Lake Havasu & Colorado River

Arizona's western edge along the Colorado River, from Kingman on Route 66 down past Lake Havasu to Yuma near the Mexican border.

The Colorado River forms most of Arizona's western border with California, and along this stretch it is less a wild river than a chain of reservoirs, wildlife refuges and irrigation works. Parker Dam, built by the Bureau of Reclamation between 1934 and 1938, holds back Lake Havasu, named in 1939 after the Mojave word for blue. Water pumped out of the lake feeds the Colorado River Aqueduct to southern California and the Central Arizona Project canal to Phoenix and Tucson, so its surface is held within a few feet of the same level all year while Lake Mead and Lake Powell upstream absorb the drought. Lake Havasu City, on the Arizona shore, is a planned town of the 1960s. Its founder, Robert P. McCulloch, bought London's 1831 London Bridge in 1968 and had its granite facing rebuilt over a new channel, rededicated on October 10, 1971. Arizona State Parks runs two lakeshore parks, Lake Havasu and Cattail Cove, and the Bill Williams River National Wildlife Refuge, south of the city, protects one of the last naturally regenerated cottonwood-willow forests on the lower Colorado. Kingman, about 64 road miles to the north, sits much higher, at roughly 3,300 feet in the Hualapai Valley. It is the Mohave County seat and a Route 66 town, with the Arizona Route 66 Museum inside a power plant built between 1907 and 1909. Grand Canyon West and its glass Skywalk, run by the Hualapai Tribe on its own reservation, are a little over two hours' drive from Kingman. At the southern end, Yuma grew up at the Yuma Crossing, one of the few places where travellers could get across the wide lower Colorado. Two state historic parks there cover its past: the territorial prison of 1876 to 1909 and the Army's Quartermaster Depot, founded in 1864. North of the city, Imperial National Wildlife Refuge protects 30 miles of river. This is low, hot desert. Yuma averages 117 days a year at or above 100°F, mostly from April to October, and Lake Havasu City holds Arizona's state record of 128°F, set on June 29, 1994. Winter is the main season. Arizona does not observe daylight saving time, so from March to early November these towns keep the same clock as California and Nevada.