The 5 Most Impressive Deserts In The United States

The United States is a continent unto itself, where all kinds of landscapes and climatic zones abound. Logically, among that wide range of natural spaces, desert areas could not be absent. But as a curious fact, those American deserts are concentrated only in one area of ​​its immense territory: the west. All the impressive places that we are now going to show you are concentrated in the states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico.

America’s Most Amazing Deserts

In any of these deserts in the United States, life becomes difficult for humans and it is only possible for animals and plants exceptionally gifted to survive in those habitats. However, their climate, their geology and the vegetation that sometimes populates them makes them unique landscapes and, therefore, worthy of being preserved. In fact, some of the areas that we are going to name you are National Parks.

1. Monument Valley

We are going to start with some landscapes that, in reality, are the result of an ancient desert. In fact, it can be considered to be a fossilized desert where the passage of millennia has sculpted suggestive formations  that are continuously carved by wind, rain and meteorological agents.

Of course, the beauty of the enormous sandstone towers that rise on the border between the states of Utah and Arizona is undeniable. Anyone who visits it and is a lover of photography will find the most attractive frames here.

Those frames and snapshots will be much richer if you have a little film culture. In fact, surely these are the most famous film landscapes in the world. If the westerns of John Wayne and John Ford come to mind , surely we place them in these dreamlike and legendary landscapes.

2. Mojave Desert

If Monument Valley is famous for cinema, there is a tree in the Mojave Desert internationally known for rock and roll, it is “The Joshua Tree”.  A tree that gave the title to U2’s most legendary album. It is curious to see how every year, followers of the Irish group make a pilgrimage through desert lands until they reach it.

The truth is that it seems a miracle that such plants exist, since here it rains very little throughout the year. However, there are almost 1,800 plant species adapted to this aridity and the enormous heat, which in some parts of this desert is so infernal that it makes the true Valley of Death exist here.

However, the Mojave Desert is larger, occupying lands in several states, from Utah to Arizona and from California to Nevada. By the way, if you make the mythical trip between Los Angeles and Las Vegas by road, much of this journey will be done through this desert, whose name is due to the indigenous Mojave ethnic group.

3. Desert of the 2,000 giant arches

The most visited area of ​​this desert in Utah is Arches National Park, where thousands of arches of sandstone rock carved by the constant action of erosion are protected. And we say they protect themselves because the very nature of these arches causes the passage of time to destroy their fragile balances and they collapse.

Among all of them, the most spectacular are within a route through the park. The best known is the Double Arch, in the area of ​​The Windows. In this area there are also places as unique as Park Avenue, which paradoxically is a great rock wall, or the Courthouse Towers, a series of rocky needles of great beauty.

However, the park is much larger and offers varied walks, for example to Landscape Arch, considered the largest natural arch in the world.

4. Desert of the White Sands

The great peculiarity of this desert in the state of New Mexico is that it is made of gypsum sand, which is why it may seem that it is always snowy, although it is scorching hot there. This is a unique place for several reasons: for its size, its material and its beauty.

In terms of dimensions, it is the largest gypsum sand field in the world. Regarding its materials, the truth is that it is very difficult to see plaster in the form of sand, given its ability to become soluble in water. Yet here it is seen in tiny crystallized grains.

Precisely this material gives it its characteristic white color and its aesthetics, which is also always changing, since gypsum sand dunes are formed that the wind moves.

5. Colorado Desert

The Colorado desert, in California, is like the extension of the Mexican desert of Sonora. One of its qualities is that part of its almost 30,000 square kilometers are below sea level.

However, what characterizes these lands are their temperatures. The average throughout the year, exceeds 30 degrees, but the maximum temperatures can approach 50, while the minimum can also be 0. And all this with little rain.

In short,  lands that are very hard for human life, but very beautiful, with really different places, such as the area of ​​the sand dunes of Algodones, or the places full of giant cacti in the Yuma area.