Iztaccihuatl
Iztaccíhuatl, is a 5,230 m dormant volcanic mountain in Mexico located on the border between the State of Mexico and Puebla. It is the nation's third highest, after Popocatépetl 5,426 m; the name "Iztaccíhuatl" is Nahuatl for "White woman", reflecting the four individual snow-capped peaks which depict the head, chest and feet of a sleeping female when seen from east or west. Iztaccíhuatl is to the north of Popocatépetl, to which it is connected by the high altitude Paso de Cortés. Depending on atmospheric conditions Iztaccíhuatl is visible much of the year from Mexico City some 70 km to the northwest; the first recorded ascent was made in 1889, though archaeological evidence suggests the Aztecs and previous cultures climbed it previously. It is the lowest peak containing permanent snow and glaciers in Mexico; the summit ridge of the massive 450 km3 volcano is a series of overlapping cones constructed along a NNW-SSE line to the south of the Pleistocene Llano Grande caldera. There have been andesitic and dacitic Pleistocene and Holocene eruptions from vents at or near the summit.
Areas near the El Pecho summit vent are covered in flows and tuff beds post-dating glaciation 11,000 years ago. The most recent vents are at El Pecho and a depression at 5,100 m along the summit ridge midway between El Pecho and Los Pies. In Aztec mythology, Iztaccíhuatl was a princess who fell in love with one of her father's warriors, Popocatépetl; the emperor sent Popocatépetl to war in Oaxaca, promising him Iztaccíhuatl as his wife when he returned. Iztaccíhuatl was falsely told that Popocatépetl had died in battle, believing the news, she died of grief; when Popocatépetl returned to find his love dead, he took her body to a spot outside Tenochtitlan and kneeled by her grave. The gods changed them into mountains. Iztaccíhuatl's mountain is called "White Woman" because it resembles a woman lying on her back, is covered with snow — the peak is sometimes nicknamed La Mujer Dormida, "The Sleeping Woman". Popocatépetl became an active volcano, raining fire on Earth in blind rage at the loss of his beloved.
Iztaccihuatl is listed at 5,286 m. SRTM data and the Mexican national mapping survey assert that a range of 5,220 to 5,230 m is more accurate; the Global Volcanism Program cites 5,230 m. List of mountain peaks of North America List of mountain peaks of Mexico List of volcanoes in Mexico List of Ultras of Mexico Iztaccíhuatl - Volcano World Iztaccíhuatl - Ski Mountaineer Iztaccíhuatl - Peakware World Mountain Encyclopedia Iztaccíhuatl - Stamps Legend of The Sleeping Lady and Smoking Mountain
Owens Valley
Owens Valley is the now-arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States, to the east of the Sierra Nevada and west of the White Mountains and Inyo Mountains on the west edge of the Great Basin. The mountain peaks on either side reach above 14,000 feet in elevation, while the floor of the Owens Valley is about 4,000 feet, making the valley one of the deepest in the United States; the Sierra Nevada casts the valley in a rain shadow, which makes Owens Valley "the Land of Little Rain." The bed of Owens Lake, now a predominantly dry endorheic alkali flat, sits on the southern end of the valley. The valley provides water to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the source of one-third of the water for Los Angeles, is infamous as the scene of one of the fiercest and longest-running episodes of the California Water Wars; these episodes inspired aspects of the 1974 film Chinatown. As well, the now-arid nature of the valley is due to LADWP depleting the water of the region. For example, Owens Lake was emptied by 1926, only 13 years after LA began diverting water.
Towns in the Owens Valley include Bishop, Lone Pine and Big Pine. The major road in the Owens Valley is U. S. Route 395. About three million years ago, the Sierra Nevada Fault and the White Mountains Fault systems became active with repeated episodes of slip earthquakes producing the impressive relief of the eastern Sierra Nevada and White Mountain escarpments that bound the northern Owens Valley-Mono Basin region. Owens Valley is a graben—a downdropped block of land between two vertical faults—the westernmost in the Basin and Range Province, it is part of a trough which extends from Oregon to Death Valley called the Walker Lane. The western flank of much of the valley has large moraines coming off the Sierra Nevada; these unsorted piles of rock and dust were pushed to where they are by glaciers during the last ice age. An excellent example of a moraine is on State Route 168; this graben was formed by a long series of earthquakes, such as the 1872 Lone Pine earthquake, that have moved the graben down and helped move the Sierra Nevada up.
The graben is much larger. The topmost part of this escarpment is exposed at Alabama Hills; the Owens Valley has many mini-volcanoes, such as Crater Mountain in the Big Pine volcanic field. Smaller versions of the Devils Postpile, can be found, by Little Lake; the valley contains plants adapted to alkali flat habitat. One of these, the Owens Valley checkerbloom, is endemic to Owens Valley; the valley was inhabited in late prehistoric times by the Timbisha in the extreme south end around Owens Lake and by the Mono tribe in the central and northern portions of the valley. The Timbisha speak the Timbisha language, classified in the Numic branch of Uto-Aztecan language family; the closest related languages are Comanche. The Eastern Mono speak a dialect of the Mono language, Numic but is more related to Northern Paiute; the Timbisha presently live in Death Valley at Furnace Creek although most families have summer homes in the Lone Pine colony. The Eastern Mono live in several colonies from Lone Pine to Bishop.
Trade between Native Americans of the Owens Valley and coastal tribes such as the Chumash has been indicated by the archaeological record. On May 1, 1834, Joseph R. Walker entered Owens Valley at the mouth of Walker Pass. Walker and his group of 52 men traveled up the valley on their way back to the Humboldt Sink, back up the Humboldt River to the Rocky Mountains. In 1845, John C. Fremont named the Owens valley and lake for Richard Owens, one of his guides. Camp Independence was established on Oak Creek nearby modern Independence, California, on July 4, 1862, during the Owens Valley Indian War. From 1942 to 1945, during World War II, the first Japanese American Internment camp operated in the valley at Manzanar near Independence, California. In the early 20th century, the valley became the scene of a struggle between local residents and the city of Los Angeles over water rights. William Mulholland, superintendent of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, planned the 223-mile Los Angeles Aqueduct, completed in 1913, which diverted water from the Owens River.
The water rights were acquired in a deceitful manner splitting water cooperatives and pitting neighbors against one another. In 1924, local farmers were fed up with the purchases and erupted in violence, sabotaging parts of the water system. Los Angeles acquired a large portion of the water rights to over 300,000 acres of land in the valley completely diverting the inflows of water away from Owens Lake. Gary Libecap of the University of California, Santa Barbara observed that the price that Los Angeles was willing to pay to other water sources per acre-foot of water was far higher than what the farmers received. Farmers who resisted the pressure from Los Angeles until 1930 received the highest price for their land. However, the sale of their land brought the farmers more income than if they had kept the land for farming and ranching. None of the sales were made under threat of eminent domain; as a result of these acquisitions, the lake subsequently dried up complet
Normal route
A normal route or normal way is the most used route for ascending and descending a mountain peak. It is the simplest route. In the Alps, routes are classed in the following ways, based on their waymarking and upkeep: Footpaths Hiking trails Mountain trails Alpine routes Climbing routes and High Alpine routes in combined rock and ice terrain, graded by difficultySometimes the normal route is not the easiest ascent to the summit, but just the one, most used. There may be technically easier variations; this is the case on the Watzmannfrau, the Hochkalter and Mount Everest. There may be many reasons these easier options are less well-used: the simplest route is less well known than the normal route; the technically easiest route is more arduous than another and is therefore used on the descent. The technically easiest route carries a much higher risk of e.g. rockfalls or avalanche and is therefore avoided in favour of a more difficult route. The technically easier route requires a complicated or long approach march, or all access may be banned via one country.
The term tourist route may sometimes be applied by those wishing to suggest that other routes up a mountain are somehow more "worthy". This belittling of the "normal route" therefore maintains a distinction between those perceiving themselves as serious mountaineers who disparage the incursion of tourist climbers into their domain
California
California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents, California is the most populous U. S. the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento; the Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, the country's second most populous, after New York City. California has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, its largest county by area, San Bernardino County; the City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. California's $3.0 trillion economy is larger than that of any other state, larger than those of Texas and Florida combined, the largest sub-national economy in the world. If it were a country, California would be the 5th largest economy in the world, the 36th most populous as of 2017.
The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and third-largest urban economies, after the New York metropolitan area. The San Francisco Bay Area PSA had the nation's highest GDP per capita in 2017 among large PSAs, is home to three of the world's ten largest companies by market capitalization and four of the world's ten richest people. California is considered a global trendsetter in popular culture, innovation and politics, it is considered the origin of the American film industry, the hippie counterculture, fast food, the Internet, the personal computer, among others. The San Francisco Bay Area and the Greater Los Angeles Area are seen as global centers of the technology and entertainment industries, respectively. California has a diverse economy: 58% of the state's economy is centered on finance, real estate services and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5% of the state's economy, California's agriculture industry has the highest output of any U.
S. state. California is bordered by Oregon to the north and Arizona to the east, the Mexican state of Baja California to the south; the state's diverse geography ranges from the Pacific Coast in the west to the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the east, from the redwood–Douglas fir forests in the northwest to the Mojave Desert in the southeast. The Central Valley, a major agricultural area, dominates the state's center. Although California is well-known for its warm Mediterranean climate, the large size of the state results in climates that vary from moist temperate rainforest in the north to arid desert in the interior, as well as snowy alpine in the mountains. Over time and wildfires have become more pervasive features. What is now California was first settled by various Native Californian tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries; the Spanish Empire claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its successful war for independence but was ceded to the United States in 1848 after the Mexican–American War.
The western portion of Alta California was organized and admitted as the 31st state on September 9, 1850. The California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom; the word California referred to the Baja California Peninsula of Mexico. The name derived from the mythical island California in the fictional story of Queen Calafia, as recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo; this work was the fifth in a popular Spanish chivalric romance series that began with Amadis de Gaula. Queen Calafia's kingdom was said to be a remote land rich in gold and pearls, inhabited by beautiful black women who wore gold armor and lived like Amazons, as well as griffins and other strange beasts. In the fictional paradise, the ruler Queen Calafia fought alongside Muslims and her name may have been chosen to echo the title of a Muslim leader, the Caliph. It's possible.
Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California close to that part of the Terrestrial Paradise, inhabited by black women without a single man among them, they lived in the manner of Amazons. They were robust of body with great virtue; the island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the craggy rocks. Shortened forms of the state's name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. Various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000; the Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups were diverse in their political organization with bands, villages, on the resource-rich coasts, large chiefdoms, such as the Chumash and Salinan.
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Robert S. Williamson
Robert Stockton Williamson was an American soldier and engineer, noted for conducting surveys for the transcontinental railroad in California and Oregon. Inducted into the Army Corps of Engineers in 1861, he had a distinguished record serving in the American Civil War, winning two brevet promotions; when the US Army Corps of Engineers established its San Francisco District office in 1866, he was appointed as the first commander of the office. Formally promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1869, he retired in 1871, because of health problems, died in San Francisco in 1882. Williamson was lived in Elizabeth, New Jersey, he was named after a family friend. He joined the Navy in 1843 as a master's mate under Stockton on the USS Princeton, the first screw-driven steam ship in the Navy. Williamson was detached from the ship 10 days before one of its guns exploded, killing several people, it was through Stockton's influence that Williamson was appointed to the United States Military Academy. He graduated fifth in his class in 1848 and appointed a second lieutenant in the Corps of Topographical Engineers.
He was assigned to conduct surveys for proposed routes for the transcontinental railroad in California and Oregon. He was assigned to the staff of the commanding general of the Department of the Pacific, was the engineer in charge of the military roads in southern Oregon. After the outbreak of the American Civil War, Williamson was commissioned with the rank of Captain into the 1st Battalion of Engineers, was the Chief Topographical Engineer in North Carolina, he was brevetted Major on March 14, 1862, for service at the Battle of New Bern, brevetted a Lieutenant Colonel at the Battle of Fort Macon on April 26, 1862. He was assigned as Chief Topographical Engineer for the Army of the Potomac. Williamson returned to California as the Chief Topographical Engineer of the Department of the Pacific, he was formally promoted to the rank of Major on May 7, 1863,In 1863, Williamson transferred to the Corps of Engineers and served as lighthouse engineer for the Pacific Coast. He worked on defenses and harbors along the coast.
In 1866, Major Williamson was appointed Commander and Officer-in-Charge when the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers established its San Francisco District Office in 1866; this office was mainly responsible for engineering related to rivers and harbors along the entire Pacific coast, from Canada to Mexico, included Hawaii. He remained in this position until 1871, he was formally promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on February 2, 1869. He retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1882, due to illness. Williamson had suffered from bad health for the last 20 years of his life and died of tuberculosis in San Francisco, California, he was buried at the Masonic Cemetery in San Francisco. Mount Williamson in California, a western woodpecker, the Williamson's sapsucker, Williamson Mountain and the Williamson River in Oregon are named in his honor. 14th Annual Reunion of the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, June 12, 1883. East Saginaw, Michigan: Courier Publishing Co. 1883.
Robert S. Williamson at Find a Grave Report Upon the Removal of Blossom Rock San Francisco Harbor, California. Williamson, R. S. and W. H. Heuer. 1870
Sierra Peaks Section
The Sierra Peaks Section is a mountaineering society within the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club that serves to provide mountaineering activities for Sierra Club members in the Sierra Nevada, to honor mountaineers who have summited Sierra Nevada peaks. The Sierra Peaks Section was established in 1955; the Section maintains historic summit registers at Bancroft Library on the University of California, Berkeley campus. To become a member of the SPS, one must be a Sierra Club member and have climbed at least six peaks on the SPS List. For verification purposes, two of those ascents must be done on an official SPS trip. Accomplished members are award with emblems, with the following grades: Third List Completion Second List Completion First List Completion Master Emblem Senior Emblem EmblemUpon receiving one of the normal emblems, members may be recognized with one of the following additional emblems, which are not ranked: Geographic Emblem Explorer Emblem To the general public, they are most known for their peak bagging list, created in 1955, a product of the Sierra Club's long legacy of promoting climbing in the Sierra Nevada.
Completing the list is prestigious in American mountaineering circles, climbers who complete the list are cited as having done so. The list is divided into three levels of importance; the Emblem peaks are considered the most iconic peaks of the Sierra Nevada, to summit all of them is the goal of many peak baggers and alpinists. Mountaineers peaks are less notable peaks known for presenting mountaineering challenges. There are the numerous general peaks of lesser note; the list is an example of a subjective "decision by committee" list with the peaks on the list being determined by the Sierra Club. Peaks are added or removed from the list due to a variety of factors, such as accessibility and interest; the list is followed by thousands of hikers and has been noted in numerous books and guides on the Sierra Nevada. There are 15 Emblem peaks, 35 Mountaineers peaks, 197 general peaks, for a total of 247 peaks; the number of peaks is traditionally set at 248, the original number of peaks listed in 1955.
The elevations listed below are those described on the list, may not be the actual elevations of those peaks, although they are accurate to within 50 feet. Other peak bagging lists: New England Fifty Finest Adirondack High Peaks Secor, R. J.. The High Sierra: peaks, trail. Seattle, WA: Mountaineers Books. ISBN 978-0-89886-971-2. Official web site
Pico de Orizaba
Pico de Orizaba known as Citlaltépetl, is a stratovolcano, the highest mountain in Mexico and the third highest in North America, after Denali of Alaska in the United States and Mount Logan of Canada. It rises 5,636 metres above sea level in the eastern end of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, on the border between the states of Veracruz and Puebla; the volcano is dormant but not extinct, with the last eruption taking place during the 19th century. It is the second most prominent volcanic peak in the world after Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro. Pico de Orizaba overlooks the city of Orizaba, from which it gets its name; the name Citlaltépetl is not used by Nahuatl speakers of the Orizaba area, who instead call it Istaktepetl, or'White Mountain'. Citlaltépetl comes from the Náhuatl citlalli and tepētl and thus means "Star Mountain"; this name is thought to be based on the fact that the snow-covered peak can be seen year round for hundreds of kilometers throughout the region. During the colonial era, the volcano was known as Cerro de San Andrés due to the nearby settlement of San Andrés Chalchicomula at its base.
A third name, which means "the one that colors or illuminates", has been recorded. This name was given by the Tlaxcaltecs in memory of their lost country; the peak of Citlaltépetl rises to an elevation of 5,636 m above sea level. Regionally dominant, Pico de Orizaba is the highest peak in Mexico and the highest volcano in North America. Orizaba is ranked 7th in the world in topographic prominence, it is the second most prominent volcanic peak in the world after Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro, the volcano is ranked 16th in the world for topographic isolation. About 110 km to the west of the port of Veracruz, its peak is visible to ships approaching the port in the Gulf of Mexico, at dawn rays of sunlight strike the Pico while Veracruz still lies in shadow; the topography of Pico de Orizaba is asymmetrical from the center of the crater. The gradual slopes of the northwestern face of the volcano allows for the presence of large glaciers and is the most traveled route to take for hikers traveling to the summit.
Pico de Orizaba is one of only three volcanoes in México that continue to support glaciers and is home to the largest glacier in Mexico, Gran Glaciar Norte. Orizaba has nine known glaciers: Gran Glaciar Norte, Lengua del Chichimeco, Toro, Glaciar de la Barba, Occidental and Oriental; the equilibrium line altitude is not known for Orizaba. Snow on the south and southeast sides of the volcano melts because of solar radiation, but lower temperatures on the northwest and north sides allow for glaciers; the insolation angle and wind redeposition on the northwest and north sides allow for constant accumulation of snow providing a source for the outlet glaciers. On the north side of Orizaba, the Gran Glaciar Norte fills the elongated highland basin and is the source for seven outlet glaciers; the main glacier extends 3.5 km north of the crater rim, has a surface area of about 9.08 km2 descending from 5,650 m to about 5,000 m. It has a irregular and stepped profile, caused in part by the configuration of the bedrock.
Most crevasses show an ice thickness of 50 m. Below the 5,000 m in elevation on the north side of the volcano, the outlet glaciers Lengua del Chichimeco and Jamapa extend north and northwest another 1.5 km and 2 km, respectively. The terminal lobe of Lengua del Chichimeco at 4,740 m, having a gradient of only 140 m/km, is a low, broad ice fan that has a convex-upward profile, a front typical of all Mexican glaciers; the most distinct glacier is Glaciar de Jamapa, which leaves Gran Glaciar Norte at about 4,975 m and, after 2 km with a gradient of 145 m/km, divides into two small tongues that end at 4,650 m and 4,640 m. Both tongues terminate in broad convex-upward ice fans thinning along their edges; the retreat of these tongues prior to 1994 produced much erosion downstream and buried their edges by ablation rock debris. The west side of Gran Glaciar Norte generates five outlet glaciers. From north to south, the first two, Glaciar del Toro and Glaciar de la Barba, are hanging cliff or icefall glaciers, reaching the tops of giant lava steps at 4,930 m and 5,090 m, respectively.
They descend 200 to 300 m farther down into the heads of stream valleys as huge ice blocks but are not regenerated there. About 1 km, Glaciar Noroccidental, a small outlet glacier 300 m long, drains away from the side of Gran Glaciar Norte at about 5,100 m and draws down the ice surface a few tens of meters over a distance of 500 m, descending to 4,920 m with a gradient of 255 m/km. Another 1 km still farther south, Glaciar Occidental breaks away from Gran Glaciar Norte west of the summit crater at about 5,175 m as a steep, 1 km long glacier having a gradient of 270 m/km that ends at 4,930 m. From the southwest corner of the mountain, another outlet glacier, Glaciar Suroccidental, 1.6 km long, flows from Gran Glaciar Norte at 5,250 m with a gradient of 200 m/km, which en
