The Avra Valley is a 50-mile (80 km) long northwest–southeast valley, bordering the west of

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

. The

Tucson Mountains The Tucson Mountains ( O'odham: ) are a minor mountain range west of Tucson, Arizona, United States. The Tucson Mountains, including Wasson Peak, are one of four notable mountain ranges surrounding the Tucson Basin. The Santa Catalina Mountai ...

are at the valley's center-east, with suburbs ranging east of the Tucson Mountains and trending northwest to the Avra Valley's northeast. This entire northwest stretch from Tucson contains the northwest trending

Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost transcontinental highway in the Interstate Highway System of the United States. It is the fourth-longest Interstate in the country at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. It was part of the origina ...

, the route to Casa Grande and Phoenix. The northeast of the valley contains

Marana Marana may refer to: * Maraña, a village in León, Spain * Maraṇa, the Pali/Sanskrit term for death * Marana, Arizona Marana () is a List of municipalities in Arizona, town that mostly lies in Pima County, Arizona, Pima County with a smal ...

on I-10, the Pinal Airpark, an aircraft storage park, and other communities along I-10. Avra Valley Airport is a general aviation airport in Marana, located about 15 miles (24 km) northwest of Tucson, and being used for storage of classic propeller-era airliners. The center-(west) of the valley is at Cocoraque Butte, , extended northeast from the Roskruge Mountains. Cocoraque Butte's height is .''Arizona Road & Recreation Atlas'', pp. 52–52. Avra Valley from Gates Pass

Description

Avra Valley is a narrow valley, only about 10 miles wide in some locations, and bordered completely on the west by low-elevation, arid

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

s. From the northwest, the mountains are the Silver Bell Mountains, Watermans, and then in the southwest the Roskruge Mountains. Much of these ranges to the West of Avra Valley are protected in

Ironwood Forest National Monument Ironwood Forest National Monument is located in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Created by Bill Clinton by Presidential Proclamation 7320 on June 9, 2000, the monument is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the United State ...

. South of Roskruge, Arizona Route 86 enters the valley from the Tohono O'odham Nation to the west. Robles Junction, Arizona, is also in the southwest, at the junction of the valley going southwest to Sasabe, the Altar Valley. Robles Junction is also at the northwest of the mountain range on Avra Valley's southern border, the Sierrita Mountains. The north of the Avra Valley narrows at the Silver Bell Mountains and Marana to the east. The region merges into the wider flatlands associated with the floodplain regions of the northwestern Santa Cruz River where it begins to merge with the

Gila River The Gila River (; O'odham ima Keli Akimel or simply Akimel, Quechan: Haa Siʼil, Maricopa language: Xiil) is a tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona in the United States. The river drains an arid watershed of ...

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park Saguaro National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in southeastern Arizona. The park consists of two separate areas—the Tucson Mountain District (TMD), about west of Tucson, Arizona, T ...

protects the northern

in its West Unit bordering Avra Valley. Saguaro National Park features "forests" of

Saguaro The saguaro ( , ; ''Carnegiea gigantea'') is a tree-like cactus species in the monotypic genus ''Carnegiea'' that can grow to be over tall. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, and the Whipple Mountains ...

, '' Carnegiea gigantea''.

References

External links

Cocoraque Butte Summit, mountainzone, (coord)
{{Authority control Valleys of Arizona Landforms of Pima County, Arizona Landforms of Pinal County, Arizona Interstate 10

Description

Saguaro National Park

See also

References

Further reading

External links