Yesterday's flight from Dallas to Denver also offered a spectacular view of the broad Arkansas River Watershed, from the Canadian River Valley on the south to the Palmer Divide on the north. Clear skies and bright sunshine illuminated every detail of the terrain below.
The Canadian River, the longest tributary of the Arkansas, rises in the Culebra Range at the Colorado-New Mexico border. After flowing southeastward through eastern New Mexico, the river turns eastward, winding across the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma before entering the Arkansas River beyond Eufaula Reservoir. Farther north, the North Canadian and Cimarron Rivers rise amidst the volcanic terrain of the Raton Mesa and eventually join the Arkansas in eastern Oklahoma.
We crossed the Arkansas River at John Martin Reservoir, in southern Colorado, where the Purgatoire River enters from the southwest after draining the north side of the Raton Mesa. The Arkansas, itself, rises along the Continental Divide near Tennessee Pass, receiving numerous tributaries from the massive Sawatch Range and the Mosquito Range before descending through its canyon and rumbling onto the Colorado Piedmont at Pueblo. In southeastern Colorado, it takes in many more tributaries from the eastern slope of the mountains and from the southern flank of the Palmer Divide before entering Kansas.
