Monte Desert Monte Desert The Monte Desert is a South American ecoregion, lying entirely within Argentina and covering approximately the submontane areas of Catamarca, La Rioja, San Juan, San Luis and Mendoza Provinces, plus the western half of La Pampa Province and the extreme north of Río Negro Province. The desert lies southeast of the Atacama Desert in Chile, north of the larger Patagonian Desert, east of the Andes and west of the Sierra de Córdoba. The delineations between the Monte Desert, the Atacama Desert, and the Patagonian Desert are not exact and the desert seems to be more-or-less continuous with the
Tirari Desert and the Sturt Stony Desert runs aligned with the Birdsville track to the north east. The desert experiences harsh conditions with high temperatures and very low rainfall (mean annual rainfall is below ). The main vehicular access to the desert is via the unpaved Birdsville Track which runs northwards from Marree to Birdsville. The Mungerannie Hotel is the only location between the two towns that provides services. The Tirari Desert region has a number of large cattle stations which are stopping points on the Channel Country aviation mail run. Dulkaninna Station has been run by the same family for 110