Mount Mendel is a peak in

Fresno County Fresno County (), officially the County of Fresno, is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 1,008,654. The county seat is Fresno, the fifth-most populo ...

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 ...

. It is in

Kings Canyon National Park Kings Canyon National Park is a national park of the United States in the southern Sierra Nevada, in Fresno and Tulare Counties, California. Originally established in 1890 as General Grant National Park, the park was greatly expanded and ren ...

in the Evolution Region, of 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 ...

and adjacent to Mount Darwin which is on the

Sierra crest The Sierra Crest is a roughly generally north-to-south ridge, ridgeline that demarcates the broad west and narrow east slopes of the Sierra Nevada and that extends as far east as the Sierra's escarpment, topographic front (e.g., Diamond Mountain ...

History

Theodore S. Solomons Theodore Seixas Solomons (1870–1947) was an American explorer and early member of the Sierra Club. From 1892 to 1897 he explored and named the Mount Goddard, Evolution Valley and Evolution Basin region in what is now northern Kings Canyon Nati ...

and E. C. Bonner of the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...

named a series of mountains for the six major exponents of the theory of

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

. Mount Mendel is named for,

Gregor Mendel Gregor Johann Mendel Order of Saint Augustine, OSA (; ; ; 20 July 1822 – 6 January 1884) was an Austrian Empire, Austrian biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinians, Augustinian friar and abbot of St Thomas's Abbey, Brno, St. Thom ...

, an Augustinian

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders in the Catholic Church. There are also friars outside of the Catholic Church, such as within the Anglican Communion. The term, first used in the 12th or 13th century, distinguishes the mendi ...

, who is known as the "father of modern genetics". Other nearby mountains in the group include Mount Darwin,

Mount Fiske Mount Fiske is a mountain summit located near the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, in Fresno County of northern California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the U ...

Mount Haeckel Mount Haeckel is a mountain summit located on the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in northern California, United States. It is situated on the shared boundary of Kings Canyon National Park with John Muir Wilderness, and along the comm ...

, Mount Huxley, Mount Spencer, Mount Wallace, and

Mount Lamarck Mount Lamarck is a mountain summit located on the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in northern California, United States. It is situated on the shared boundary of Kings Canyon National Park with John Muir Wilderness, and along the comm ...

. The area around the peaks, known as the Evolution Region, includes Evolution Basin, Evolution Valley, Evolution Meadow and Evolution Creek.

Climbing

There are several class 3 and class 4 routes available, however, Mount Mendel is best known for having two of the hardest ice climbs in the High Sierra on its North Face. Two of the documented ice climbs are "Ice Nine" (IV, class 5+, AI4 or WI5) and "The Mendel Couloir", (III class 5.6, AI2 or WI3). See the article

Grade (climbing) Many climbing routes have grades for the technical difficulty, and in some cases for the risks, of the route. The first ascent, first ascensionist can suggest a grade but it will be amended for the ''consensus view'' of subsequent ascents. W ...

References

Mountains of Kings Canyon National Park Mountains of Fresno County, California Four-thousanders of the United States Mountains of Northern California Sierra Nevada (United States) {{FresnoCountyCA-geo-stub