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(\J ( -, ~ ...-l . There are only about 1,500 acres. of irrigated land in this grouping and all qf it is on Alluvial soils.. . Native vegetation. consists primarily of .Doug!a.s fir, I04gepo1e pine, Engleman spruce, alpine fir and aspen, with an under- story. of plants such as kinnikinnick, vaccinitml at higher elevations and e.re.eping juniper. In the park areas vegetation is generally sagebrush, Thurbers fescue, Cclumbia needle grass, blue wild rye, mountain brome and many ferbs. Wet areas have sedges and rushes. .~. .A).pine Meadow-Alpine ~ So:i.ls O'f this grouping have developed under high precipitation in lllGl:derately sloping depressions of alluvitml andcolluVitml and. on strongly sloping ridge- tops and steep. side slapes in re.sidutnn from tuff, breccia, rhyolite, al1des1te. basalt and granite, at.elevations above timberline and above 11,500 f~t. ~ are very shallow to moderately deep, moderately coarse to medium tex- tured, high oTganic sails, highly leached and acid in reaction. Mast of this group:ing (65 percent) Consists of mi&cellaneous land types, which are barecf vegetation except f{)T lichens. Vege~tion on thesaila. consists of sedges, rushes, grasses, forbs, Willows and gther woody species. There is a short period of grazing on the alpine meadows. There is high sustained water yield and low sediment yield in watersheds made up of soils in this grouping. Topography The Gunnison River Basin ranges in elevation from approximately 4.550. to 14,300 feet and has an extremely variable topography. The lower river -. basin has broad, nearly level to moderately sloping valleys, flanked by low rolling hills which break rather abruptly into moderately to steeply sl~ing mesas highly dissected by steep. sided drainagewaysor canyons. Above the mesas on the northeast and south are steeply sloping dissected plateaus which extend to the headwaters of the major streams. The streams are shallow at this elevation and topography is characterized by gently to' , s trangly sloping valleys. These valleys are interspersed with steeply slQping SInOGth rolling hills at the north boundary of the Basin and very steep r.ough glaciated peaks on the south bouridary. The upper portion of the Gunnison River Basin is typified by very high gla- elated peaks whose slopes descend into gently to strongly sloping high mountain basins and into long steep sided ripges. They are separated by strongly sloping, narrow valleys that become less steep and considerably wider at. the Confluence O'f major streams and at lower elevations. Land Use, Cover Conditions and Management Lands of the Gunnison River Basin are used primarily for the production of timber, range-forage, mountain meadow hay, and irrigated crops. There are approximately 264,000 acres of irrigated land within the Basin. Fruit and truck crop farmin& together with general and cash-crop farming and th~ - 8 -