[net.travel] California "Fourteeners"

jdb@qubix.UUCP (Jeff Bulf) (02/17/84)

    Just to nit-pick the man from Colorado (Im jealous of course)
not all of Californias 13 14K-ft peaks are in the Sierra Nevada (aka "the
Sierras").

    Mount Shasta, standing by itself between the Sierra and the Cascades,
is in the League with Ranier and Fuji. A world-class holy mountain.

    Mount Whitney, by contrast, is just one bump on a ridge of bumps. It does
not even look like the highest on from some angles.
-- 
	Dr Memory
	...{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!qubix!jdb

donn@sdchema.UUCP (Donn Seeley) (02/19/84)

It certainly is true that most of the 14,000 foot peaks in California
are on the Sierra crest -- just looking at 14,000 foot peaks on my
handy USGS wall map of the area around Mt. Whitney, I can see 9 within
a 50-mile stretch.  It's also true that the peaks are hard to tell
apart: they form one side of a huge fault valley that runs up the
California-Nevada border, called the Owens Valley.  (A very good book
about the area, by the way, is BASIN AND RANGE by John McPhee; it is a
beautiful and thoughtful book for laymen interested in geology, a
rare gem.) From Highway 395, which runs up the valley, the Sierras
appear to be an immense and sometimes monolithic wall.

For what it's worth, here are the peaks I found by looking at the map:

	Mt. Whitney	14,494 ft. (Tallest mountain in the lower 48)
	Mt. Williamson	14,375 ft.
	North Palisade	14,242 ft.
	Mt. Russell	14,086 ft.
	Split Mtn.	14,058 ft.
	Mt. Langley	14,042 ft.
	Middle Palisade	14,040 ft.
	Mt. Tyndall	14,018 ft.
	Mt. Muir	14,015 ft.

I know of one other California peak besides Mt. Shasta which is not in
the Sierras: White Mountain Peak (14,246 ft.).  As its name indicates,
it is in the White Mountains, which are also home to the Bristlecone
Pine Forest.  The White Mountains form part of the eastern wall of the
Owens Valley.  White Mountain Peak doesn't look as high as the Sierra
peaks because it has much less snow on it -- the White Mountains are
in the rain shadow of the Sierras.

Still missing two mountains,

Donn Seeley    UCSD Chemistry Dept. RRCF    ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn