Blue Mesa - Painted Desert

Blue Mesa in the Painted Desert, Arizona. ... more

by Bob and Nadine Johnston

Buy the Original Photograph

Price

$87

Dimensions

5550.000 x 3958.000 pixels

Title

Blue Mesa - Painted Desert

Artist

Bob and Nadine Johnston

Medium

Photograph - Fine Art - Digital An Acrylic Paintings... No Watermark Will Ever Be On Finished Art Or Prints And Cards...

Description

Blue Mesa in the Painted Desert, Arizona.
The Painted Desert is a United States desert of badlands in the Four Corners area from the Grand Canyon National Park into the Petrified Forest National Park. Much of the area within the Petrified Forest National Park is protected as the Petrified Forest National Wilderness Area. Much of the Painted Desert region is within the Navajo Nation.

The Painted Desert extends roughly from Cameron–Tuba City southeast to past Holbrook and the Petrified Forest National Park. The desert is about 120 miles long by about 60 miles wide, making it roughly 7,500 square miles area. Owing to the rain shadow of the Mogollon Rim, the Painted Desert has a cold desert climate, with hot, dry summers and cold, though virtually snow-free, winters. The annual precipitation is the lowest in northern Arizona and in many places is lower even than Phoenix.

Encompassing semi-desert shrub steppe as well as highly eroded and colorful badlands. The park's headquarters is about 26 miles east of Holbrook along Interstate 40, which parallels the Puerco River, and historic U.S. Route 66, all crossing the park roughly east–west. About 600,000 people visit the park each year and take part in activities including sightseeing, photography, hiking, and backpacking.

Averaging about 5,400 feet in elevation, the park has a dry windy climate with temperatures that vary from summer highs of about 100 °F to winter lows well below freezing. More than 400 species of plants, dominated by grasses such as bunchgrass, blue grama, and sacaton, are found in the park. Fauna include larger animals such as pronghorns, coyotes, and bobcats; many smaller animals, such as deer mice; lizards; seven kinds of amphibians, and more than 200 species of birds, some of which are permanent residents and many of which are migratory. About half of the park is designated wilderness.

The park's earliest human inhabitants arrived at least 8,000 years ago. By about 2,000 years ago, they were growing corn in the area and shortly thereafter building pit houses in what would become the park. Later inhabitants built above-ground dwellings called pueblos. Although a changing climate caused the last of the park's pueblos to be abandoned by about 1400 CE, more than 600 archeological sites, including petroglyphs, have been discovered in the park. In the 16th century, Spanish explorers visited the area, and by the mid-19th century a U.S. team had surveyed an east–west route through the area where the park is now located.

Uploaded

August 10th, 2014