Mount Ridgway is a mountain summit located in

Ouray County Ouray County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,874. The county seat is Ouray. Because of its rugged mountain topography, Ouray County is also known as the Switzerland of America. H ...

of southwest

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

, United States. It is situated five miles west of the community of Ouray, on land managed by

Uncompahgre National Forest Uncompahgre National Forest is a U.S. National Forest covering 955,229 acres (1,492.55 sq mi, or 3,865.68 km2) in (in descending order of land area) parts of Montrose County, Colorado, Montrose, Mesa County, Colorado, Mesa, San Miguel Count ...

. It is part of the

Sneffels Range The Sneffels Range, regionally conterminous with San Juans, is a young, prominent, and rugged range of mountains in southwestern Colorado of the San Juan Mountains. The Sneffels range form the southern border of Ouray County and run west to east ...

which is a subset of the

San Juan Mountains The San Juan Mountains is a high and rugged mountain range in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. The area is highly mineralized (the Colorado Mineral Belt) and figured in the gold and silver mining industry ...

, which in turn is part of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

. It is west of the Continental Divide, 2.2 miles east-northeast of

Mount Sneffels Mount Sneffels is the highest summit of the Sneffels Range in the Rocky Mountains of North America. The prominent fourteener is located in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness of Uncompahgre National Forest, west by south ( bearing 256°) of the ...

, and 0.95 miles southwest of

Whitehouse Mountain Whitehouse Mountain is a mountain summit located in Ouray County of southwest Colorado, United States. It is situated four miles west of the community of Ouray, on land managed by Uncompahgre National Forest. It is part of the Sneffels Range wh ...

, which is the nearest higher neighbor.

Topographic relief Terrain or relief (also topographical relief) involves the vertical and horizontal dimensions of land surface. The term bathymetry is used to describe underwater relief, while hypsometry studies terrain relative to sea level. The Latin w ...

is significant as the west aspect rises above Blaine Basin in one mile.

Etymology

This mountain, the nearby town of Ridgway, the

Ridgway Dam Ridgway Dam is an earthen dam on the Uncompahgre River which impounds Ridgway Reservoir, located about 6 miles (10 km) north of the town of Ridgway, Colorado, Ridgway in Ouray County, Colorado. The dam is high and long, with a capacity of o ...

, and

Ridgway State Park Ridgway State Park is a state park located in Ouray County, Colorado. The park is 21 miles southeast of Montrose, 14 miles northeast of Ouray, it is also 4 miles north of the town of Ridgway and 312 miles southwest of Denver. The current wild ...

trace their names to

Denver & Rio Grande Railroad The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad , often shortened to ''Rio Grande'', D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a narrow-gauge line running south from De ...

superintendent Robert Matthew Ridgway (1834–1908), who established the town in 1891.Liobrary of Congress
/ref> The mountain's name has been officially adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names.

Climate

According to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

system, Mount Ridgway is located in an alpine subarctic climate zone with long, cold, snowy winters, and cool to warm summers. Due to its altitude, it receives precipitation all year, as snow in winter, and as thunderstorms in summer, with a dry period in late spring. Precipitation

runoff Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock marke ...

from the mountain drains into tributaries of the

Uncompahgre River The Uncompahgre River is a tributary of the Gunnison River, approximately 75 mi (121 km) long, in southwestern Colorado in the United States. Lake Como at 12,215 ft (3723m) in northern San Juan County, in the Uncompahgre National ...

Gallery

File:Whitehouse Mountain.jpg, Whitehouse Mountain centered with Mt. Ridgway to immediate right, seen from Highway 550 near the town of Ridgway File:Mount Ridgway and Reconnoiter Peak.jpg, Mount Ridgway (left) and Reconnoiter Peak (right) File:Ridgway - Sneffels Range.jpg, Sneffels Range with Mt. Ridgway to the left

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Mount Ridgway
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ridgway, Mount Mountains of Ouray County, Colorado San Juan Mountains (Colorado) Mountains of Colorado North American 4000 m summits Uncompahgre National Forest

Etymology

Climate

Gallery

See also

References

External links