Mount Young is a mountain summit located 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 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 ...

. It is situated in

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 ...

, and is west of

Mount Whitney Mount Whitney (Paiute: ''Too-man-i-goo-yah'' or ''Too-man-go-yah'') is a mountain in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, and the highest point in the contiguous United States, with an elevation of . It lies in East–Central Califor ...

, one mile northwest of Guitar Lake, and one mile southwest of Mount Hale, the nearest higher neighbor. The

John Muir Trail The John Muir Trail (JMT) is a long-distance trail in the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, passing through Yosemite National Park, Yosemite, Kings Canyon National Park, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park, Se ...

traverses below the south and west aspects of the mountain, providing access.

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 southwest aspect rises above Whitney Creek in approximately one mile. Mt. Young ranks as the 117th highest summit in California.

History

In 1881, Rev. Frederick H. Wales of Tulare climbed Mount Young, where he left a record of its name, and the name of the peak south of it, for which he suggested the name "Mount Hitchcock."Francis P. Farquhar, Place Names of the High Sierra (1926)
/ref> Wales Lake, one mile to the northeast of Mt. Young, was named after him. This mountain's name was officially adopted in 1909 by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to honor the eminent American astronomer

Charles Augustus Young Charles Augustus Young (December 15, 1834 – January 4, 1908) one of the foremost solar spectroscopist astronomers in the United States. He observed solar eclipses and worked on spectroscopy of the Sun. He observed a solar flare with a spe ...

(1834–1908). Young was teaching at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

while Wales was a Dartmouth student (1872 graduate). The

first ascent In mountaineering and climbing, a first ascent (abbreviated to FA in climbing guidebook, guide books), is the first successful documented climb to the top of a mountain or the top of a particular climbing route. Early 20th-century mountaineers a ...

of the summit was made September 7, 1881, by Frederick H. Wales, William B. Wallace, and Captain James Wright.R. J. Secor, ''The High Sierra Peaks, Passes, Trails'', 2009, Third Edition, Mountaineers Books, . During the same month, Wales also made the first ascent of

Mount Hitchcock Mount Hitchcock is a mountain located in South Hadley and Hadley, Massachusetts. It reaches 1,002 feet (305 m) at its peak in South Hadley. The Metacomet-Monadnock Trail runs through it as it does for all the Holyoke Range. To the west is ...

and

Mount Kaweah Mount Kaweah () is a mountain in California's Sequoia National Park and forms part of the Kaweah Peaks Ridge, a spur of the Great Western Divide which extends south from Triple Divide Peak. It has a summit elevation of , the highest along the ...

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, Mount Young has 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 ...

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

, 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 from this mountain drains west to the

Kern River The Kern River is an Endangered, Wild and Scenic river in the U.S. state of California, approximately long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between ...

via Wallace and Whitney Creeks.

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Mount Young
{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Mount Mountains of Tulare County, California Mountains of Sequoia National Park Four-thousanders of the United States Mountains of Northern California Sierra Nevada (United States)

History

Climate

See also

References

External links