The Pajarito Mountains is a small mountain range of western Santa Cruz County,

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 ...

, United States, that extend south into

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

, Mexico. The range is adjacent the Atascosa Mountains at its north, with both ranges in the center of a north–south sequence of ranges called the Tumacacori Highlands. The Highlands have the

Tumacacori Mountains The Tumacacori Mountains is a mountain range in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, Santa Cruz and Pima County, Arizona, Pima counties in southern Arizona, United States. The highest peak in the range is an unnamed summit with an elevation of . Tumacaco ...

at the north, and south of the U.S.-Mexico border, the Sierra La Esmeralda range (the Emerald Mountains). The Tumacacori Highlands are part of a regional conservancy study of "travel corridors" for cats, called ''Cuatro Gatos'', Four Cats, for

mountain lion The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, ''Help:Pronunciation respelling key, KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North America, North, Central America, Cent ...

ocelot The ocelot (''Leopardus pardalis'') is a medium-sized spotted Felidae, wild cat that reaches at the shoulders and weighs between on average. It is native to the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, Central and South America, ...

bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the wildcat, bay lynx, or red lynx, is one of the four extant species within the medium-sized wild cat genus '' Lynx''. Native to North America, it ranges from southern Canada through most of the c ...

, and

jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large felidae, cat species and the only extant taxon, living member of the genus ''Panthera'' that is native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the biggest cat spe ...

. The lower elevation

Cerro Colorado Mountains The Cerro Colorado Mountains are a low mountain range in southern Pima County, Arizona, USA. The highest point of the range is Colorado Peak (). The range consists of a NNW–SSE trending ridge with several shorter ridges extending off the main r ...

to the northwest, and the San Luis Mountains, west are also part of the Highlands region. At the west of the Pajaritos and adjacent to the San Luis range, and Cobre Ridge peaks, is the

Pajarita Wilderness Pajarita Wilderness is a protected wilderness area managed by the Coronado National Forest in the United States, U.S. state of Arizona. Established in 1984 under the Arizona Wilderness Act, the array of canyons that make up the area sit at the w ...

. East of the Highlands is the Santa Cruz River Valley corridor.

Range specifics

The highest peak in the range is Pajarito Peak at due south of Peña Blanca Lake; the peak is at the headwaters of Calabasas and Pesquiera Canyons. In the west of the range at the

, a

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 ...

makes some drainages flow south into northern

. The other drainages flow northeast to the Santa Cruz River, or northwest to the north-flowing Altar Valley. Cobre Ridge at the northwest merges into the southwest San Luis Mountains, and the peaks of Cobre Ridge range from Black Peak, in the northwest, Cobre Mountain, then Bartlett Mountain, and Flat Top Mountain, at the west of the Pajarita Wilderness. Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora lie at the eastern foothills of the range in the upper region of the north–south Santa Cruz River Valley, and in the I-19 corridor. Peña Blanca Lake is a mountainous getaway site, about 8 mi on Ruby Road from I-19. Ruby Road continues about 25 miles, much on unimproved surfaces, through the mountains to the area of the

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

site of Ruby, Arizona, just northwest of the Pajarita Wilderness, and east of Cobre Ridge, and then loops back eastward to I-19 at Amado. Two common trails of the mountain area are the Atascosa Lookout, and the Sycamore Canyon Trail (for the Arizona sycamore, ''

Platanus wrightii ''Platanus wrightii'', the Arizona sycamore, is a sycamore tree native to Arizona and New Mexico with its range extending south into the Mexican states of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Sinaloa.Laferriere, J.E. Platanaceae, "Sycamore or Plane Tree Fami ...

''). As part of southeast Arizona, southwest

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

, Sonora and northwest Chihuahua's

Madrean Sky Islands The Madrean Sky Islands are enclaves of Madrean pine–oak woodlands, found at higher elevations in a complex of small mountain ranges in southern and southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northwestern Mexico. The sky islands are su ...

, mountainous

sky island Sky islands are isolated mountains surrounded by radically different lowland environments. The term originally referred to those found on the Mexican Plateau and has extended to similarly isolated high-elevation forests. The isolation has s ...

region,

birdwatching Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device such as binoculars or a telescop ...

finds these mountain sites as prime locales for bird species ranging north out of the

Sierra Madre Occidental The Sierra Madre Occidental is a major mountain range system of the North American Cordillera, that runs northwest–southeast through northwestern and western Mexico, and along the Gulf of California. The Sierra Madre is part of the American C ...

cordillera. (One sought after example is the elegant trogon species.) The highest peak, Pajarito Peak, is located at .

The Tumacacori Highlands

The Tumacacori Highlands is a series of connected mountain ranges in western Santa Cruz County, Arizona. The Highlands are northwest of Nogales and are bordered on the east by the Santa Cruz River Valley, that is traversed north–south by

Interstate 19 Interstate 19 (I-19) is a north–south Interstate Highway located entirely within the US state of Arizona. I-19 travels from Nogales, roughly from the Mexican border, to Tucson, at I-10. The highway also travels through the cities of ...

. Across the valley eastwards are the tall

Santa Rita Mountains The Santa Rita Mountains ( O'odham: To:wa Kuswo Doʼag), located about southeast of Tucson, Arizona, extend from north to south, then trending southeast. They merge again southeastwards into the Patagonia Mountains, trending northwest by sout ...

in the northeast, and the smaller San Cayetano Mountains, east and adjacent to Nogales's northeast. The sequence of the north-to-south Tumacacori Highlands is as follows: North-to-south: #

# Peck Canyon (Peck Canyon Road) # Atascosa Mountains (6 mi x 9 mi) # Ruby Road (to Ruby, Arizona); Peña Blanca Lake # Pajarito Mountains # Mexico-Arizona border # Sierra La Esmeralda (the Emerald Mountains) A Santa Cruz county-border "bootheel" extends southwest; the bootheel contains Cobre Ridge, and it is connected northwest to a small range, the San Luis Mountains which are in the southeast of the Altar Valley, and borders the

Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge (Buenos Aires NWR) provides of habitat for threatened and endangered plants and animals. This refuge, in Pima County, Arizona, was established in 1985. Natural history The semidesert grassland supports the ...

. Historical mission communities, at Tumacacori National Historical Park, in Tumacacori lie at the southeast foothills of the Tumacacori Mountains.

References

Arizona Highways ''Arizona Highways'' is a magazine that contains travelogues and artistic photographs related to the U.S. state of Arizona. It is published monthly in Phoenix by a unit of the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT). Background The ...

. ''Emerald Isle'', Terry Greene Sterling, photography, Jack Dykinga, February, 2010, p 40–43.

External links

*
Pajarito Mountains, at MountainZone

Elegant Trogon locales
Huachuca, Atascosa,

Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...

, Santa Rita,

Chiricahua Chiricahua ( ) is a band of Apache Native Americans. Based in the Southern Plains and Southwestern United States, the Chiricahua historically shared a common area, language, customs, and intertwined family relations with their fellow Apaches. ...

, and Pajarito Mountains {{Mountains of Arizona Madrean Sky Islands mountain ranges Mountain ranges of Santa Cruz County, Arizona Mountain ranges of Arizona Mountain ranges of Mexico

Range specifics

The Tumacacori Highlands

See also

References

External links