Mayacmas Mountains

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The Mayacmas Mountains are located in northwestern California in the United States. The mountains are found south of the Mendocino Range, west of Clear Lake, and east of Ukiah, and with an extent southerly into Napa and Sonoma County. The range stretches for more than 40 miles in a northwest-southeasterly direction, and reaches an elevation of 4720 above sea level at Cobb Mountain in the southeastern part of the chain. There are several other peaks over 2500 feet, including Mount St. Helena and Hood Mountain. These peaks are sufficiently high to realize some snow cover in winter. Several rivers rise in the Mayacmas Mountains including Sonoma Creek and Santa Rosa Creek. In prehistoric times of about ten million years ago, these mountains are thought to have been densely forested in Mendocino Cypress.

According to Gudde: "The mountain chain, forming the divide of the headwaters of Russian River and Clear Lake, was named for the Native American tribes on the west slope, probably a division of the Yuki. According to Barrett (Pomo, p. 269), there was a Yukian Wappo village, Maiya'kma, one mile south of Calistoga. Serro de los Mallacomes (Mount Saint Helena) is shown on a diseno of the Caymus grant (1836). Later the name appears in the title and on the disenos of a land grant Mallacomes y Plano de Agua Caliente or Moristul, dated September 3, 1841, and October 11 and 14, 1843. The present spelling is used in the Statutes of 1850 (pp. 60 f.). Although this version was also used by the Whitney Survey, confusion persists to the present day. The Geographic Board (Fifth Report) decided for Miyakma, but in 1941 it reversed this decision in favor of Mayacmas ('not Miyakma, Cobb Mountain Range, Malacomas, Mayacamas, nor St. Helena Range'). The stream is still called Maacama Creek."