwest is the Cima volcanic field, which contains Cima Dome at 5,745 feet (1,751 m) above sea level, a prominent landmark along I-15. Cima is also home to one of the densest Yucca brevifolia forests in California, located in the Cima Dome.
The Devils Playground is a large sandy region in the Mojave Desert in the state of California in the United States. Dunes and salt flats stretch for approximately 40 miles (64 km) in a generally northwest-southeasterly direction in the Mojave National Preserve. The Cronese Mountains are located at its northwestern edge. The "playground" lies between the town of Baker and the Providence Mountains.
The Morongo Basin is an endorheic basin and valley region located in eastern San Bernardino County, in Southern California.
Clark Mountain is a mountain located in the Clark Mountain Range in the Mojave National Preserve, close to the California-Nevada border.
The Piper Mountain Wilderness is a federally designated wilderness area located in the White Mountains 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Big Pine, California in Inyo County, California.
The Deserts of California have unique ecosystems and habitats, 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. All of the deserts are located in eastern Southern California, in the Western United States.
The Cleghorn Lakes Wilderness is a 33,475-acre (135.47 km2) wilderness area in the southern Mojave Desert. It is located 16 miles (26 km) northeast of Twentynine Palms, California, and 20 miles (32 km) north of Joshua Tree National Park. It is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
The California montane chaparral and woodlands is an ecoregion defined by the World Wildlife Fund, spanning 7,900 square miles (20,000 km2) of mountains in the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and Coast Ranges of southern and central California. The ecoregion is part of the larger California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion, and belongs to the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome.
The Lavic Lake volcanic field is a volcanic field with extinct cinder cones in the Mojave Desert, in San Bernardino County, California, United States, at 762 m (2,500 ft) elevation. Its cones lie directly alongside historic Route 66 and modern Interstate 40, between Barstow to the west and Ludlow 10 miles to the east.
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.
Coordinates: 34°56′50″N115°30′29″W / 34.94722°N 115.50806°W