Cirque Mountain 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" ...

of southwest

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, United States. It is situated six miles west of the community of Ouray, above the north side of

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 bloo ...

, 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, Mesa, San Miguel, Ouray, Gunnison, Hinsdale, San Juan, and Delta ...

. It is part of the

Sneffels Range The Sneffels Range, regionally conterminous with San Juan Mountains, 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 an ...

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 great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Can ...

. Cirque ranks as the 155th-highest peak in Colorado, and the ninth-highest in the Sneffels Range. It is west of the

Continental Divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

, 1.12 mile east of

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

, and 0.59 mile west of

Teakettle Mountain Teakettle Mountain, elevation , is a summit in the Sneffels Range of southwest Colorado. The peak is west of Ouray in the Uncompahgre National Forest. See also *List of Colorado mountain ranges * List of Colorado mountain summits **List of Co ...

, which is the nearest higher neighbor.

Topographic relief Terrain (), alternatively relief or topographical relief, is the dimension and shape of a given surface of land. In physical geography, terrain is the lay of the land. This is usually expressed in terms of the elevation, slope, and orientati ...

is significant as the north aspect rises above Blaine Basin in one mile, and the south aspect rises over 2,000 feet above Yankee Boy Basin in less than one mile. These basins are

cirque A (; from the Latin word ) is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by Glacier#Erosion, glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from , meaning a pot or cauldron) and ; ). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform a ...

s which were carved by ancient glaciers.Ralph Lee Hopkins, Lindy Birkel Hopkins, 2000, ''Hiking Colorado's Geology'', The Mountaineers Books, , page 155. The mountain's name has been officially adopted by the

United States Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a Federal government of the United States, federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geogr ...

Climate

According to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system, Cirque Mountain is located in an alpine

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a continental climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of ...

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 from the mountain drains into tributaries of the

Uncompahgre River The Uncompahgre River is a tributary of the Gunnison River, approximately long, in southwestern Colorado in the United States. Lake Como at in northern San Juan County, in the Uncompahgre National Forest in the northwestern San Juan Mountain ...

Gallery

File:Sneffels Range, Colorado.jpg, Sneffels Range from the north. Left to right: Whitehouse Mountain,

Mount Ridgway Mount Ridgway is a mountain summit located in Ouray County of southwest Colorado, United States. It is situated five miles west of the community of Ouray, on land managed by Uncompahgre National Forest. It is part of the Sneffels Range which i ...

, Cirque Mountain (centered),

. File:Gilpin, Sneffels, Cirque, Teakettle.jpg, Left to rightː Gilpin Peak, Mt. Sneffels, Cirque Mountain, Teakettle Mountain.
( Stony Mountain below Cirque). Looking north. File:Sneffels range, Cirque Mountain centered.jpg, Cirque Mountain centered, Teakettle (left), Blaine Peak (right). From NW.

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Cirque Mountain
{{Mountains of Colorado Mountains of Ouray County, Colorado San Juan Mountains (Colorado) Four-thousanders of the United States Uncompahgre National Forest