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 east ...

s of the White Mountains of eastern

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. The creek flows eastward from below the alpine 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'', subsection ''Balfourianae''). All three species are long-lived and highly resilient to harsh weather and bad soils. One of the three species, ''Pinus ...

aspen Aspen is a common name for certain tree species in the Populus sect. Populus, of the ''Populus'' (poplar) genus. Species These species are called aspens: * ''Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (China, south of ''P. tremula'') * ''Populus da ...

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 woody plants (trees and shrubs), 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 sunli ...

pinyon pine The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in southwestern North America, especially in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah, with the single-leaf pinyon pine just reaching into southern Idaho. The trees yield edible Pine nut, nuts, which are a sta ...

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 as far south ...

, and finally into

sagebrush Sagebrush is the common name of several woody and herbaceous species of plants in the genus ''Artemisia (plant), Artemisia''. The best-known sagebrush is the shrub ''Artemisia tridentata''. Sagebrush is native to the western half of North Amer ...

as the stream ends in

endorheic An endorheic basin ( ; also endoreic basin and endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water (e.g. rivers and oceans); instead, the water drainage flows into permanent ...

Fish Lake Valley 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 watersheds, those with no outlets to the ocean, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja Californi ...

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

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

Paiute cutthroat trout Paiute cutthroat trout (''Oncorhynchus henshawi seleniris'') are a subspecies of Lahontan cutthroat trout. In 2023 the American Fisheries Society ''Common and Scientific Names of Fishes from the United States, Canada, and Mexico, 8th edition'' ...

, 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 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 counties: Alpine Count ...

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

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 and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors Orange (colour), orange and black. In the ...

and

rainbow A rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by refraction, internal reflection and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a continuous spectrum of light appearing in the sky. The rainbow takes the form of a multicoloured circular ...

trout. A riparian

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, of the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions. Most species are known ...

and cottonwood habitat supports protected bird species such as the Yellow warbler,

Yellow-breasted chat The yellow-breasted chat (''Icteria virens'') is a large songbird found in America, and is the only member of the family Icteriidae. It was once a member of the New World warbler family Parulidae, but in 2017, the American Ornithological Socie ...

Prairie falcon The prairie falcon (''Falco mexicanus'') is a medium-sized Falconiformes, falcon found in Western North America. A separate species from the peregrine falcon, with which it shares some visual similarities, the prairie falcon is, essentially, an ...

, and

Cooper's hawk Cooper's hawk (''Astur cooperii'') is a medium-sized hawk native to the North American continent and found from southern Canada to Mexico. This species was formerly placed in the genus ''Accipiter''. As in many birds of prey, the male is small ...

. The river 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, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

References

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 {{InyoCountyCA-geo-stub