Mount Anderson is a peak in the
Olympic Mountains of the
Pacific Northwest. Rising in the center of
Olympic National Park in
Washington state, it is the second highest peak on the Anderson Massif, after
West Peak
There are 21 mountain peaks named West Peak in the United States according to the US Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System.
* West Peak Valdez–Cordova Census Area, Alaska, , el.
* West Peak Aleutians West Census Area, Alaska,
...
.
Anderson Glacier
Anderson Glacier was a glacier located in a cirque south of Mount Anderson in the Olympic Mountains and Olympic National Park. The southward-facing glacier starts on the steep headwalls of the cirque at about to . It flows down to about be ...
used to be located in a
cirque
A (; from the Latin word ') is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from Scottish Gaelic , meaning a pot or cauldron) and (; ). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform ...
on the mountain's southern flank while
Eel Glacier is in another cirque, northwest of the summit.
Hanging Glacier is on the east side of a ridge which extends north from the peak.
Anderson is at the center of three major watersheds in the Olympic Range.
Most of the water which falls on the massif flows into the
Dosewallips River
The Dosewallips River ( ) is a river situated on the Olympic Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington. It rises near Mount Anderson in the Olympic Mountains within Olympic National Park and drains to Hood Canal and thence to the Pacific Ocean.
...
which drains, by way of the
Hood Canal, into
Puget Sound. The drainage from the west side flows down the
Quinault River and into the
Pacific, while some of the water on the mountain's northwest side flows into the Hayes River which finds its way north, to the
Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Mount Anderson was named by army Lieutenant
Joseph O'Neil for his commanding officer,
Thomas M. Anderson.
It was first climbed in 1920 by Fairman B. Lee and a party of 13.
Climate
Mount Anderson is located in the
marine west coast climate zone of western
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
.
Most
weather fronts originate in the
Pacific Ocean, and travel northeast toward the
Olympic Mountains. As fronts approach, they are forced upward by the peaks of the Olympic Range, causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall (
Orographic lift). As a result, the Olympics experience high precipitation, especially during the winter months in the form of snowfall.
[ During winter months, weather is usually cloudy, but, due to high pressure systems over the Pacific Ocean that intensify during summer months, there is often little or no cloud cover during the summer.
]
Geology
The Olympic Mountains are composed of obducted clastic
Clastic rocks are composed of fragments, or clasts, of pre-existing minerals and rock. A clast is a fragment of geological detritus,Essentials of Geology, 3rd Ed, Stephen Marshak, p. G-3 chunks, and smaller grains of rock broken off other rocks ...
wedge material and oceanic crust, primarily Eocene sandstone, turbidite, and basaltic oceanic crust.
See also
* Olympic Mountains
* Geology of the Pacific Northwest
* Geography of Washington (state)
Washington is the northwesternmost state of the contiguous United States. It borders Idaho to the east, bounded mostly by the meridian running north from the confluence of the Snake River and Clearwater River (about 117°02'23" west), except f ...
References
External links
* Mt. Anderson weather
Mountain Forecast
*
*
Mountains of Washington (state)
Mountains of Jefferson County, Washington
Olympic Mountains
Landforms of Olympic National Park
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