Puerco River
| Puerco River Rio Puerco |
|
 Flowing near Puerco Pueblo,
in Petrified Forest National Park. |
|
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| States | Arizona, New Mexico |
| Region | Colorado Plateau |
| Source | near Hosta Butte |
| - location | McKinley County, New Mexico |
| - elevation | 7,930 ft (2,417 m) |
| - coordinates | 35°34′33″N 108°10′52″W / 35.57583°N 108.18111°W |
| Mouth | Little Colorado River |
| - location | near Holbrook, Navajo County, Arizona |
| - elevation | 5,102 ft (1,555 m) |
| - coordinates | 34°53′20″N 110°07′17″W / 34.88889°N 110.12139°WCoordinates: 34°53′20″N 110°07′17″W / 34.88889°N 110.12139°W |
| Length | 167 mi (269 km) |
| Basin | 2,654 sq mi (6,874 km2) |
| Discharge | for near Chambers, Arizona |
| - average | 70 cu ft/s (2 m3/s) |
| - max | 17,800 cu ft/s (504 m3/s) |
| - min | 0 cu ft/s (0 m3/s) |
 The mouth of the Puerco River on the Little Colorado River, northeast-central Arizona
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The Puerco River (Spanish): Rio Puerco) flows in northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona, through arid terrain, including the Painted Desert.
The Puerco River is sometimes called Rio Puerco of the West, to distinguish it from the Rio Puerco of the East that rises in the same vicinity but flows east to the Rio Grande.
Although Rio Puerco means River of Pigs in Spanish, this usage in the SW United States is better translated as Muddy River.
The intermittent river is the main tributary of the Little Colorado River, which is a tributary of the Colorado River. It drains an area of about 2,654 square miles (6,870 km2) and is 167 miles (269 km) long. The river's average discharge is very low, less than 70 cubic feet per second (2.0 m3/s) in normal years, because its drainage basin is extremely dry. For most of the year, the Puerco River is a braided wash containing little or no water, although large flash floods can occur in downpours.
The Puerco River headwaters are on the western slopes of the Continental Divide of the Americas, 0.5 miles (0.80 km) east of Hosta Butte, in McKinley County, New Mexico. It flows first north, and then west, through a wide and barren desert valley bordered by high rocky buttes and cliffs. It passes under Interstate 40, and receives the South Fork Puerco River from the right-south near Gallup. For most of its remaining course, I-40 and the former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (now the BNSF Railway) tracks follow the river's valley.
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Wikipedia