Kuna Crest is a mountain range near

Tuolumne Meadows Tuolumne Meadows () is a gentle, dome-studded, sub-alpine meadow area along the Tuolumne River in the eastern section of Yosemite National Park in the United States. Its approximate location is . Its approximate elevation is . The term ''Tuolumn ...

, in

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in California. It is bordered on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The p ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

Name

The word ''Kuna'' probably derives from a

Shoshonean The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ), also known by the endonym Newe, are an Indigenous people of the United States with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshone: Southern Idaho * Western Shoshone ...

word meaning "fire," which appears in the Mono dialect of the area, with a meaning of ''

firewood Firewood is any wooden material that is gathered and used for fuel. Generally, firewood is not heavily processed, and is in some sort of firelog, recognizable log or branch form, compared to other forms of wood fuel like pellet fuel, pellets. ...

''. On the summit of near-by Kuna Peak, there are many jagged pieces of rock which resemble fire themselves; see

Kuna Crest Granodiorite Kuna Crest Granodiorite (also called ''Granodiorite of Glen Aulin''), is found, in Yosemite National Park, United States. The granodiorite forms part of the Tuolumne Intrusive Suite (aka Tuolumne Batholith), one of the four major intrusive sui ...

Geography and geology

The Crest lies between two U-shaped glacial valleys:

Lyell Canyon Lyell Canyon is a sub-alpine meadow in Yosemite National Park south of Tuolumne Meadows. For 8 miles(13 kilometers) most of the canyon has an approximate elevation of , and then rapidly climbs to to Donohue Pass, below Donohue Peak – which ...

and the canyon of the Parker Pass Creek. Mammoth Peak lies at the northern end of the Kuna Crest. A number of lakes lie in cirques cut into the eastern edge of the Crest, including Kuna Lake,

Bingaman Lake Bingaman Lake is a lake in Tuolumne County, California, in the United States. Bingaman Lake was named for John W. Bingaman, a park ranger who stocked the lake with fish in exchange for the naming rights. The lake is below Kuna Crest and Kuna Peak ...

, Spillway Lake, and Helen Lake. The Crest consists of

, which is the oldest

granitic rock A granitoid is a broad term referring to a diverse group of coarse-grained igneous rocks that are widely distributed across the globe, covering a significant portion of the Earth's exposed surface and constituting a large part of the continental ...

of the

Tuolumne Intrusive Suite The Tuolumne Intrusive Suite is the youngest and most extensive of the intrusive suites of Yosemite National Park, and also comprises about 1/3 of the park's area. The Suite includes Half Dome Granodiorite, Cathedral Peak Granite, and Kuna Cr ...

. It is rich in

biotite Biotite is a common group of phyllosilicate minerals within the mica group, with the approximate chemical formula . It is primarily a solid-solution series between the iron- endmember annite, and the magnesium-endmember phlogopite; more al ...

and

hornblende Hornblende is a complex silicate minerals#Inosilicates, inosilicate series of minerals. It is not a recognized mineral in its own right, but the name is used as a general or field term, to refer to a dark amphibole. Hornblende minerals are common ...

Rock climbing

Climbing on Kuna Crest consists of mostly of walking and

scrambling Scrambling is a mountaineering term for ascending steep terrain using one's hands to assist in holds and balance.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. It can be described as being between hiking and climbing, rock climbing. "A scramble" is a relat ...

; there isn't much rock climbing, on Kuna Crest proper. There is a

traverse Traverse may refer to: Places * Traverse, Michigan, an unincorporated community * Traverse City, Michigan * Traverse County, Minnesota, a county in Minnesota Other * Traverse (climbing), moving horizontally on a climbing or mountaineering route ...

, between Mammoth Peak and Kuna Peak.

References

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External links

summitpost on Kuna Crest South
Cretaceous magmatism Igneous petrology of California Yosemite National Park