The King Range is a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

of the Outer Northern

California Coast Ranges The Coast Ranges of California span from Del Norte County, California, Del Norte or Humboldt County, California, south to Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara County. The other three coastal California mountain ranges are the Trans ...

system, located entirely within Humboldt County on the North Coast of California. Much of the mountain range's area is protected within the King Range National Conservation Area, a

National Conservation Area National Conservation Area is a designation for certain protected areas in the United States. They are nature conservation areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) under the National Landscape Conservation System. Restrictions vary ...

unit of the

National Landscape Conservation System National Conservation Lands, formally known as the National Landscape Conservation System, is a collection of lands in 873 federally recognized areas considered to be the crown jewels of the American West.King Range Wilderness Area, both managed by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

(BLM).

Geography

As part of the Northern Coast Ranges, the King Range runs parallel to the coast, and its western slopes fall steeply to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. The King Range is adjacent to the Mendocino triple junction, where three

tectonic plate Plate tectonics (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...

s – the Pacific plate, the North American plate, and the Juan de Fuca plate – meet. The area experiences frequent

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

s. Most mountains and ridges in the range are low to moderate in elevation. King Peak, at , is the highest mountain in the range. Snow falls above 3,281 feet (1,000 m) a couple of times per year.

Natural history

The range is part of the

Northern California coastal forests Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

ecoregion. It is largely forested with climax-dominant trees including coast Douglas fir ''(

Pseudotsuga menziesii The Douglas fir (''Pseudotsuga menziesii'') is an evergreen conifer species in the pine family, Pinaceae. It is the tallest tree in the Pinaceae family. It is native plant, native to western North America and is also known as Douglas-fir, Dougl ...

'' ssp. ''menziesii),'' oak (''

Quercus garryana ''Quercus garryana'' is an oak tree species named for Nicholas Garry, deputy governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. It is commonly known as the Garry oak, Oregon white oak or Oregon oak. The species is found in the Pacific Northwest, with a rang ...

'' and '' Q. kelloggii''), and

tanoak ''Notholithocarpus densiflorus'', commonly known as the tanoak or tanbark-oak, is a broadleaf tree in the family Fagaceae, and the type species of the genus ''Notholithocarpus''. It is a hardwood tree that is native to the far western United Sta ...

''(Lithocarpus densiflorus),'' with pockets of sugar pine (''

Pinus lambertiana ''Pinus lambertiana'' (commonly known as the sugar pine or sugar cone pine) is the tallest and most massive pine tree and has the longest cones of any conifer. It is native to coastal and inland mountain areas along the Pacific coast of North ...

'') found along steep slopes above the fog line. The rivers and streams that drain the range include the

Mattole River The Mattole River is a river on the north coast of California, that flows northerly, then westerly into the Pacific Ocean. The vast majority of its course is through southern Humboldt County, though a short section of the river flows through n ...

. Four federally endangered species occur in the range: the

coho salmon The coho salmon (''Oncorhynchus kisutch;'' Karuk: achvuun) is a species of anadromous fish in the salmon family (biology), family and one of the five Pacific salmon species. Coho salmon are also known as silver salmon (or "silvers") and is often ...

chinook salmon The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Oncorhynchus, Pacific salmon. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other vernacular names for the species include king salmon, quinn ...

steelhead Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the Fish migration#Classification, anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or Columbia River redband trout (''O. m. gairdneri'', also called redband steelhead). Steelhead are native to cold-wa ...

, and

northern spotted owl The northern spotted owl (''Strix occidentalis caurina'') is one of three spotted owl subspecies. A western North American bird in the family Strigidae, genus ''Strix (genus), Strix'', it is a medium-sized dark brown owl native to the Pacific N ...

. Other wildlife includes northern elephant seal, harbor seal, gray whale,

brown pelican The brown pelican (''Pelecanus occidentalis'') is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mouth ...

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche ...

peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known simply as the peregrine, is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan bird of prey (raptor) in the family (biology), family Falconidae renowned for its speed. A large, Corvus (genus), cro ...

, black-tailed deer, mountain lion, bobcat,

osprey The osprey (; ''Pandion haliaetus''), historically known as sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor, reaching more than in length and a wingspan of . It ...

otter Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which includes weasels, badgers, mink, and wolverines, among ...

gray fox The gray fox (''Urocyon cinereoargenteus''), or grey fox, is an omnivorous mammal of the family Canidae, widespread throughout North America and Central America. This species and its only congener (biology), congener, the diminutive island fox ...

and black bear.

History

Historically, the King Range was home to the Native American

Mattole The Mattole, including the Bear River Indians, are a group of Native Americans in California. Their traditional lands are along the Mattole and Bear Rivers near Cape Mendocino in Humboldt County, California. A notable difference between the Ma ...

and

Sinkyone The Eel River Athapaskans include the Wailaki, Lassik, Nongatl, and Sinkyone (Sinkine) groups of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans that traditionally live in present-day Mendocino, Trinity, and Humboldt counties on or near ...

peoples. In the 19th century, the region was opened to commercial

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidder, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or trunk (botany), logs onto logging truck, trucksfishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

ranching A ranch (from /Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of farm. These terms are most often applied to li ...

, and tanning. In 1936 and 1937, due to the rugged terrain of the King Range and

Mendocino Range The Mendocino Range is one of several coastal mountain ranges which compose the Pacific Coast Ranges, Pacific Coast Range. This massive range of coastal mountains was formed during a period of coastal orogeny, millions of years ago. The Mendocino ...

to its south, engineers assigned to designing the new State Route 1 were forced to site the highway further inland/east towards the town of Leggett in its route north from Westport. Subsequently, the inaccessible coastal wilderness, known as the

Lost Coast The Lost Coast is a mostly natural and undeveloped area of the California North Coast in Humboldt and Mendocino counties, which includes the King Range. It was named the "Lost Coast" after the area experienced depopulation in the 1930s. In a ...

, remains the longest undeveloped stretch of coast in California. In 1970 the U.S. Congress designated of the range as the King Range National Conservation Area. It is primarily located within southwestern Humboldt County, and extends into the far northwestern corner of

Mendocino County Mendocino County (; ''Mendocino'', Spanish language, Spanish for "of Antonio de Mendoza, Mendoza") is a County (United States), county located on the North Coast (California), North Coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United S ...

. In 2000 President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

signed the law designating the rocks and islands just offshore as the California Coast National Monument. In 2006 the U.S. Congress designated of the National Conservation Area as the King Range Wilderness. The California Coastal trail goes from end to end of the range.

Gallery

File:Wildflowers, King Range National Conservation Area.jpg, Wildflowers File:King Range National Conservation Area (18807554259).jpg, King Range cove File:King Range National Conservation Area (18967577236).jpg, Old ranch and estuary File:King Range National Conservation Area (18807535539).jpg, Purple sea urchins and Giant Green anemones, King Range tidepool

References

External links