The Little Colorado River

This is a typical view of the Little Colorado River when it is nearly flooding. This chocolate brown river winds its way across the Colorado Plateau. In this area of the Plateau, just at the west edge of the Navajo Indian Reservation, the river runs through an area almost devoid of trees. The Little Colorado is really three rivers, the first is a clear sparkling snow fed stream in the high White Mountains of Arizona. The second is this muddy, usually almost dry, desert river. The third and last is the deep canyon cut down to the level of the Colorado River in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. In the bottom of the canyon the river is bright blue, dyed by the minerals that line its banks.

There are no major dams on the river, although there are a few smaller dams that produce small lakes. The largest lake along the river is the Lyman Reservoir about 15 miles south of the Apache County seat, St. Johns.

If it had any water, which it usually doesn't, the Little Colorado River would rank as one of the more important rivers in the United States. It is 315 miles long and has a drainage area of about 25,000 square miles. The average flow is about 400 cubic feet per second (cfs). To compare, there are thousands of streams in the U.S. that have a higher average flow, not to even mention rivers. Unpredictably, it can become a raging torrent of over 120,000 cfs. Wikipedia.