SAN JUAN RIVER

Spanish Ro San Juan, also called Desaguadero, river and outlet of Lake Nicaragua, issuing from the lake's southeastern end at San Carlos and flowing along the NicaraguaCosta Rica border into the Caribbean Sea at San Juan del Norte. It receives the San Carlos and Sarapiqu rivers during its 124-mi (199-km) southeasterly course through tropical forests, and near its mouth it forms three arms, the Juanillo Menor to the north, the Ro Colorado to the south, and the San Juan proper. Navigation is impeded by rapids at Toro, El Castillo, and Machuca and is limited to boats with a shallow draft. During the migrations to California from the eastern United States between 1850 and 1870, travellers transferred at San Juan del Norte from Atlantic steamers to small boats, which went up the river and across Lake Nicaragua; they then travelled overland to the Pacific port of San Juan del Sur. Along with the lake it has been considered as a possible canal route between the Caribbean and the Pacific. river in the southwestern United States, rising in the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado, on the west side of the Continental Divide. It then flows southwest into New Mexico, past Farmington, northwest into Utah, and west to the Colorado River near Rainbow Bridge National Monument in southeastern Utah. The river is 360 mi (580 km) long and is not navigable. Its chief tributaries are the Animas, Los Pinos, Piedra, La Plata, and Mancos rivers, all in northwestern New Mexico. In that area, where the river valley widens, there is some irrigated farming. The section of the river where the boundaries of New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and Colorado meet and where the San Juan enters the Colorado Plateau, into which it has carved numerous S-shaped canyons more than 1,000 ft (300 m) deep, is known as the Goosenecks. From there the river flows in a relatively straight canyon to the Colorado. The Navajo Dam on the San Juan in northwestern New Mexico is part of the Upper Colorado River Storage Project.