>go visit the southwest>just rocks, dirt, flat plains, and dust devils everywhereepic!
bnuy
agreed, appalachia is much nicer
>>2833043I don’t think you visited the Southwest. If you did, why didn’t you see any fun and interesting ecosystems or landscapes?
that sounds like southwestern New Mexico not the actual nice places
Some of us need wide open spaces. You wouldn't get it.
>>2833060room to make, a big mistake?
>>2833043Exactly. The southwest is a shithole. Don't come here.
>>2833090wasn't planning on ityou have your grand canyon, but there's plenty of mini gorges to satisfy for a lifetime here
>>2833091Good tbdesu
>>2833085Room to see everything around me and the entire night sky in all its glory
>>2833043You visited the entire southwest and saw nothing? Thats weird
>>2833376where are the broadleaf trees?
>>2833377The what
>>2833376>rocks and dirtnice!
>>2833381oak, maple, hickory, walnut, beech, ash, butternut, poplar, cherry, elm, birch
>>2833384Do you also go into german restaurants and ask where all the sushi is?
>>2833384They don't have those in the southwestern desert
>>2833382If you reduce everything to its core elements anything will seem boring you psued
>>2833385I don't understand why nobody tries to make fast-casual modern German food. I would love it.
>>2833386They do have oak and ash, and maple and birch at higher elevations
>>2833389They have more than that too, but nobody really needs to know that.
>>2833058bitch made valley dweller LMAO too scared to hike in cartel country?
I'll post some pics from when I hiked to the top of this mountain near Rama, New Mexico. I was Elk Hunting on this guy's ranch which bordered Cibola National Forest.
Standing in the bottom of the valley looking up at the ridge
Hiking through foothills to get to the main slope
>>2834399Me on the bare rockside you can see in the middle of the photo at the top of the ridge
>>2833377this guy. the beavers ate them
I left to hike the ridge from basecamp at 11am that day and didn't make it back until 9pm. I happened to find a sparsely marked cairn trail on the way up and a US Geological survey marker at the top. On the way down I got lost and it was getting close to dark, thought I was going to freeze to death in the woods at night because I had very little gear. I picked a drainage feature between two hills and just decided to walk that down and once I got back in the bottom I eventually found some stuff I recognized and made it back to camp. Had a radio on me but I couldn't get a response from camp except for at the top of the ridge.
>>2833386Flagstaff, AZ is historically the 7th or 8th snowiest city in the entire USA with a minimum population of 50k residents. Even with recent 30 year non-stop drought the average snowfall is still 88 inches (2.24m) a winter in town and 230 inches (5.9m) 3,000 ft higher in the San Francisco Peaks. There are only a handful of places on Earth that get the record snowfall amounts found in the western USA and western Canada (Alps, Japan, small parts of Himalayas, small parts of Siberia around Lake Baikal and the Caucasus). Arizona and New Mexico combined have roughly 68,000 sq miles (176.12k sq km) of forest, which is more forest area than in Utah and Colorado combined. The forest around Flagstaff continues for 250 air miles into NM. That said the forest is still threatened with human development and farming/grazing, and human started wildfires. Studies have been done that show that the SW has historically been covered by forest for at least the last 11,000 years at middle and high elevations windward to the Pacific ocean. Studies have also shown that the last 500 years conclusively were interspersed with periods of drought and periods of extreme flooding/extreme snowfall events. The longest (moderate) drought period lasted over 100 years, despite this the forest has always remained. During the ice age prior to the Younger Dryas, Flagstaff, Arizona had a Dfc (cold subarctic) or Et (tundra) Koppen climate with black spruce taiga and aspen parklands similar to modern NWT, Canada and mammoths lived as far south as what is now Mexico. Winters in the AZ high country hit temps as low as -22f (-30C) almost every single winter in multiple locations, a common location is Mormon lake (pleistocene lake/marsh remnant).
>>2834469
>>2834470High plateau pine-oak forest in at least 20 inches (51cm) of snow depth. Below this zone in the leeward side (dry) is juniper-pinyon forest and below it on the windward (wet) side is mixed pine-deciduous forest. This plateau forest extends roughly 250 air miles from west of Williams, AZ up to 50 miles into NM.
>>2834471Riparian zone mixed-deciduous forest. Riparian canyons in central AZ can average up to 40 inches of annual precipitation and up to 90 inches of winter snowfall at only 5,800 ft elevation (the plateau is at 6,400-9,500 ft). They are primarily windward to the Pacific ocean or on the north side of tall mountains further south. Some individual canyons can have upwards of 1,000 native vascular plant species in mere miles of linear hiking distance, they are also home to 4 of the 5 Arizona treefrog species.
>>2834473High elevation shortgrass prairie. This example is in Arizona and is at 7,300 ft (2225m) elevation. The shortgrass prairie zone in Arizona is almost as large as the forest area and occurs at elevations as low as 5,000 ft (Seligman, AZ) and as high as 9,500 ft (near Big Lake, AZ). The high elevation shortgrass prairie still average more snowfall than Chicago, IL and is actually highly fertile but largely undeveloped. The lower elevation (below 6,000 ft) prairie is in high desert conditions and much less fertile and snowy. New Mexico has significantly more prairie area than AZ due to its eastern half being in the great plains.
>>2834478Not as wet or large in area but as or more diverse. And the PNW and N California forests are in fact wetter than the eastern US, especially in winter and spring. The reason for the western USA being one of the snowiest places on Earth is due to the Alaska gyre currents and jetstreams in winter, which also creates the largest temperate rainforest on Earth. Unofficially, the Chugach mountains of Alaska have indirectly recorded up to 1,500+ inches (38.1m) of winter snowfall, including 300 inches (7.62m) in one week, western mountains have also unofficially measured wind gusts in excess of 200 mph resulting in fatalities. The Pacific temperate rainforests covers ~120,000 sq miles from 61N to 39N with 60-300 inches of annual precipitation and very low annual evaporation (often below 20 inches). Every western USA state also has multiple living trees older than 2,500 years.
>>2834469Ok Mr mayor
>>2834525I don't live there (have lived near there and been there many times), but Flagstaff, AZ has one of the most reliable climate records in the SW US going back to the 1800s. The area also has 75 continuous years of high reliability mountain snowfall data. The 75 year average snowfall for Flagstaff is 93.5 inches (2.38m), 7th or 8th in the USA above 50k population. The 75 year average number of days with a minimum low below 32F (0C), is 206 days. Areas marked in red in pic related have similar or higher equivalent stats. AZ's first (US) capital was officially designated in 1863-1864, in the Prescott area but Americans were settling the region 40+ years earlier.
>>2834532Why do you know so many specific stats. Seems like the decent weather is due to high elevation and being surrounded by mountains?And I just checked and the weather there seems incredibly comfortable year round. Im getting interested in checking it out.
>>2834533I read and study and compile data and save records, as I've seen the government agencies change or manipulate their stats many times using arbitrary criteria. Some of the first official and extensive studies on biomes were in Arizona in the late 1800s. Arizona had grizzly bears until the late 1930s. Also you can't afford it. All of the nice temperate areas of AZ are now in the exclusively $500k plus median home price and $2,500-3,000/month rent.
>>2834535Well if not living there than just visiting. I like exploring new places. I was in slc and Moab last year and it was super cool. I really love desert and mountain areas. Coming from the Midwest its the most different and exciting environments to me
>>2834535>$500k plus median home price and $2,500-3,000/month rent.What part of the US isn't like this, honestly. This is pretty much every area right now.
>>2834542Maybe any town far enough from a city and with no natural attractions?So boring places.
