Finding the Mogollon Rim and the White Mountains

From Aug. 18, 2002:

It just occurred to me that I haven’t used the word “goober” in a long time. Goober is a good word. It rolls off the tongue nicely. I’m going to have to find some excuse to use it soon.

This is by no means meant to suggest today’s question came from a goober, but rather from a pair of innocent, fresh-faced newcomers with no whiff of gooberocity about them.

We’re confused. What’s the difference between the Mogollon Rim and the White Mountains?

Did you know Arizona law contains a legal description of the Rim? They wrote it when they were setting the boundaries for the Fort Apache reservation.

This is the first sentence: “The clifflike escarpment located in northern Arizona which separates the Colorado plateau and the central highlands and forms, in part, the divide between the little Colorado river and Salt river drainage areas, also forming a portion of the boundaries of Coconino and Gila counties, is designated and shall be known as the ‘Mogollon Rim.’”

The rest of it is a lot of longitude and latitude and other stuff that would just confuse you. Or at least it confused me.

Geologically, the Mogollon Rim is an erosional escarpment that marks the southern edge of the Mogollon Plateau and runs southeast from around Flagstaff into New Mexico.

However, you can’t see a lot of the southeast end of it because that part is covered up by the White Mountains.

The White Mountains are a collection of volcanic peaks — Mount Baldy, for instance — in eastern Arizona. They run roughly from the Fort Apache Reservation into the Apache National Forest.

They were sometimes known as the Mogollon Mountains, but the Spanish explorers referred to them as the Sierra Blanca.

Look at it like this. Payson is just under the Mogollon Rim. Alpine is in the White Mountains.

I could go on, but I see a pack of my masters roaming the newsroom, and I’m going to slip out. Those goobers.