Mount Sneffels is the highest summit 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. ...

in 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 ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

. The prominent

fourteener In the mountaineering parlance of the Western United States, a fourteener is a mountain peak with an elevation of at least . The 96 fourteeners in the United States are all west of the Mississippi River. Colorado has the most (53) of any single ...

is located in the

Mount Sneffels Wilderness The Mount Sneffels Wilderness is a wilderness area in southwest Colorado managed by the Uncompahgre National Forest. It is about west of the town of Ouray. The area is named for Mt. Sneffels, which at is a prominent fourteener in the San Jua ...

of Uncompahgre National Forest, west by south ( bearing 256°) of the City of Ouray in Ouray County,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the 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 western edge of the ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. The summit of Mount Sneffels is the

highest point A list of highest points typically contains the name, elevation, and location of the highest point in each of a set of geographical regions. Such a list is important in the sport of highpointing. A partial list of highpoint lists is below: World ...

in Ouray County.

Mountain

Mount Sneffels is notable for its great vertical relief, as it rises 7,200 feet above the town of

Ridgway, Colorado The Town of Ridgway is the Colorado municipalities#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality in Ouray County, Colorado, Ouray County, Colorado, United States. The tow ...

6 miles to the northeast. The primary route to the summit follows a creek bed up from

Yankee Boy Basin Yankee Boy Basin is an alpine basin in Ouray County, southwestern Colorado. It is in the San Juan Mountains, protected within Uncompahgre National Forest. The basin−valley is well renowned for its display of wildflowers during the spring blo ...

. A secondary route follows a ridge line to the summit from the saddle of Blue Lakes Pass. Mount Sneffels was named after the volcano Snæfell, which is located on the tip of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its ...

. That mountain and its glacier, Snæfellsjökull, which caps the crater like a convex lens, were featured in the

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the '' Voyages extra ...

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself ...

A Journey to the Center of the Earth ''Journey to the Center of the Earth'' (french: Voyage au centre de la Terre), also translated with the variant titles ''A Journey to the Centre of the Earth'' and ''A Journey into the Interior of the Earth'', is a classic science fiction novel ...

''. An area on the western flank of Mount Sneffels gives the appearance of

volcanic crater A volcanic crater is an approximately circular depression in the ground caused by volcanic activity. It is typically a bowl-shaped feature containing one or more vents. During volcanic eruptions, molten magma and volcanic gases rise from an und ...

. Seen from the Dallas Divide on State Highway 62, Mount Sneffels is one of the most photographed mountains in Colorado.

Historical names

*Mount Blaine *Mount Sneffels – 1906 *Sneffels Peak

References

External links

* {{Colorado Sneffels Sneffels San Juan Mountains (Colorado) Sneffels Uncompahgre National Forest Sneffels

Mountain

Historical names

See also

References

External links