The Black Mountains of northwest
Arizona
Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
are an extensive, mostly linear, north-south trending long
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 ...
. It forms the north-south border of southwest
Mohave County
Mohave County occupies the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona, one of 15 counties in the state. 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 th ...
as it borders the eastern shore of the south-flowing
Colorado River
The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...
from
Hoover Dam
The Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado, Black Canyon of the Colorado River (U.S.), Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, d ...
.
The northwest and part of the western areas of the range are located within the
Lake Mead National Recreation Area
Lake Mead National Recreation Area is a U.S. national recreation area in Southeastern Nevada and Northwestern Arizona. Operated by the National Park Service, Lake Mead NRA follows the Colorado River corridor from the westernmost boundary of Gran ...
. Three
wilderness area
Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural) are Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human activity, or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally ...
s are within the range. The historic mining site of
Oatman, 4 miles north of
Boundary Cone, is nestled in the southern portion of the range between the
Mount Nutt and
Warm Springs wildernesses.
Geography
The mountain range is generally 10-15 mi wide, narrower in the north, and west of the Detrital Valley northeast. The southern end of the range with the two wilderness areas is a larger block and the Warm Springs Wilderness is made of a mountain section called Black Mesa, separated from the north section by
Sitgreaves Pass, on the route to Oatman, Arizona.
The high point of the range is Mount Perkins at , located west of the
water divide
A drainage divide, water divide, ridgeline, watershed, water parting or height of land is elevated terrain that separates neighboring drainage basins. On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges, and may be in the form of a single ...
of the Detrital Valley northeast, and the
Sacramento Valley (Arizona) southeast. The
Cerbat Mountains border eastwards. Mount Perkins, in the center-north of the range, is located at .
Watersheds
The Black Mountains are in four watersheds. The north and northeast contain the ''Lake Mead Watershed'', and the north-flowing ''Detrital Wash Watershed''. The west along the Colorado River and southern-west contains the ''Havasu-Mohave Lakes Watershed'' where the ''
Sacramento Wash Watershed''
Sacramento Wash Watershed
/ref> flows into the southern Topock Marsh, at the southern third of the Havasu-Mohave Lakes region.
File:Boundary Cone from Mohave Valley 1.jpg, Boundary Cone, a prominent landmark in the western foothills of the Black Mountains, viewed from Mohave Valley
File:USGS Oatman 1921 rfl01262.jpg, Historic Oatman, AZ, 1921
See also
* Boundary Cone
* Elephants Tooth
* Fortification Hill
References
External links
Mount Perkins, mountainzone.com, coord
Watersheds
Detrital Wash Watershed
Havasu-Mohave Lakes Watershed
Sacramento Wash Watershed, in Sacramento Valley
{{Authority control
Lake Mead National Recreation Area
Mountain ranges of Mohave County, Arizona
Mountain ranges of the Lower Colorado River Valley
Mountain ranges of the Mojave Desert
Mountain ranges of Arizona