Cabeza Prieta Mountains

The Cabeza Prieta Mountains are a mountain range in the northwestern Sonoran Desert of southwest Arizona. It is located in southern Yuma County, Arizona.

The mountain range is amongst an eleven-mountain sequence of north-trending ranges and valleys in the hottest region of the Sonoran Desert. This southwestern Arizona region is on the northern perimeter of the Gran Desierto de Altar. It includes the northern part of the Pinacate volcanic field.

The Cabeza Prieta Mountains extend northwest–southeast about 24 miles. The highest peak is unnamed at 2832 ft; other peaks include: Cabeza Prieta Peak at 2559 ft; Buck Peak-(in north) at 2629 ft; and Sierra Arida in the south, at 1736 ft. A separate mountain outlier lies southwesterly, Tordillo Mountain at 2170 ft, adjacent to a primitive road paralleling the US-Mexico Border, called El Camino del Diablo. The range is about 36 miles southeast of the Mohawk Valley (Arizona), and Interstate 8 and is in the west-central Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range. The Cabeza Prieta Mountains comprise the entire western region of the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge—about twenty percent of its total area.