Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge - ArizonaPosted by: 
AZTech
N 32° 23.171 W 112° 52.353
12S E 323859 N 3584784
Established in 1939, Cabeza Prieta is the third-largest NWR in the contiguous US, at 860,010 acres
Waymark Code: WMEVR7
Location: Arizona, United States
Date Posted: 07/11/2012
Views: 9
Cabeza Prieta is Spanish for "dark head" and refers to a lava-topped granite peak in a remote mountain range in the western corner of the Refuge.
From the refuge
website:
Before entering the Refuge, you must obtain a valid Refuge Entry Permit and sign a Military Hold Harmless Agreement. Free permits are available from the Refuge office or they can be sent through the mail.
Most of the Refuge falls within the air space of the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range. Numerous low-flying aircraft cross the Refuge on their way to air-to-air bombing and gunnery ranges located to the north. Some military training exercises over the Refuge may require limitations on travel and even short periods of closure of the Refuge to the public. Military schedules are known in advance, so Refuge staff can help with your schedule.
Boundless desert surrounds you in Cabeza Prieta, the third largest national wildlife refuge in the lower 48 states. Here, seven rugged mountain ranges cast shadows over barren valleys once swept by lava. Saguaros loom in stark profile above the baked earth. A 56-mile, shared border with Sonora, Mexico, might well be the loneliest international boundary on the continent.
Imagine the state of Rhode Island without any people and only one wagon track of a road. Cabeza Prieta NWR is that big, that wild and also incredibly hostile to those who need lots of water to live. Yet, within a landscape at once magnificent and harsh, life does persist, even thrives.
Temperatures may top 100 degrees F for 90 to 100 consecutive days from June to October. Summer thundershowers and winter soaking rains average about 3 inches on the western part of the Refuge and up to 9 inches on the eastside, 60 miles away. The winter and summer pattern of rainfall in the Sonoran desert stimulates the growth of more plant species than in most deserts.
You’ll find creosote and bursage flats, mesquite, palo verde, ironwood, ocotillo and an abundance of cacti, including cholla, and saguaro on the bajadas (alluvial fans of sand, silt, and gravel deposited by running water on the slopes of mountain ranges).
Endangered Sonoran pronghorn and lesser long-nosed bats call this parched land home, as do desert bighorns, lizards, rattlesnakes, and desert tortoises. Elf owls peer from holes carved in saguaros by Gila woodpeckers. Every plant and animal has adapted to an environment we would find uninhabitable. Far from a barren desert, Cabeza Prieta NWR harbors at least 391 plant species and more than 300 kinds of wildlife.