Wild Lands & Rivers
Proposed Southeast Boundary Area National Monument Addition
Size: 4,679 acres
Management Agency: San Bernardino National Forest and Bureau of Land Management
Location: Riverside County, west of Highway 86 - 6 miles south of La Quinta and 4 miles west of the Salton Sea
Description:
The Proposed Southeast Boundary Area National Monument Addition has significant ecological, geological and cultural resources. In addition to providing critical bighorn sheep habitat, the area has several major washes that hold excellent desert dry wash woodland – a lush assemblage of smoke tree, palo verde and catclaw acacia. A portion of the shoreline of Ancient Lake Cahuilla is found here. Three times the size of today’s Salton Sean, this giant fresh water lake came and went over the millennia as the Colorado River shifted course between the Sea of Cortez and the Salton Basin. It was last full around 1700. The Cahuilla Indians utilized the lake extensively and evidence of their use can still be seen including rock fish traps, and traces of ancient trails.