The Ute Park plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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−17° on Nov. 17, 2014, the coldest reading for this week of the year since 1929. Next is −15° in 1951.
Ute Park’s center stands about 7,440 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 7,330 ft to 9,730 ft, a difference of 2,400 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Baldy Mountain, about 12,410 ft, 7 miles northwest.
The section below crosses 8 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 4×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Granitic, syenitic. Age: Eocene to Pliocene, 2.6 to 56 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Shale. Age: Late Cretaceous, 72 to 90 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 0.1 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Shale, limestone. Age: Late Cretaceous, 90 to 100 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, limestone. Age: Middle Pennsylvanian to Permian, 284 to 315 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 2 smaller units along the line are not listed.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Ute Park reaches the Gulf of America by way of the Cimarron, the Canadian, the Arkansas and the Mississippi: about 1,940 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Conchas Lake, Murray Lake, Ozark Lake and Ute Reservoir.
720 miles of the trip are on the Canadian.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Ute Park; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Ute Park has a warm-summer humid continental climate. Summer afternoons average 79° in July; winter nights fall to about 5° in January. About 17 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Ute Park normally reaches 49° and falls to 16°. The record high is 69°, in 1999; the record low −10°, in 1940. The most rain on this date, 0.24 in, fell in 2022.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1929 at Eagle Nest, 8 miles west, 840 ft higher. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
