The Mount Trumbull Wilderness is a 7,880 acre (31 km²)

wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...

located on the Uinkaret Plateau in the

Arizona Strip 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 ...

. It is 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. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's ...

. The Mount Trumbull Wilderness is north of

Grand Canyon National Park Grand Canyon National Park, located in northwestern Arizona, is the 15th site in the United States to have been named as a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often conside ...

and in the

Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor * Grand Mixer DXT, American turntablist * Grand Puba (born 1966), American rapper Places * Grand, Oklahoma * Grand, Vosges, village and c ...

. It is approximately 60 miles southwest of

Fredonia, Arizona Fredonia is a town in Coconino County, Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 1,314. Fredonia is the gateway to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. History Fredonia was laid out in 1886. Its name is said to mean the ...

and about 60 miles south of St. George, Utah. It is about 7 miles north of the

Mount Logan Wilderness The Mount Logan Wilderness is a 14,650 acre (59 km2) U.S. wilderness area on the Arizona Strip and is part of the Uinkaret Mountains, a small regional range. It is located about seven miles south of the Mount Trumbull Wilderness. The wild ...

. The namesake of the wilderness, Mt. Trumbull, is 8,028 feet (2,446m) at its highest point.
2.5 mile trail
to the top can be accessed from

Mohave County Mohave County is in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, its population was 213,267. The county seat is Kingman, and the largest city is Lake Havasu City. It is the fifth largest county in the United St ...

Road 5. The mountain was named by

John Wesley Powell John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902) was an American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, explorer of the American West, professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions. H ...

after the

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

Lyman Trumbull Lyman Trumbull (October 12, 1813 – June 25, 1896) was a lawyer, judge, and United States Senator from Illinois and the co-author of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Born in Colchester, Connecticut, Trumbull es ...

.Powell, John Wesley. ''

The Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons ''The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons'' by John Wesley Powell is a classic of American exploration literature. It is about the Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869 which was the first trip down the Colorado River by boat, includ ...

''. 1961, Dover Publications, New York.

Flora

At lower elevations the vegetation of the wilderness consists of

Utah juniper ''Juniperus osteosperma'' (Utah juniper; syn. ''J. utahensis'') is a shrub or small tree native to the southwestern United States. Description The plant reaches , rarely to 9 m, tall. The shoots are fairly thick compared to most junipers, in ...

(''Juniperus osteosperma''),

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 ...

Mojave yucca ''Yucca schidigera'', also known as the Mojave yucca or Spanish dagger, is a flowering plant native to the southwest deserts of North America. Description ''Yucca schidigera'' is a small evergreen tree growing to tall, with a dense crown of sp ...

(''Yucca schidigera''), and

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 al ...

(''Artemisia tridentata''). Moving up, the vegetation slowly changes into

ponderosa pine ''Pinus ponderosa'', commonly known as the ponderosa pine, bull pine, blackjack pine, western yellow-pine, or filipinus pine is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to mountainous regions of western North America. It is the ...

s. The area was heavily logged in the late 19th century resulting in most ponderosas being new growth, thus small, but some towering old growth ponderosa pines can be seen in the Wilderness that are more than 500 years old. There are also various types of grasses which grow intermittently throughout the wilderness.

Fauna

The wilderness is home to a variety of animals.

Mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whi ...

are a common sight in the mornings and late afternoons. There are a large number of squirrels including the

Kaibab squirrel The Kaibab squirrel (''Sciurus aberti kaibabensis'') is a tassel-eared squirrel that lives in the Kaibab Plateau in the Southwest United States, in an area of . The squirrel's habitat is confined entirely to the ponderosa pine forests of the Nor ...

, transplanted to the area from the south rim of the Grand Canyon in the 1970s. Other more rare animals include pronghorn deer and

mountain lions The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large cat native to the Americas. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. I ...

. There are also a variety of

lizards Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia altho ...

in the area including

horned lizard Horned lizards (''Phrynosoma''), also known as horny toads or horntoads, are a genus of North American lizards and the type genus of the family Phrynosomatidae. The common names refer directly to their horns or to their flattened, rounded bodies, ...

s. Birds present include

red crossbill The red crossbill or common crossbill (''Loxia curvirostra'') is a small passerine bird in the finch family Fringillidae. Crossbills have distinctive mandibles, crossed at the tips, which enable them to extract seeds from conifer cones and other ...

Steller's jay Steller's jay (''Cyanocitta stelleri'') is a bird native to western North America and the mountains of Central America, closely related to the blue jay found in eastern North America. It is also known as the long-crested jay, mountain jay, and p ...

common raven The common raven (''Corvus corax'') is a large all-black passerine bird. It is the most widely distributed of all corvids, found across the Northern Hemisphere. It is a raven known by many names at the subspecies level; there are at least ...

s and many others.

Geology

The Mt. Trumbull mesa is capped by a 3.6 million year old dark grey basalt lava flow, one of the first eruptions in the

Uinkaret volcanic field The Uinkaret volcanic field is an area of monogenetic volcanoes in northwestern Arizona, United States, located on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Lava flows from the Uinkaret volcanic field that have cascaded down into the Grand Canyon, ...

. The volcanic field has spawned at least 213 known eruptions since then, including seventeen lava flows that poured into the Grand Canyon and dammed the Colorado River. The most recent eruption was at Little Springs approximately 960 years ago. Its lava flow can be seen just south of Mt. Trumbull along BLM road 1044. The Mt. Trumbull lava flow cap protects the colorful

Moenkopi Formation The Moenkopi Formation is a geological formation that is spread across the U.S. states of New Mexico, northern Arizona, Nevada, southeastern California, eastern Utah and western Colorado. This unit is considered to be a group in Arizona. ...

beneath that would have otherwise been eroded away long ago. An undated and unnamed cinder cone sits on top of the mesa. It erupted through the original 3.6 million year old basalt cap likely in the last few hundred thousand years based on minimal surface erosion. It ejected bright red volcanic cinders and lava bombs which can seen along the switchback trail.

Archaeology

The wilderness contains both

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The us ...

and

historic History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

sites. The

Ancestral Puebloans The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, a ...

are known to have inhabited the area, and an archaeological field school is conducted in and around the area each summe
1
In historic times the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints used the area to harvest lumber to build many of the structures in St George, Utah.

References

External links