The Mogollon Rim (pronounced Muggy-own) - Arizona's Mighty Backbone according to Arizona Highways is an epic in natural, human history. It is a spectacular geological formation mountain range that stretches the state from east to west for over two hundred miles. Known as 'the Rim" by locals, it towers over the communities of Payson, Pine, Strawberry, Kohl's Ranch and Christopher Creek.
It is a wilderness rampart of ethereal beauty, carved majestically into unmatched proportions. The Rim Road itself is a twisting, graveled legacy to settlers and cavalry tenacity. With only minor changes, much of General Crook's road pioneered in 1873 as a route for troops and supplies is still being used today.
Climatic conditions changed radically as this one great block of sea bottom, encompassing portions of southern Utah, northern Arizona, the southwest corner of Colorado and the northwest corner of New Mexico, continued to rise. It is the southern margin of the Colorado Plateau.
Simply stated, the Rim is made up of sedimentary plateau rocks which have been deposited upon one another more or less uniformly during the Paleozoic Age. It has an average height of 7,000 feet.
From Pine to Young, the Rim buttressed face is rarely less than a near vertical drop of 1200 feet. At many overlook points it's height is close to 2000 feet above the mountains which stretch across Tonto Basin.
South of Show Low the steep scarp is again blanketed by comparatively recent volcanism. Forming the White Mountains, the once molten blanket covers much of the Plateau's edge as one travels on into New Mexico.
Central Arizona is dependent upon the storm patterns which drive in from the Pacific and come up from the Gulf of Mexico. The clouds release their burden of moisture when they struggle to rise over this huge wall. The top of the Rim flows into the Little Colorado, and all runoff below the backbone flows into the Verde, the Salt and the Gila rivers.
Around 1600, the Rim country and adjacent mountains in New Mexico became known as the Moggollones, named for Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollon, a Spanish governor and captain general of New Mexico which was a portion of New Spain. |