Elevations range from 6,000 to 9,600 feet. The soil formed in local alluvium or colluvium derived from calcareous siltstone, sandstone and loess. The average annual precipitation is about 14 to 19 inches. It falls dominantly in the late autumn through early summer. A winter snowpack of 1 to 3 feet lasting through March is common.
Summers are warm and dry.
The frost free season is 30 to 60 days. These are the tentative Meegero , Zeale and Zeebar series. Each of these soils have greater than 35 percent rock fragments in the particle-size control section. Meegero soils occur intermixed with Monida soils on foothills and mountains. They have mollic epipedons greater than 16 inches thick, lack argillic horizons and have greater than 40 percent calcium carbonate equivalent in the particle-size control section.