Pinacate Peaks

The Pinacate Peaks are a group of volcanic peaks and cinder cones in north-central Sonora, Mexico, near the border with Arizona, rising out of the sand dunes of the Gran Desierto de Altar. The area holds more than 400 cinder cones and nine large craters produced by roughly four million years of intermittent eruptions, the most recent about 11,000 years ago, and its highest point, Cerro del Pinacate or Volcan Santa Clara, reaches 3,904 feet. Because its cratered, barren terrain resembles the surface of the Moon, NASA trained astronauts there starting in 1965, including Apollo astronauts Alan Shepard, Ed Mitchell and Jack Schmitt in 1970. The peaks and surrounding dunes now lie within the El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve, a protected area of more than 600 square miles supporting hundreds of plant and animal species.