Mount Pickering is a 13,474-foot-elevation (4,107 meter) mountain summit located just west of the crest 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 ...

mountain range 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 Lakes. ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

. It is situated in

Sequoia National Park Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, and today protects of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing a vertical relief of ...

, and is 3.1 miles (5.0 km) south of

Mount Whitney Mount Whitney ( Paiute: Tumanguya; ''Too-man-i-goo-yah'') is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States and the Sierra Nevada, with an elevation of . It is in East– Central California, on the boundary between California's Inyo and ...

, 1.2 mile (1.9 km) southeast of Mount Chamberlin, and one mile south of Mount Newcomb. Mt. Pickering ranks as the 65th highest summit in California.

Topographic relief Terrain or relief (also topographical relief) involves the vertical and horizontal dimensions of land surface. The term bathymetry is used to describe underwater relief, while hypsometry studies terrain relative to sea level. The Latin w ...

is significant as it rises nearly 2,000 feet above Sky Blue Lake in approximately one mile. This mountain's name was proposed by the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, w ...

and officially adopted in 1940 by the

U.S. Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geographic names throughout the federal govern ...

to honor American astronomer

Edward Charles Pickering Edward Charles Pickering (July 19, 1846 – February 3, 1919) was an American astronomer and physicist and the older brother of William Henry Pickering. Along with Carl Vogel, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary stars. He wrote ' ...

(1846–1919). The immediate area has other geographical features named for astronomers, including Mount Newcomb,

Mount Langley Mount Langley is a mountain located on the crest of the Sierra Nevada, on the boundary between Inyo and Tulare counties in eastern California, in the United States. To the east is the Owens Valley, and to the west is the Kern River Valley. I ...

, Mount Young, and Mount Hale. The

first ascent In mountaineering, a first ascent (abbreviated to FA in guide books) is the first successful, documented attainment of the top of a mountain or the first to follow a particular climbing route. First mountain ascents are notable because they e ...

of the summit was made July 16, 1936, by Chester Versteeg, Tyler Van Degrift, and Oliver Kehrlein.John D. and Ruth Mendenhall, Arthur B. Johnson, Braeme Gigas, Howard Koster, ''A Climber’s Guide to the High Sierra'', (1954)
/ref>

Climate

Mount Pickering has an

alpine climate Alpine climate is the typical weather ( 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 ...

. 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 ...

s originate in the

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

, and travel east toward the Sierra Nevada mountains. As fronts approach, they are forced upward by the peaks, causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall onto the range (

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 ...

). Precipitation

runoff Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock market ...

from this mountain drains west to the

Kern River The Kern River, previously Rio de San Felipe, later La Porciuncula, is an #Endangered River Status, Endangered, National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, Wild and Scenic river in the U.S. state of California, approximately long. It drains an are ...

via Rock Creek.

Gallery

File:Joe Devel and Pickering.jpg, Joe Devel Peak (left) and Mt. Pickering (right) from the east. File:Joe Devel, Pickering, Newcomb from Mt. Langley.jpg, Joe Devel Peak (left), Mt. Pickering centered, Kaweah peaks centered in the distance, Mt. Newcomb (right), viewed from Mt. Langley. File:Mt. Pickering.jpg, The top of Mount Pickering centered, as seen from Mount Whitney.

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Mount Pickering
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pickering, Mount Mountains of Tulare County, California Mountains of Sequoia National Park North American 4000 m summits Mountains of Northern California Sierra Nevada (United States)

Climate

Gallery

See also

References

External links