Rishel Peak is a mountain

summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topography, topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used ...

located in

Tooele County Tooele County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 58,218. Its county seat and largest city is Tooele. The county was created in 1850 and organized the following year. Tooele County ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, United States.

Description

Rishel Peak is situated in the

Silver Island Mountains Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical co ...

which are a subset of the Great Basin Ranges, and it is set on land managed by the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

. The community of

Wendover, Utah Wendover is a city on the western edge of Tooele County, Utah, United States. The population was 1,115 at the 2020 census. Description Wendover is on the western border of Utah and is contiguous with West Wendover, Nevada. Interstate 80 runs j ...

, is eight miles to the southwest and the

Bonneville Speedway Bonneville Speedway (also known as the Bonneville Salt Flats Race Track) is an area of the Bonneville Salt Flats northeast of Wendover, Utah, that is marked out for motor sports. It is particularly noted as the venue for numerous land speed recor ...

is seven miles to the east-southeast.

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 word ...

is significant as the summit rises above the

Bonneville Salt Flats The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land managed by the Bur ...

in 1.5 mile. This landform's toponym was officially adopted in 1960 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 governm ...

to honor William D. "Bill" Rishel (1869–1947), who in 1907 was the first to test the suitability of the salt flat for driving by taking a

Pierce-Arrow The Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company was an American motor vehicle manufacturer based in Buffalo, New York, which was active from 1901 to 1938. Although best known for its expensive luxury cars, Pierce-Arrow also manufactured commercial trucks ...

onto its surface.Madeleine Osberger, Steve Cohen (1996), ''Adventure Guide to Utah'', Hunter Pub., , p. 47

Climate

Rishel Peak is set in the

Great Salt Lake Desert The Great Salt Lake Desert (colloquially referred to as the West Desert) is a large dry lake in northern Utah, United States, between the Great Salt Lake and the Nevada border. It is a subregion of the larger Great Basin Desert, and noted for w ...

which has hot summers and cold winters. The desert is an example of a

cold desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk''), is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

as the desert's elevation makes temperatures cooler than lower elevation deserts. Due to the high elevation and aridity, temperatures drop sharply after sunset. Summer nights are comfortably cool. Winter highs are generally above freezing, and winter nights are bitterly cold, with temperatures often dropping well below freezing.

Gallery

File:Winter at Bonneville Salt Flats.jpg, Rishel Peak File:Rishel and Tetzlaff peaks.jpg, Rishel Peak (left) and Tetzlaff Peak (center) seen from Volcano Peak.
Further in the distance are Graham Peak and

Jenkins Peak Jenkins Peak is a mountain summit located in Tooele County, Utah, United States. Description Jenkins Peak is the third-highest summit in the Silver Island Mountains which are a subset of the Great Basin Ranges. It is set on land controlled by t ...

. File:Bonneville Salt Flats, Silver Island Range.jpg, Volcano Peak (left), Rishel Peak (left of center) and Tetzlaff Peak (right) from Bonneville Salt Flats File:2015-09-29 08 56 39 View north-northwest from the end of the road to Bonneville Salt Flats International Speedway near Wendover, Utah, with calm waters covering the salt flats and reflecting the sky and mountains.jpg, Rishel Peak (left) and Tetzlaff Peak (right) File:Wendover (UT, USA), Bonneville Salt Flats -- 2022 -- 2701.jpg, Rishel Peak File:Rishel Peak, Bonneville Salt Flats.jpg, Rishel Peak from Bonneville Salt Flats

References

{{reflist

External links

*Rishel Peak
weather forecast
* Life story and photo of "Big Bill" Rishel
Bangshift.com
Mountains of Utah Mountains of Tooele County, Utah North American 1000 m summits Great Salt Lake Desert Mountains of the Great Basin

Description

Climate

Gallery

See also

References

External links