Highest Mountains in United States

Geology and features

Denali is a granitic pluton, mostly pink quartz monzonite, lifted by tectonic pressure from the subduction of the Pacific plate beneath the North American plate; at the same time, the sedimentary material above and around the mountain was stripped away by erosion. The forces that lifted Denali also caused many deep earthquakes in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The Pacific Plate is seismically active beneath Denali, a tectonic region that is known as the "McKinley cluster".

The high topography of Denali is related to the complex structural relationships created by the right-lateral Denali Fault and Denali Fault Bend. The Denali Fault is caused by stresses created by the low-angle subduction of the Yakutat microplate underneath Alaska.

History

The Koyukon Athabaskans, living in the Yukon, Tanana and Kuskokwim basins, were the first Native Americans with access to the flanks of the mountain. A British naval captain and explorer, George Vancouver, is the first European on record to have sighted Denali, when he noted "distant stupendous mountains" while surveying the Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet on May 6, 1794. The Russian explorer Lavrenty Zagoskin explored the Tanana and Kuskokwim rivers in 1843 and 1844, and was likely the first European to sight the mountain from the other side.

William Dickey, a New Hampshire-born resident of Seattle, Washington, who had been digging for gold in the sands of the Susitna River, wrote, after his returning from Alaska, an account in the New York Sun that appeared on January 24, 1897.

Geology

Mount Blackburn represents the heavily eroded core of a shield volcano. Because it is shrouded in permanent ice, its internal structure cannot be determined. It is believed to have a summit caldera, greatly modified by glaciation. The oldest rocks in the area are granites, about 4.2 million years old, representing an intrusive mass. The majority of the mountain is 3.4 million year old granite, intruding between andesite flows. From this it is inferred that a caldera collapse took place between 4.2 and 3.4 million years ago, after which activity ceased.

Description

The mountain's massif is covered almost entirely by icefields and glaciers and is the principal source of ice for the Kennicott Glacier, which flows southeast over 20 miles (32 km) to just above the town of McCarthy. The mountain also contributes a large volume of ice to the north-flowing Nabesna Glacier and the Kuskulana Glacier system.

Mount Blackburn is a large, dramatic peak, with great local relief and independence from higher peaks. Its west face drops over 11,000 ft (3,350 m) to the Kuskulana Glacier in less than 4 horizontal miles (6.4 km). Its other faces drop 8,000–10,000 ft (2,440–3,050 m), all in less than 8 miles (13 km).

Geography

Mount Fairweather is located right above Glacier Bay in the Fairweather Range of the Saint Elias Mountains. Mount Fairweather also marks the northwest extremity of the Alaska Panhandle.

Like many peaks in the St. Elias Mountains, Mount Fairweather has great vertical relief due to its dramatic rise from Glacier Bay. However, due to often inclement weather in the area, this effect is usually obscured with the clouds which often hides the summit from view.

Climbing history

No documented attempt at climbing the mountain had been successful until 1931.

1926 Allen Carpe, Andy Taylor and W.S. Ladd reached 2,890 m (9,480 ft) on the West Ridge, but were forced back due to a steep notch in the ridge that made ferrying supplies very difficult.

1930 Bradford Washburn also made an attempt on the West Ridge but traveling conditions forced a retreat at 2,040 metres (6,690 ft).

1958 Paddy Sherman and 7 other Canadians reached the summit via the SE Ridge on June 26, 1958.

1973 Southwest Ridge, Peter Metcalf, Henry Florschutz, Toby O'Brien and Lincoln Stoller. Summit reached on July 10, 1973.

1981 Southeast Ridge from the ocean, Gary Clark, Kim Grandfield, David Lunn. 19 days from Sea Otter Beach and back, Summit reached on May 31, bivouac in crevasse under summit.

Geography

Mount Whitney's summit is on the Sierra Crest and the Great Basin Divide. It lies near many of the Sierra Nevada's highest peaks. The peak rises dramatically above the Owens Valley, sitting 10,778 feet (3,285 m) or just over 2 mi (3.2 km) above the town of Lone Pine 15 mi (24 km) to the east, in the Owens Valley. It rises more gradually on the west side, lying only about 3,000 feet (914 m) above the John Muir Trail at Guitar Lake.

The mountain is partially dome-shaped, with its famously jagged ridges extending to the sides. Mount Whitney is above the tree line and has an alpine climate and ecology. Very few plants grow near the summit: one example is the sky pilot, a cushion plant that grows low to the ground.

Geology

Whitney's eastern slope is far steeper than its western because the Sierra Nevada is the result of a fault block anchored below the surface to the west and slowly rising on the east.

The rise is caused by a fault system that runs along the Sierra's eastern base, below Mount Whitney. The granite that forms Whitney, part of the Sierra Nevada Batholith, is the same as that of the Alabama Hills thousands of feet lower and to the east. The raising of Whitney (and the downdrop of the Owens Valley) is due to the same geological forces that cause the Basin and Range Province: the crust of much of the intermontane west is slowly being stretched.

Exploration history

In July 1864, the members of the California Geological Survey named the peak, the contiguous United States' highest summit, after Josiah Whitney, the state geologist of California and sponsor of the survey. During the same expedition, geologist Clarence King attempted to climb Whitney from its west side, but stopped just short. In 1871, King returned to climb what he believed to be Whitney, but having taken a different approach, he actually summited nearby Mount Langley. Upon learning of his mistake in 1873, King finally completed his own first ascent of Whitney, but did so a month too late to be first. On August 18, 1873, Charles Begole, A. H. Johnson, and John Lucas, all of nearby Lone Pine, had become the first to reach the summit.

Geography

Mount Elbert is visible to the southwest of Leadville, often snow-capped even in the summer. Many other fourteeners surround Elbert in all directions, and it is very close to central Colorado's Collegiate Peaks. The neighboring Mount Massive, to the north, is the second-highest peak in the Rocky Mountains and the third-highest in the contiguous United States, and La Plata Peak, to the south, is the fifth-highest in the Rockies. The community of Twin Lakes lies at the base of Mount Elbert, Denver is about 130 miles (209 km) to the east, Vail is 50 miles (80 km) to the north, and Aspen is 40 miles (64 km) to the west. Leadville, about 16 miles (26 km) to the northeast, is the nearest large town. Elbert's parent peak is Mount Whitney in California.

Geology

Mount Elbert is part of the Sawatch Range, an uplift of the Laramide Orogeny which separated from the Mosquito Range to the east around 28 million years ago. The tops of this range were heavily glaciated, leaving behind characteristic summit features and other such clues. For example, the base of Elbert on the eastern side exhibits expanses of igneous and metamorphic rocks exposed when the glaciers receded, leaving a lateral moraine. Further up the eastern side there is a large cirque with a small tarn. There are also lakes to both the north and south, Turquoise and Twin Lakes respectively; the Twin Lakes are a result of the natural dam of end moraines, and Turquoise Lake was created by the manmade Sugar Loaf Dam.

Mount Elbert is composed largely of quartzite.

History

Mount Elbert was named by miners in honor of Samuel Hitt Elbert, the governor of the then-Territory of Colorado, because he brokered a treaty in September 1873 with the Ute tribe that opened up more than 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km2) of reservation land to mining and railroad activity. The first recorded ascent of the peak was by H.W. Stuckle in 1874, who was surveying the mountain as part of the Hayden Survey.

Originally measured as 14,433 feet (4,399 m) in height, Mount Elbert's elevation was later adjusted to 14,440 feet (4,400 m) following a re-evaluation of mapped elevations, which sparked protests. The actual change was made in 1988 as a result of the North American Vertical Datum of 1988; it seems the original measurement resulted from the Sea Level Datum of 1929.

Geology

Mount Rainier is a stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc that consists of lava flows, debris flows, and pyroclastic ejecta and flows. Its early volcanic deposits are estimated at more than 840,000 years old and are part of the Lily Formation (about 2.9 million to 840,000 years ago). The early deposits formed a "proto-Rainier" or an ancestral cone before the present-day cone. The present cone is more than 500,000 years old.

The volcano is highly eroded, with glaciers on its slopes, and appears to be made mostly of andesite. Rainier likely once stood even higher than today at about 16,000 ft (4,900 m) before a major debris avalanche and the resulting Osceola Mudflow approximately 5,000 years ago.

History

For thousands of years, the area surrounding Mount Rainier has been inhabited by several Indigenous peoples, who traditionally hunted and gathered animals and plants in Mount Rainier's forests and high elevation meadows. These peoples and their modern-day descendants are represented today by the members of the federally-recognized tribes which surround the mountain, including the Nisqually Indian Tribe, the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, and the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, among others in the area.

The archaeological record of human use of the mountain dates to over 8,500 years before present (BP).

Climate

Mount Rainier's climate is shaped by the interaction of its great elevation with the moisture-laden marine air arriving from the Pacific Ocean roughly 130 miles (210 km) to the west. The mountain rises more than 13,000 feet (4,000 m) above its surroundings directly into the path of the cool-season storm track produced by the Aleutian Low over the sub-polar North Pacific. Extratropical cyclones spawned along this storm track are steered eastward by the polar jet stream toward the Pacific Northwest coast, where the Olympic Mountains intercept and partially exhaust them before the residual systems re-organize over the Puget Sound lowland and encounter the Cascade Range.

Ecology

Mount Rainier's protected status as a national park protects its primeval Cascade ecosystem, providing a stable habitat for many species in the region, including endemic flora and fauna that are unique to the area, such as the Cascade red fox and Mount Rainier lousewort. The ecosystem on the mountain is very diverse, owing to the climate found at different elevations. Scientists track the distinct species found in the forest zone, the subalpine zone, and the alpine zone. They have discovered more than one thousand species of plants and fungi. The mountain is also home to 65 species of mammals, 5 reptiles, 182 birds, 14 amphibians, and 14 species of native fish, in addition to an innumerable amount of invertebrates.

Climate

The summit and the weather station at 12,470 feet (3,800 m) have an alpine tundra climate (Köppen climate classification: ET). Winters are extremely severe, with the peak receiving upwards of 13 feet (400 cm) of snow annually.

Geology

About 593,000 years ago, andesitic lavas erupted in what is now Mount Shasta's western flank near McBride Spring. Over time, an ancestral Mount Shasta stratovolcano was built to a large but unknown height; sometime between 300,000 and 360,000 years ago the entire north side of the volcano collapsed, creating an enormous landslide or debris avalanche, 6.5 mi3 (27 km3) in volume. The slide flowed northwestward into Shasta Valley, where the Shasta River now cuts through the 28-mile-long (45 km) flow.

What remains of the oldest of Mount Shasta's four cones is exposed at Sargents Ridge on the south side of the mountain. Lavas from the Sargents Ridge vent cover the Everitt Hill shield at Mount Shasta's southern foot.

History

The first written record and description was made on May 20, 1817, by Spaniard Narciso Durán, a member of the Luis Antonio Argüello expedition into the upper areas of the Sacramento River Valley, who wrote "At about ten leagues to the northwest of this place we saw the very high hill called by soldiers that went near its slope Jesus Maria, It is entirely covered with snow." Peter Skene Ogden (a leader of a Hudson's Bay Company trapping brigade) in 1826 recorded sighting the mountain, and in 1827, the name "Sasty" or "Sastise" was given to nearby Mount McLoughlin by Ogden. An 1839 map by David Burr lists the mountain as Rogers Peak.

Climate

While regular snowfall measurements are rare for the Mount Shasta's slopes, snowpack and water content records have been compiled regularly and it is estimated that around timberline it receives an average of 450-500 inches of snow each winter. Shasta usually does not receive as much snowfall as some other Cascade Volcanoes (such a Rainier, Baker and Lassen) due to its location in the rain shadow of the Klamath Mountains, which reach over 9000 ft and are directly to the west and southwest, right in the main storm track.

Description

The origin of the name "Shasta" is vague, either derived from a people of a name like it or otherwise garbled by early Westerners. Mount Shasta is connected to its satellite cone of Shastina, and together they dominate the landscape. Shasta rises abruptly to tower nearly 9,761 feet (3,000 m) above its surroundings. On a clear winter day, the mountain can be seen from the floor of the Central Valley 140 miles (230 km) to the south. The mountain has attracted the attention of poets, authors, and presidents.

The mountain consists of four overlapping dormant volcanic cones that have built a complex shape, including the main summit and the prominent and visibly conical satellite cone of 12,330 ft (3,760 m) Shastina.

Overview

Geographically, Gannett Peak is the highest point in the Central Rockies, the largely continuous chain of mountains occupying the states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. Named in 1906 for American geographer Henry Gannett, the peak is also the high point of the Wind River Range. The mountain slopes are located in both Bridger-Teton National Forest and Shoshone National Forest.

Gannett is the highest peak within what is better known as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and is the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains outside of Colorado. The 896-acre (363 ha) Gannett Glacier, which is likely the largest single glacier in the American portion of the Rocky Mountains, extends across the northern slopes of the mountain.

Geology

Mauna Kea is one of five volcanoes that form the island of Hawaiʻi, the largest and youngest island of the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain. Of these five hotspot volcanoes, Mauna Kea is the fourth oldest and fourth most active. It began as a preshield volcano driven by the Hawaiʻi hotspot around one million years ago, and became exceptionally active during its shield stage until 500,000 years ago. Mauna Kea entered its quieter post-shield stage 250,000 to 200,000 years ago, and is currently active, having last erupted between 4,500 and 6,000 years ago. Mauna Kea does not have a visible summit caldera, but contains a number of small cinder and pumice cones near its summit. A former summit caldera may have been filled and buried by later summit eruption deposits.

Human history

The first Ancient Hawaiians to arrive on Hawaiʻi island lived along the shores, where food and water were plentiful. Settlement expanded inland to the Mauna Loa – Mauna Kea region in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Archaeological evidence suggests that these regions were used for hunting, collecting stone material, and possibly for spiritual reasons or for astronomical or navigational observations. The mountain's plentiful forest provided plants and animals for food and raw materials for shelter. Flightless birds that had previously known no predators became a staple food source.

Early settlement of the Hawaiian islands led to major changes to local ecosystems and many extinctions, particularly amongst bird species.

Climate

Mauna Kea has an alpine climate (ET). Due to the influence of its tropical latitude, temperature swings are very low. Frosts are common year round, but the average monthly temperature remains above freezing throughout the year.

Snow may fall at an altitude of 11,000 feet (3,353 m) and above in any month, but occurs most often from October to April.

A weather station was operated from 1972 to 1982; however, only 33 months within this period have temperature records. Many years only have data for two months. The temperatures presented below are smoothed averages, not the raw numbers recorded by NOAA.

Ecology

Hawaiʻi's geographical isolation strongly influences its ecology. Remote islands like Hawaiʻi have a large number of species that are found nowhere else (see Endemism in the Hawaiian Islands). The remoteness resulted in evolutionary lines distinct from those elsewhere and isolated these endemic species from external biotic influence, and also makes them especially vulnerable to extinction and the effects of invasive species. In addition the ecosystems of Hawaiʻi are under threat from human development including the clearing of land for agriculture; an estimated third of the island's endemic species have already been wiped out.

Geography

Grand Teton, at 13,775 feet (4,199 m), is the highest point of the Teton Range, a subrange of the Rocky Mountains, which extend from northern British Columbia to northern New Mexico. It is the second highest peak in the U.S. state of Wyoming after Gannett Peak, the parent peak. The mountain is entirely within the Snake River drainage basin, which it feeds by several local creeks and glaciers.

It is considered part of the Cathedral Group next to Teewinot Mountain and Mount Owen (Wyoming) and Middle Teton. Below its north face is Teton Glacier.

The mountain began its uplift 9 million years ago, during the Miocene. Several periods of glaciation have carved Grand Teton and the other peaks of the range into their current shapes.

History

Grand Teton's name was first recorded as Mount Hayden by the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition of 1870. However, the name "the Grand Teton" had early currency. The edition of April, 1901 of the USGS 1:125,000 quadrangle map of the area shows "Grand Teton" as the name of the peak. A United States National Park named "Grand Teton National Park" was established by law in 1929. By 1931, the name Grand Teton Peak was in such common usage that it was recognized by the USGS Board on Geographic Names. Another shift in usage led the Board to shorten the name on maps to Grand Teton in 1970.

Climate

Mount Peale has an alpine dry-summer subarctic climate (Dsc) with cold, snowy winters with temperatures under freezing all day, and mild and moderately rainy summers with cool nights. The large amount of rain for Utah, as well as the cold overall temperatures are a result of the mountain's altitude of over 12000 ft.

Due to the cold climate, temperatures aren't consistently above freezing until July, and snow often remains on the mountain until then.

Geography

The majority of the Sierra Blanca range is within the Lincoln National Forest, and part of this is protected as the White Mountain Wilderness Area. Much of the southern half of the range, including the summit of Sierra Blanca Peak, is within the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. The peak is sacred to the Mescalero Apache, and requires a permit from the tribe for access. To the south, across the valley of the Rio Tularosa, lie the Sacramento Mountains. To the north is Carrizozo Mountain, and to the northeast lie the Capitan Mountains. On the west side, the range rises high above the Tularosa Basin.

Climate

The summit of Mount Hood has a typical dry-summer alpine climate (Köppen: ETs), with temperatures below 32 °F (0 °C) eight months of the year and no month with an average temperature above 50 °F (10 °C). Even in the hottest months, nightly average temperatures often dip below 32 °F (0 °C), and frost occurs almost every day, even in summer or the hottest time of year. Otherwise, all months have a dew point below 32 °F (0 °C).

Geology

The present-day cone of Mount Baker is relatively young, perhaps less than 100,000 years old. The volcano sits atop a similar older volcanic cone called Black Buttes, which was active between 500,000 and 300,000 years ago.

Much of Mount Baker's earlier geological record eroded away during the last ice age (which culminated 15,000–20,000 years ago), by thick ice sheets that filled the valleys and surrounded the volcano. In the last 14,000 years, the area around the mountain has been largely ice-free, but the mountain itself remains heavily covered with snow and ice.

Isolated ridges of lava and hydrothermally altered rock, especially in the area of Sherman Crater, are exposed between glaciers on the upper flanks of the volcano; the lower flanks are steep and heavily vegetated.

Climbing history

Edmund Thomas Coleman, an Englishman who resided in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada and a veteran of the Alps, made the first attempt to ascend the mountain in 1866. He chose a route via the Skagit River, but was forced to turn back when local Native Americans refused him passage.

Later that same year, Coleman recruited Whatcom County settlers Edward Eldridge, John Bennett, and John Tennant to aid him in his second attempt to scale the mountain. After approaching via the North Fork of the Nooksack River, the party navigated through what is now known as Coleman Glacier and ascended to within several hundred feet of the summit before turning back in the face of an "overhanging cornice of ice" and threatening weather. Coleman later returned to the mountain after two years.

History

Prior to European colonization, the Nooksack and Upper Skagit peoples hunted and gathered on the north and south faces of the mountain.

For the Nooksack, Mount Baker is extremely important in traditional religious beliefs, and was historically a great source of wealth (in the form of mountain goat wool, a highly prized commodity) and food. Nooksack families would travel via the North Fork (Nooksack: Chuw7álich) or Middle Fork (Nooksack: Nuxwt'íqw'em) of the Nooksack River to the alpine meadows where they would set up temporary summer camps to dry picked berries and meat. From those camps, people would disperse across the mountain to pick berries or hunt. The high slopes of the mountain were prime territory for hunting deer, elk, mountain goat, bear, marmot, and grouse.

Geology

The volcano is about 3.7 miles (6.0 km) in diameter at its base with a rough volume of 7.2 to 8.4 mi3 (30–35 km3). The sides of the upper cone are relatively steep (in comparison to volcanoes in general). Made up of pyroclastic flow deposits and lava flows, and resting on Mesozoic era rocks of the Aleutian Mountain Range batholith, the mountain has been somewhat weathered by movement of several glaciers that reside on it. The current main vent is on the north side of the crater by the head of the Drift glacier. Also present on the mountain are Holocene lahar deposits that extend as far as the Cook Inlet. This mountain has produced andesite, basalt and dacite, with relatively silicic andesite dominant in recent eruptions.

Human history

The first human inhabitants in the area around Mount Redoubt arrived 14,000 years ago, after the end of the last ice age. While limited data exists, archaeologists found tools at high elevations in the area. The tools were thought to be used by nomadic hunters.

The Denaʼina people settled in the area before the Little Ice Age began in 1350 AD. The Denaʼina may have first settled along the coast and were pushed to inland by Russian settlement, although exact details are unknown. By 1909, measles and flu epidemics caused the Denaʼina to abandon their town near Lake Clark, approximately 50 miles east of Mount Redoubt.

Climate

The climate of a location on any mountain in strongly dependent on its elevation and microclimate. The summit of Mount Redoubt has an ice cap climate under the Köppen climate classification, the slopes have a tundra climate, while the valleys and coastal areas have a subarctic climate. The weather along the coast of the Cook Inlet is often foggy and wet, with total annual precipitation around 40 to 80 in (1,000 to 2,000 mm).

Geology

Haleakalā started forming 2 million years ago and built a massive shield volcano along 3 rift zones that was once broken by a central caldera. Haleakalā is currently in the Rejuvenated Stage of Volcanism and has produced numerous eruptions in the last 30,000 years, including ten eruptions in the past 1,000 years and at least one in the last 400–600 years, making it the only active volcano on the island of Maui. This volcanic activity has been along two rift zones: the southwest and east. These two rift zones together form an arc that extends from La Perouse Bay on the southwest, through the Haleakalā Crater, and to Hāna to the east.

History

Early Hawaiians applied the name Haleakalā ("house of the sun") to the general mountain. Haleakalā is also the name of a peak on the southwestern edge of Kaupō Gap. In Hawaiian folklore, the depression (crater) at the summit of Haleakalā was home to the grandmother of the demigod Māui. According to the legend, Māui's grandmother helped him capture the sun and force it to slow its journey across the sky in order to lengthen the day.

Climate

Haleakalā's summit experiences a cold-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen classification Csc), one of the few locations in the world with this climate type. The Haleakalā Ranger station, at a lower elevation, lies in the subtropical highland (Cfb, bordering on Csb if the 40 millimetres (1.6 in) threshold is used) climate zone. It is in hardiness zone 10a.

Geography

The summit rises to an elevation of 9,037 feet (2,754 m), and is the highest point in Trinity County, the ninth most prominent peak in California, and the highest summit west of Interstate 5 in the United States.

The peak is west of Mount Shasta City and the massive Mount Shasta volcano. It is protected within the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

The mountain receives heavy snowfall during the winter due to its altitude.

The mountain is named in honor of Olive Paddock Eddy, who is mistakenly held to be the first woman to climb Mount Shasta. She was 8 months pregnant at the time that she is credited with climbing the volcano. Harriet Catherine Eddy was actually the first woman to summit the mountain. Nelson Harvey Eddy arrived in the area from New York State in 1856.

Climate

Based on the Köppen climate classification, Devils Paw is located in a subpolar oceanic climate zone, with long, cold, snowy winters, and cool summers. Temperatures can drop below −20 °C with wind chill factors below −30 °C.

Geology

Mount Katmai is one of five vents encircling the Novarupta volcano, source of the VEI 6 eruption and associated voluminous pyroclastic flows in 1912.

Katmai consists chiefly of lava flows, pyroclastic rocks, and non-welded to agglutinated air fall. The Quaternary volcanic rocks at Katmai and adjacent cones are less than 5,000 ft (1,500 m) thick. Much of the volcano is mantled by snow and ice and several valley glaciers radiate out from the flanks.

Katmai volcano is built on the sedimentary rocks of the Naknek Formation of Late Jurassic age, which are exposed just west of the caldera rim at an elevation of about 5,000 feet (1,520 m), as well as north and southeast of the crater.

Geography

The peak is the highest mountain in the United States east of the Mississippi River, and the highest in all of eastern North America south of the Arctic Cordillera. Barbeau Peak is higher, but it is located in the very remote Canadian Arctic. The nearest higher peaks are in the Black Hills of South Dakota and the highland foothills of Colorado. The mountain's topographic isolation is calculated from the nearest discernible single higher point: Lone Butte, which is 1,189 miles (1,913 km) away, in southeastern Colorado.

History

Mount Mitchell was the highest mountain of the United States from 1789 until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 when Mount Elbert became the highest mountain claimed by the United States. Mount Mitchell was also the most isolated peak in the United States from 1789 until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 when Mount Whitney became the most isolated.

The Cherokee people, who long occupied this area as part of their homeland, called the mountain Attakulla. European-American settlers first called the mountain Black Dome for its rounded shape. They later named it after Elisha Mitchell, a professor at the University of North Carolina, who first explored the Black Mountain region in 1835.

Geology

Kuwohi is part of a geological formation known as the Copperhill Formation. It consists predominately of massive, coarse-grained metagreywacke and metaconglomerate. The lower northern flanks of Kuwohi are underlain by thick layers of sulfidic, quartz-garnet-muscovite phyllite and schist, which occur within the metagraywackes and metaconglomerates. Adjacent to and south of its summit, thin, southward-dipping, and discontinuous beds of garnetiferous (locally graphitic and sulfidic) metasiltstone occur within the Copperhill Formation.

The Copperhill Formation is part of the greater Ocoee Supergroup, a body of clastic metasedimentary rocks formed 560 million years ago. They unconformably lie upon Precambrian granitic and gneissic rocks.

History

The Cherokee name for the mountain is Kuwahi (ᎫᏩᎯ) or Kuwohi (ᎫᏬᎯ), translating to 'mulberry place'. According to a Cherokee myth recorded by ethnologist James Mooney in the late 19th century, the mountain was the home of the White Bear, the great chief of all bears, and the location of one of the bears' council houses. The enchanted lake of Ataga'hi ("Gall Place"), the waters of which could cure wounded bears, was believed by the Cherokee to be located somewhere between Kuwohi and the headwaters of the Oconaluftee River to the east.

In 1789, an act passed by the North Carolina legislature ceded what is now Tennessee to the federal government.

Climate

The climate of the summit of Kuwohi is humid continental (Köppen Dfb). The surrounding areas have an oceanic (Köppen Cfb) climate, as does most of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As with much of the southern Blue Ridge, the area qualifies as part of the Appalachian Temperate Rainforest.

Description

Kuwohi has two subpeaks: 6,560-foot (2,000 m) Mount Buckley to the west; and 6,400-foot (1,950 m) Mount Love to the east. The headwaters of several substantial streams are located on the slopes of Kuwohi, including Little River on the north slope, and Forney Creek and Noland Creek, both of which are tributaries of the Tuckasegee River, on the south slope. The mountain is located entirely within the watershed of the Tennessee River.

Kuwohi is protected as part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. A paved road connects it to U.S. Highway 441 at Newfound Gap 6.7 miles (10.8 km) away.

A 45-foot (14 m) tall concrete observation tower at the summit, built in 1959 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, offers a panoramic view of the mountains.

History

Before European settlers arrived in the region, the mountain was known by various indigenous peoples as Kodaak Wadjo (Western Abnaki: Kôttak-Wajo, lit. 'so-hidden mountain', IPA: [kɔ̃t.tɑk wɑd͡zʊ]) or Agiochook or Agiocochook ("the place of the Great Spirit" or "the place of the Concealed One"). The Algonquians called the summit Waumbik, "white rocks". The Abenaki people inhabiting the region at the time of European contact believed that the tops of mountains were the dwelling place of the gods and did not climb them out of religious deference to their sanctity.

In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazzano became the first European to mention the mountain. Viewing it from the Atlantic Ocean, he described what he saw as "high interior mountains".

Climate

The summit station of Mount Washington has an alpine climate or tundra climate (Köppen ETH), although it receives an extremely high amount of precipitation, atypical for most regions with such cold weather. However, elevations just beneath treeline have a subalpine climate (Köppen Dfc) which eventually transitions to a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb) near the mountain's base and the surrounding lower elevations.

The weather of Mount Washington is notoriously erratic. This is partly due to the convergence of several storm tracks, mainly from the Atlantic to the south, the Gulf region and the Pacific Northwest. The vertical rise of the Presidential Range, combined with its north–south orientation, makes it a significant barrier to westerly winds.

Geology

The Mount Rogers area contains a unique record of the geohistory of Virginia. There is evidence from the rocks that volcanoes were part of the landscape. Roughly 760 million years ago, rift-related (divergent) volcanoes erupted along the axis of what later became the Appalachians, and one remnant of that volcanic zone, with its volcanic rocks, still can be seen at Mount Rogers. Massive rhyolite lava flows erupted at the mountain during the Precambrian rifting event. Mount Rogers is also the only place in Virginia that preserves evidence of ancient Proterozoic glaciation.

Geography

Katahdin is in Baxter State Park, which is in east central Piscataquis County, about 25 mi (40 km) northwest of Millinocket. It is on the drainage divide between the East and West branches of the Penobscot River.

The mountain massif itself consists of multiple peaks. Baxter Peak is the tallest, and is the official northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. South Peak and Pamola Peak are southeast and east of Baxter Peak, respectively, along the Knife Edge ridgeline, while Hamlin Peak lies to the north.

There is low lake country to the south and west of Katahdin, and lowlands extending east to the Atlantic and north to the Saint Lawrence River in Canada.

Geology

Katahdin is part of a laccolith that formed in the Acadian orogeny when an island arc collided with eastern North America approximately 400 million years ago. On the sides of Katahdin are four glacial cirques carved into the granite by alpine glaciers and in these cirques behind moraines and eskers are several ponds.

In Baxter State Park, many outcrops of sedimentary rocks have striations, whereas the Granite of Katahdin and the Rhyolite of Traveler Mountain have weathered surfaces on which striations are commonly not preserved. Bedrock surfaces of igneous rocks which were buried by glacial sediments and only recently exposed have well preserved striations, as in the vicinity of Ripogenus Dam.

Human history

Katahdin is referred to 60 years after Field's climb of Agiokochuk (Mount Washington) in the writings of John Gyles, a teenage colonist who was captured near Portland, Maine, in 1689 by the Abenaki. While in the company of Abenaki hunting parties, he traveled up and down several Maine rivers including both branches of the Penobscot, passing close to "Teddon". He remarked that it was higher than the White Hills above the Saco River.

Among some Native Americans, Katahdin was believed to be the home of the storm god Pamola, and thus an area to be avoided.

The first recorded climb of "Catahrdin" was by Massachusetts surveyors Zackery Adley and Charles Turner, Jr. in August 1804.

Geography

Spruce Mountain lies mostly within the Spruce Knob–Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, a U.S. National Recreation Area (NRA) located within the Monongahela National Forest (MNF) in Pendleton County. It extends from the vicinity of Onego in the north to near Cherry Grove in the south. Brushy Run separates Timber Ridge — a spur of the main mountain — to the east. The ridgelines of Spruce Mountain and Timber Ridge continue to the north of US Route 33 as Hoffman Ridge and Smith Mountain, respectively. To the south (south of West Virginia 28) the line continues as Big Mountain.

Prominent peaks of Spruce Mountain, north to south, are Horse Rock (4,536 ft; 1,383 m), Spruce Mountain Peak (4,586 ft; 1,398 m), Picea Benchmark (4,613 ft; 1,406 m), and Spruce Knob itself.

Geology

Like the rest of this part of the Appalachian Mountains, Spruce Knob began to form with the breakup of Pangea I. The African Plate separated from the North American Plate opening the Proto-Atlantic Ocean. The North American Plate stretched and thinned, allowing it to backfill with a shallow inland sea. About 50 million years later, with the Taconic Orogeny, the two plates reversed course and began to move towards each other. Mid-ocean subduction created a volcanic arc (now known as the Blue Ridge Mountains) which eventually collided with the North American Plate. The arc fused onto the continent and the land to the west was uplifted.

Climate

Spruce Knob's climate can be classified as cold continental or highland. Summers are cool and often damp, with thunderstorms common both in spring and summer. Winters are cold and snowy, with an average of around 180 inches (4.6 m) of annual snowfall leaving the summit access road often impassible between October and April. Blizzard conditions can develop in minutes behind cold frontal passages and last days with upslope snowfall continuing with northwest winds, making travel on the mountain dangerous during the colder months. This mountain can receive high winds year-round; red spruce deformed by constant exposure to strong westerly winds are scattered across its rocky ridges.

Ecology

As with almost the entirety of the MNF, most of the original Spruce Mountain upland forest was completely denuded by logging around the turn of the 20th century and now consists of second- or third-growth forest. (The only documented exception to this on the mountain is the 17-acre (69,000 m2) North Spruce Mountain Old Growth Site.) The present second-growth forest of Spruce Mountain is characterized by a dominance of sugar maple (Acer saccharum), American beech (Fagus grandifolia), and yellow birch (Betula lutea).

Geology

Unlike many Caribbean mountains, Cerro de Punta is not a volcano but simply the highest point in the Cordillera Central. Cordillera Central is the central mountain range that divides the island by running in an east–west fashion.

Location

The mountain is part of the Cordillera Central and is located on the border between the municipalities of Ponce and Jayuya. The access road to the point closest to the highest elevation is from PR-143 on the borders of those municipalities. It is located within the boundaries of the Toro Negro State Forest and Nature Reserve, and it has been described as "an alpine runt." The mountain is just north of east-to-westbound Route 143. It is located at coordinates 18.172458 and -66.591839W. The nearest populated place to Cerro de Punta is Urbanización Vega Linda, located 3.3 miles (5.3 km) away.

Geography

Mount Marcy is the highest point in New York, the highest peak in the Adirondack Mountains, and the highest of the Adirondack High Peaks, with an elevation of 5,343.1 feet (1,628.6 m). The mountain is located in the High Peaks Wilderness Area, in the town of Keene in Essex County. Three shorter peaks are located on the flanks of Marcy: Gray Peak 0.6 miles (0.97 km) to the west, Little Marcy 0.8 miles (1.3 km) to the northeast, and an unnamed peak 1.2 miles (1.9 km) to the northwest. Lake Tear of the Clouds, at the col between Mounts Marcy and Skylight, is often cited as the highest source of the Hudson River. Between Mount Marcy and Mount Haystack lies Panther Gorge.

History

The earliest recorded ascent of Mount Marcy was on August 5, 1837, by a large party led by state geologist Ebenezer Emmons measuring the highest peaks in the region. Interest in recreational climbs of the mountain increased after 1849, when mountain guide Orson Schofield Phelps moved to the area. Phelps would ascend the mountain over 100 times and cut the first two trails to the peak.

Surveying teams led by Verplanck Colvin made several important ascents of Mount Marcy in the 1870s. Colvin's team measured the mountain's elevation by leveling in 1875, and a signal tower was erected at the summit in 1877. After observing the effects of deforestation during his travels in the Adirondacks, Colvin proposed the creation of a park in the mountains.

Ecology

The lower slopes of Mount Marcy are covered by hardwood forests containing American beech, sugar maple, and yellow birch trees. The upper slopes contain balsam fir and red spruce. Above an elevation of 4,200 feet (1,300 m), only the balsam fir grows. The cold and windy climate near the summit creates a krummholz zone with short, crooked trees and large areas of exposed rock where no plants can take root, although lichens will grow on the rocks.

About 18 acres (7.3 hectares) near the summit is covered by alpine tundra vegetation where trees cannot grow, a remnant of the tundra ecosystem which covered the entire region at the end of the last ice age and retreated uphill as the climate warmed.

Background

The Klondike Gold Rush began on August 16, 1896, on Bonanza Creek, near Dawson, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of the Alaskan border.

The Chilkoot Trail is reported to have spanned between 28 and 33 miles (45 and 53 km) from sea level at Dyea, Alaska, to Lake Bennett, British Columbia, elevation 2602 ft. (642 m).

The Chilkoot Pass was an important milestone that travellers had to conquer in order to reach the Klondike. The travellers were called 'stampeders', and some had earlier sought the riches of the 1889 gold rush in Alaska.

To be allowed to enter the Klondike and take part in the gold rush, Canadian officials required that stampeders take one ton of provisions with them, to try to ensure they were prepared to survive on the frontier.

Geology

As the South American plate collided with the North American plate during the late Paleozoic, a major foreland basin, the Arkoma Basin, developed north of the Ouachita Mountains. Small grains of sediment that had filled the Arkoma Basin were compacted and cemented into sedimentary rock. As the land rose above sea level, small streams developed that eventually merged into the Arkansas River. After millions of years of erosion, synclines like Mount Magazine have become the most positive topographic features; this phenomenon is the result of the rapid weathering of shales once sandstones were breached on the flanks of surrounding anticlines.

Mount Magazine is a broad mesa composed of Pennsylvanian sedimentary rocks deposited in various shallow-water environments.

Climate

The climate is very different from the typical climate of Arkansas state as temperatures remain 10 degrees cooler than normal temperatures in the valleys. The annual average temperature is 56 °F. The park gets 54 inches of rainfall every year, and due to the low clouds, there is fog and limited visibility all year for eight days each month.

The summer temperature very rarely reaches 100 degrees Fahrenheit on the mountaintop and the hottest average temperature during the summer in the park is 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

The mountain has limited forest due to the harsh weather during the wintertime. Normal conditions like frost, sleet, hail, snow, and freezing rain can cause the limbs of trees to snap.

Location

Mount Magazine is located due north of Blue Mountain Lake in Logan County, Arkansas, approximately 45 mi (72 km) east of the Arkansas-Oklahoma border. The most scenic route to the top is a 10 mi (16 km) drive along Highway 309 (also known as the Mount Magazine Scenic Byway) from Havana.

Physiographically, Mount Magazine is part of the Frontal Ouachita Mountains, and is part of the Arkansas River Valley ecoregion. It lies within a southern extension of the Ozark National Forest close to the Ouachita National Forest.