Painted Rock Mountains Painted Rock Mountains The Painted Rocks Mountains are a short 15-mile (24 km) long mountain range of the north-central Sonoran Desert southwest of Phoenix, Arizona and in southwest Maricopa County. The Gila River flows through the central-north end of the range. The famous Painted Rock Petroglyph Site lies at the northeast end of the range, adjacent the Painted Rock Reservoir, and the reservoir lies at the eastern end of the agricultural river valley that is locally names as the Lower Gila River Valley, extending approximately from the Colorado River at Yuma to the west and the reservoir at the east.
Monastery of Christ in the Desert Monastery of Christ in the Desert The Monastery of Christ in the Desert is a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery belonging to the English Province of the Subiaco Congregation of Benedictine monasteries. The monastery is in Abiquiu, New Mexico, surrounded by miles of undisturbed wilderness amidst the Chama River Canyon Wilderness area 75 miles north of Santa Fe. It is accessible by Forest Road 151, a 13-mile dirt road off of US route 84. The monastery was founded in 1964 by Aelred Wall, O.S.B., a monk of Mount Savior Monastery in Pine City, New York. The original monastery was designed by