Cottonwood Creek originates in the

Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is a protected area high in the White Mountains (California), White Mountains in Inyo County, California, Inyo County in eastern California. Geography The forest is east of the Owens Valley, high on the easter ...

s of the White Mountains of eastern

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The creek flows eastward from below the

alpine Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to: Places Europe * Alps, a European mountain range ** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range Australia * Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village * Alpine National Pa ...

crest of the White Mountains and descends through groves of

bristlecone pine The term bristlecone pine covers three species of pine tree (family Pinaceae, genus ''Pinus A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. T ...

aspen Aspen is a common name for certain tree species; some, but not all, are classified by botanists in the section ''Populus'', of the ''Populus'' genus. Species These species are called aspens: *'' Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (China ...

and

mountain mahogany ''Cercocarpus'', commonly known as mountain mahogany, is a small genus of at least nine species of nitrogen-fixing flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae. They are native to the western United States and northern Mexico, where they grow i ...

, then a

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

pinyon pine The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in southwestern North America, especially in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. The trees yield edible nuts, which are a staple food of Native Americans, and widely eaten as a snack and as an ingredient in New ...

and

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arcti ...

, and finally into

sagebrush Sagebrush is the common name of several woody and herbaceous species of plants in the genus ''Artemisia''. The best known sagebrush is the shrub ''Artemisia tridentata''. Sagebrushes are native to the North American west. Following is an alph ...

as the stream ends in

endorheic An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

Fish Lake Valley The Fish Lake Valley is a longNevada, DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer, c 2010, p. 58-59. endorheic valley in southwest Nevada, one of many contiguous inward-draining basins collectively called the Great Basin. The alluvial valley lies just northwes ...

which is one of the contiguous collection of inward-draining basins that make up the

Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic basin, endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California ...

. Cottonwood Creek has no native fish, however its North Fork is a refuge for the

threatened Threatened species are any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensat ...

Paiute cutthroat trout Paiute cutthroat trout (''Oncorhynchus clarkii seleniris'') is one of fourteen subspecies of cutthroat trout. Paiute Cutthroat are native only to Silver King Creek, a headwater tributary of the Carson River in the Sierra Nevada, in California. ...

, one of the rarest trout in North America. This subspecies was transplanted from its very limited native range, upper Silver King Creek in the

Carson River The Carson River is a northwestern List of Nevada rivers, Nevada river that empties into the Carson Sink, an endorheic basin. The main stem of the river is long although the addition of the East Fork makes the total length , traversing five co ...

basin. The remainder of the stream hosts (originally) transplanted

brook A brook is a small river or natural stream of fresh water. It may also refer to: Computing *Brook, a programming language for GPU programming based on C *Brook+, an explicit data-parallel C compiler *BrookGPU, a framework for GPGPU programming ...

brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...

and

rainbow A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows c ...

trout. Habitat around the creek also supports more than 70 species of birds. Cottonwood Creek originates in ancient bristlecone forests and is the longest perennial stream east of the White Mountains. The creek flows eastward from the 14,000-foot crest of the White Mountains and steeply descends through groves of aspen, eventually flowing into a sagebrush desert. Numerous springs feed the creek as it meanders through large meadows in the upper reaches. Stands of aspen and bristlecone pine can be found in the higher elevations, while lower elevations are marked with stands of pinyon and juniper trees. Cottonwood Creek is home to the Paiute cutthroat trout, one of the rarest trout in North America. A riparian willow and cottonwood habitat supports protected bird species such as the Yellow Warbler, Yellow-Breasted Chat, Prairie Falcon, and Cooper's Hawk. Cottonwood Creek offers a variety of recreation opportunities.

References

2. Th
Bureau of Land Management
manages this river. {{authority control Rivers of Inyo County, California Rivers of the Great Basin Inyo National Forest White Mountains (California) Wild and Scenic Rivers of the United States Rivers of Northern California