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| Sacramento Wash | |
|---|---|
 Topock Marsh Outfall region of the Sacramento Wash | |
  Sacramento Wash in the Sacramento Valley of Arizona | |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Arizona |
| Region | (southeast)-Mojave Desert |
| District | Mohave County, Arizona |
| City | Yucca, Arizona Golden Valley, Arizona-(north) |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Length | 50 mi (80 km), N-S, then W-(for 20 mi)) |
The Sacramento Wash is a major drainage of northwest Arizona in Mohave County. The wash is east of the Black Canyon of the Colorado and drains into the south-flowing Colorado River 45 mi south of Lake Mohave, and 90 mi south of Hoover Dam at Lake Mead. The wash outfall is in the center-south of the Havasu-Mohave Lakes Watershed. An equivalent wash drains to the west of the Colorado River and the Black Canyon, draining southeast Nevada and a small part of California, the Piute Wash of the Piute Valley. The Piute Wash outfall is upstream of the Sacramento's outfall by about 15 miles.
Both Piute and Sacramento Washes are ephemeral desert washes which may only have standing water in mountainous canyon tributaries, or in periods of extensive rainfall and cooler weather. Much of the water is also simply infiltrated into groundwater basins. Only one tributary to Sacramento Wash is an intermittent stream, Sawmill Canyon in the northeast region of the Sacramento Valley.[1]
The wash drains the Sacramento Valley, and the valley is bordered on the west by the Black Mountains (Arizona), and Interstate 40 in Arizona traverses south from Kingman and goes west around the south end of the mountains, a section called the Black Mesa (western Arizona). I-40 joins the central section of the wash proper at Yucca, Arizona and the interstate follows the valley and wash west to meet the Colorado River at Needles. The drainage to the north of the Havasu-Mohave Lakes Watershed with the Sacramento Wash Drainage is the Lake Mead Watershed. The Detrital Valley bordering Sacramento Valley and Wash north and northwest of Kingman, is part of the southeast region of Lake Mead.