Milk Ranch Peak is a mountain summit in

Tulare County Tulare County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia. The county is named for Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lake ...

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 ...

, United States.

Description

Milk Ranch Peak is situated in the

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...

mountain range along the boundary shared by Milk Ranch/Case Mountain Wilderness Study Area and

Sequoia National Park Sequoia National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in the southern Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, and toda ...

. It is the highest point within the Milk Ranch/Case Mountain Wilderness Study Area. Precipitation runoff from the mountain drains into tributaries of the

Kaweah River The Kaweah River is a river draining the southern Sierra Nevada in Tulare County, California in the United States. Fed primarily by high elevation snowmelt along the Great Western Divide, the Kaweah begins as four forks in Sequoia National Pa ...

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 summit rises above the river in two miles. Near the summit is the historic Milk Ranch Peak Fire Lookout. The lookout and communications equipment were damaged in 2021 by the Paradise Fire which combined with the Colony Fire to become the

KNP Complex Fire The 2021 KNP Complex Fire was a large wildfire in Sequoia National Park and the Sequoia National Forest in Central California's Tulare County, California, Tulare County. After lightning ignited the Paradise and Colony fires in the southern Sie ...

. This mountain's toponym was officially adopted in 1946 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 ...

and the name refers to the "Milk Ranch" that was on the south slope one-half mile from the summit. The Milk Ranch cattle grazing grounds on the mountain ridge was used by the Lovelace and Works families during the mid-1800s.

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, Milk Ranch Peak is located in an

alpine climate Alpine climate is the typical climate for elevations above the tree line, where trees fail to grow due to cold. This climate is also referred to as a mountain climate or highland climate. Definition There are multiple definitions of alpine cli ...

zone. Most

weather front A weather front is a boundary separating air masses for which several characteristics differ, such as air density, wind, temperature, and humidity. Disturbed and unstable weather due to these differences often arises along the boundary. For ins ...

s originate in the Pacific Ocean, and travel east toward the Sierra Nevada mountains. As fronts approach, they are forced upward by the peaks (

orographic lift Orographic lift occurs when an air mass is forced from a low elevation to a higher elevation as it moves over rising terrain. As the air mass gains altitude it quickly cools down adiabatically, which can raise the relative humidity to 100% and cr ...

), causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall onto the range.

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Milk Ranch Peak
* Milk Ranch Peak Lookout (photo)
National Park Service
* View from Milk Ranch Peak Lookout (photo)
Wikimedia
{{Portal bar, Mountains, Geography, Geology Mountains of Tulare County, California Mountains of Sequoia National Park One-thousanders of the United States Sierra Nevada (United States)

Description

Climate

See also

References

External links