Olympic Mountains

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Olympic Mountains
Range
none The Olympic Mountains
The Olympic Mountains
Country United States
State Washington
Part of Pacific Coast Ranges
Highest point Mount Olympus
 - elevation 7,962 ft (2,427 m)
 - coordinates 47°48′04″N 123°42′39″W / 47.80111, -123.71083

The Olympic Mountains are a mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula of western Washington in the United States. The mountains are not especially high - Mount Olympus is the highest at 7,962 ft (2,427 m) - but the western slopes of the Olympics face the Pacific Ocean and are thus the wettest place in the 48 contiguous states; the Hoh Ranger Station in the Hoh Rain Forest records an average of 360 cm (142 in) of rainfall each year. Most of the mountains are protected within the bounds of the Olympic National Park. Physiographically, they are a section of the larger Pacific Border province, which in turn are part of the larger Pacific Mountain System physiographic division.

The mountains were originally called "Sun-a-do" by the Duwamish Indians, while the first European to see them, the Spanish navigator Juan Perez, named them "Sierra Nevada de Santa Rosalia", in 1774. But the English captain John Meares, seeing them in 1788, thought them beautiful enough for the gods to dwell there, and named them "Mount Olympus" after the one in Greece. Alternate proposals never caught on, and in 1864 the Seattle Weekly Gazette persuaded the government to make the present-day name official. Though readily visible from most parts of western Washington, the interior was almost entirely unexplored until the 1890s. Mount Olympus itself was not ascended until 1907, one of the first successes of The Mountaineers, which had been organized in Seattle just a few years earlier. A number of the more obscure and least-accessible peaks in the range weren't ascended until the 1970s.

The Olympic Mountains in winter, as seen from the east. The Brothers is the large double peak on the left, and Mount Constance is on the right.
The Olympic Mountains in winter, as seen from the east. The Brothers is the large double peak on the left, and Mount Constance is on the right.

The Olympics have the form of a cluster of steep-sided peaks surrounded by heavily-forested foothills and incised by deep valleys.

The climax forests consist of Sitka spruce and western hemlock. Douglas fir occurs in groves. Other types of firs may be seen also. Clearings in the forest quickly become covered with vine maple, slide alder, and devil's club, making cross-country travel most challenging.

Another consequence of the high precipitation is the large number of snowfields and glaciers, reaching down to 1,500 m (5,000 ft) above sea level.

The Mount Olympus National Monument was proclaimed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1909, and made into a park in 1938.

Principal summits:

Other Summits

Contents

[edit] Geology

The Olympic Mountains are made up of an obducted clastic wedge material and oceanic crust. They are primarly Eocene sandstones, turbidites, and basaltic oceanic crust(1).

[edit] References

(1). D.D. Alt, and D.W. Hyndman, 1984, Roadside Geology of Washington, p249-258

[edit] Further reading


[edit] External links

  • OlympicMaps.com Interactive Map Server for the Olympic Mountains and Olympic Peninsula

Coordinates: 47°47′46″N, 123°42′19″W

v • d • e
General sub-fields of physical geography
v • d • e
Glaciers of the Olympic Mountains
Mount Olympus
Blue Glacier · Hoh Glacier · Hubert Glacier · Humes Glacier · Jeffers Glacier · White Glacier
Mount Anderson
Other mountains
See also
Glaciers of Mount Adams · Glaciers of Mount Baker · Glaciers of Glacier Peak · Glaciers of Mount Rainier · Glaciers of other Washington mountains