Colter Butte is a summit located in the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a mile (). The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon Nati ...

Coconino County Coconino County is a County (United States), county in the North Central Arizona, North-Central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. Its population was 145,101 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The county seat is Flagstaff, Arizon ...

of northern

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

, US. It is situated four miles southeast of Point Imperial, where it towers above Nankoweap Canyon. Its neighbors include

Brady Peak Brady Peak is an -elevation summit located in the Grand Canyon, in Coconino County, Arizona, Coconino County of northern Arizona, Southwestern United States, United States. It is situated northeast of the Vista Encantada viewpoint on the canyon ...

, 2.5 miles to the west-northwest, Alsap Butte two miles to the northwest, and Swilling Butte one-half mile to the east. Colter Butte is named after James G. H. Colter (1844–1922), born in

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

, Canada, he came to the

Arizona Territory The Territory of Arizona, commonly known as the Arizona Territory, was a territory of the United States that existed from February 24, 1863, until February 14, 1912, when the remaining extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the ...

in 1872 as a pioneer, farmer, cattleman, Apache and desperado fighter. He was the father of Arizona state senator

Fred Colter Fred Tuttle Colter was an Arizona rancher and farmer, as well as being the state senator for Apache County, Arizona, Apache County beginning with Arizona's second state legislature in 1915. Colter spent six terms in the Arizona Senate. He also l ...

. This geographical feature's name was officially adopted in 1932 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 ...

. 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, Colter Butte is located in a

cold semi-arid climate Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic ...

zone. This

butte In geomorphology, a butte ( ) is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and table (landform), tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from the French l ...

is composed of

Pennsylvanian Pennsylvanian may refer to: * A person or thing from Pennsylvania * Pennsylvanian (geology) The Pennsylvanian ( , also known as Upper Carboniferous or Late Carboniferous) is, on the International Commission on Stratigraphy, ICS geologic timesc ...

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...

Supai Group The Supai Group is a slope-forming sequence of mixed red beds and limestones that outcrop in the Colorado Plateau. The group was laid down during the Pennsylvanian to Lower Permian. Cliff-forming interbeds of sandstone are noticeable througho ...

which overlays cliff-forming

Mississippian Mississippian may refer to: * Mississippian (geology), a subperiod of the Carboniferous period in the geologic timescale, roughly 360 to 325 million years ago * Mississippian cultures, a network of precontact cultures across the midwest and Easte ...

Redwall Limestone The Redwall Limestone is an erosion-resistant, Mississippian age, cliff-former, cliff-forming geological formation that forms prominent, red-stained cliffs in the Grand Canyon. these cliffs range in height from to . It is one of the most fossili ...

, which in turn overlays slope-forming

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

Tonto Group The Tonto Group is a name for an assemblage of related sedimentary strata, collectively known by geologists as a '' Group'', that comprises the basal sequence Paleozoic strata exposed in the sides of the Grand Canyon. As currently defined, the T ...

.William Kenneth Hamblin, ''Anatomy of the Grand Canyon: Panoramas of the Canyon's Geology'', 2008, Grand Canyon Association Publisher, Precipitation runoff from this feature drains east to the

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

via Nankoweap Creek on the north side and Kwagunt Creek from the south slope.

References

External links

* Weather forecast
National Weather Service

Colter Butte photo
by

Harvey Butchart John Harvey Butchart (May 10, 1907 – May 29, 2002) was an American hiker and mathematician who was well known for his exploits in and around the Grand Canyon in Arizona, United States. Beginning in 1945, Butchart explored the Grand Canyon's bac ...

1910 Photograph/portrait of James G.H. Colter
{{Geology of the Grand Canyon area, , state=collapsed Grand Canyon Landforms of Coconino County, Arizona Buttes of Arizona Two-thousanders of the United States Colorado Plateau Grand Canyon National Park

See also

References

External links