The Castle Valley 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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73° on Nov. 16, 2016, the hottest reading for this week of the year since 1980. Next is 72° in 2007.
Castle Valley’s center stands about 4,680 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 4,210 ft to 6,630 ft, a difference of 2,420 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Mount Waas, about 12,250 ft, 12 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium and colluvium (unconsolidated), from the Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 10 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 3×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Coarse-detrital. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 8 mi of the line.
Sandstone. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 175 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Unconsolidated. Age: Quaternary, less than 2.6 million years old. About 3 mi of the line.
Arenite. Age: Early Jurassic, 175 to 202 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Diorite, monzodiorite. Age: Oligocene, 23 to 34 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Sandstone-mudstone. Age: Late Triassic, 202 to 237 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 4 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 Castle Valley reaches the Gulf of California by way of Placer Creek, Castle Creek and the Colorado: about 1,070 river miles.
Lakes on the way: Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu.
290 miles of the trip are on the Colorado.
Seldom reaches the sea. Dams and canals now take nearly all of the Colorado before its old delta in Mexico.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Castle Valley; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Castle Valley has a cold desert climate. Summer afternoons average 99° in July; winter nights fall to about 22° in January. A normal year brings about 8 inches of snow; with the rain, that comes to about 8 inches of water.
On November 14 Castle Valley normally reaches 57° and falls to 33°. The record high is 72°, in 2007; the record low 21°, in 1994. The most rain on this date, 0.30 in, fell in 2004.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1980 at Arches National Park Headquarters, 11 miles west, 590 ft lower. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
