Arizona Strip
The Arizona Strip is the northwestern part of the US state of Arizona , which is separated from the rest of the state by the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River . To the north it borders on Utah and to the west on Nevada . The Arizona Strip is politically part of Mohave County in the west and Coconino County in the east. It is hardly populated, large parts of the area are under nature protection .
description
The northwest of Arizona is characterized by the climate of a semi-desert on the plateaus of the Colorado Plateau . Sandstone in different shades of red determines the landscape. The northwest of the strip is cut by the Virgin River . The Kaibab Plateau in the east of the Arizona Strip is the only part of it that is forested. Canyons cut into the plateaus . Only two rivers, Kanab Creek and Paria River , have water in them all year round. There are also a number of so-called washes , streams that only turn into streams seasonally or even only sporadically after exceptional rainfall.
Almost all land is owned by the federal government , the areas on the Colorado River are looked after by the National Park Service , the Kaibab National Forest by the US Forest Service , the rest by the Bureau of Land Management . The Kaibab Paiute Indian Reservation of the Paiute Indians is also located in the Arizona Strip.
Settlements in the Arizona Strip are Fredonia , Kaibab , Moccasin , Colorado City and Littlefield , as well as the dependent settlement Jacob Lake . Because the Grand Canyon cannot be bridged, there are road connections to the rest of Arizona in the west only via Nevada and with two bridges in the far east of the Arizona Strip at Lee's Ferry and Page . At Page, US Highway 89 cuts the Arizona Strip for a few kilometers, its daughter route 89A crosses the Colorado on the Navajo Bridge at Lees Ferry and leads under the Vermilion Cliffs over Jakobs Lake to Fredonia and on to Utah. At Jakobs Lake branches off the Arizona State Route 67 to the south to the north rim of the Grand Canyon. At Fredonia, Arizona State Route 389 branches off to the west , which curves through the central north of the strip before it also crosses the border into Utah. In the far northwest, Interstate 15 cuts the Arizona Strip at Littlefield.
history
Originally the arid area was sparsely populated by Indians of the basketmaker culture. Anasazi later settled in the region. Their structures, forerunners of the pueblos , petroglyphs , ceramics and other artifacts are found in great numbers all over the Arizona Strip. The first whites in the area were the members of the expedition of two Spanish Franciscan Fathers, Francisco Antanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante , who marched along the north rim of the Grand Canyon in 1776. It was not until the 19th century that the Paiute Indians were pushed into the largely sterile area by the penetration of the whites from the east. The region was only colonized by whites in the second half of the 19th century by followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ("Mormons") from Utah.
They lived as ranchers on cattle herds, at the beginning of the 20th century the forests of the Kaibab area were also used for forestry. Some abandoned ore - mines are scattered in the area. Large uranium deposits were found after the Second World War . They were mined selectively in the 1950s and 1960s, with the mines in some cases causing considerable environmental damage. New uranium extraction techniques and price developments made the deposits interesting again in the 21st century. Because of the dangers for the nature reserves of the region and tourism, the exploitation of the deposits is controversial. In January 2012, the United States Department of the Interior issued a moratorium on uranium mining over an area of approximately 4,000 km² for 20 years.
Culturally, the region has always belonged to Utah rather than Arizona because of the separating effect of the Grand Canyon, but it also played a role as a route from northern Arizona to southwestern Utah, in particular to the St. George Utah Temple in St. George , Utah, the oldest and for a long time central Mormon temple for the whole region. The small Pipe Spring National Monument , an enclave in the Paiute Indian reservation, is a memorial to the history of the Indians and early settlers on the Arizona Strip.
Although the north rim of the Grand Canyon is far less visited than the more accessible south rim, tourism now plays a role in the region's economy.
natural reserve
Downriver, from north-east to west, are the following large-scale nature reserves in the Arizona Strip: The Glen Canyon National Recreation Area begins at the Glen Canyon Dam , which dams Lake Powell . It is almost entirely in Utah and only protrudes into the Arizona Strip. At Lees Ferry, the Grand Canyon National Park begins on the river, and the Vermilion Cliffs rise above the river , which, together with the high plateau and the canyon of the Paria River, form part of the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument . In the west, on the high plateau, is the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument , down by the river the national park merges into the Lake Mead National Recreation Area .
Partly within the other protected areas, there are a total of nine wilderness areas in the Arizona Strip, the strictest class of nature reserves in the United States. Seven of them on land owned by the Bureau of Land Management, two in the National Forest and thus under the administration of the US Forest Service.
The Arizona Strip has been reintroducing California condors since 1996 ; they became extinct in the wild in the 1980s and are the subject of the largest conservation breeding and release program in the United States. 61 specimens of this largest bird of prey in the New World live in the region again (as of December 2007).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ New York Times: US to Block New Uranium Mines Near Grand Canyon , January 6, 2012
- ↑ Bureau of Land Management: Proposed Mineral Withdrawal near Grand Canyon National Park , Jan. 9, 2012
Coordinates: 36 ° 39 ′ N , 112 ° 50 ′ W