Point Lookout is an 8,427-foot (2,569 meter) elevation sandstone
summit
A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous.
The term (mountain top) is generally used only for a m ...
located in
Mesa Verde National Park
Mesa Verde National Park is an American national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado. The park protects some of the best-preserved Ancestral Puebloan archaeological sites in the United States.
Establishe ...
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
. This prominent landmark is situated south of the park entrance, and east-southeast of the town of Cortez, and towers 1,600 feet above the surrounding terrain of Mancos Valley. Soldiers from
Fort Lewis Fort Lewis may refer to:
*Fort Lewis (Colorado), a former United States Army post (1878–1891) in the U.S. State of Colorado
**Fort Lewis College, a college in the Durango, Colorado, United States
**Fort Lewis Skyhawks, athletic teams of Fort Lewi ...
army post used its lofty position to send heliographic signals to troops campaigning in the west. A trail climbs 2.2 miles (3.5 km) round-trip to the top and offers views of Montezuma and Mancos valleys, as well as the
La Plata Mountains
The La Plata Mountains are a small subrange of the San Juan Mountains in the southwestern part of Colorado, United States. They are located on the border between Montezuma and La Plata counties, about northwest of Durango. Their name is Spanish ...
The main entrance road to Mesa Verde National Park traverses the east flank of Point Lookout as it climbs the
escarpment
An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations.
The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esca ...
of the East Rim of Mesa Verde. Point Lookout is located on the
Colorado Plateau
The Colorado Plateau, also known as the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. This province covers an area ...
, and is composed of 400-foot thick
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...
Point Lookout Sandstone
The Point Lookout Sandstone is a Cretaceous bedrock formation occurring in New Mexico and Colorado.
Description
The formation consists of two informal members. The lower is a sequence of thinly bedded sandstone and shale, while the upper is a m ...
, which is the oldest of the three formations that make up the
Mesaverde Group
The Mesaverde Group is a Late Cretaceous stratigraphic group found in areas of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, in the Western United States.
History
The Mesaverde Formation was first described by W.H.Holmes in 1877 during the ...
which is common to the
Mesa Verde region
The Mesa Verde Region is a portion of the Colorado Plateau in the United States that extends through parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. It is bounded by the San Juan River to the south, the Piedra River to the east, the San Juan Mountai ...
.Ann G. Harris, Esther Tuttle, Sherwood D. Tuttle, "''Geology of National Parks''", 6th Ed., Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 2004. The cliff-forming Point Lookout Sandstone overlays softer, slope-forming
Mancos Shale
The Mancos Shale or Mancos Group is a Late Cretaceous (Upper Cretaceous) geologic formation of the Western United States.
The Mancos Shale was first described by Cross and Purington in 1899 and was named for exposures near the town of Mancos ...
, which is 2,000 feet thick and extends to the valley floor. 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 feature drains into the San Juan River watershed.
Gallery
File:Butte Near Mesa Verde National Park Entrance (4848592682).jpg
File:A butte in Colorado.jpg
File:Mesa Verde National Park - panoramio (2).jpg
File:Mesa Verde National Park Point Lookout.jpg
File:La Plata Mountains by RO.JPG, Mancos Valley and La Plata Mountains from Point Lookout
Climate
According to the
Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...
system, Point Lookout is located in a
Humid continental climate
A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freez ...
zone. April through October are the most favorable months to visit.