Sangre De Cristo Range
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The Sangre de Cristo Range is a
mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...
in the
Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Can ...
in southern
Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
in the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, running north and south along the east side of the
Rio Grande Rift The Rio Grande rift is a north-trending continental rift zone. It separates the Colorado Plateau in the west from the interior of the North American craton on the east. The rift extends from central Colorado in the north to the state of Chihuah ...
. The mountains extend southeast from Poncha Pass for about through south-central Colorado to La Veta Pass, approximately west of Walsenburg, and form a high ridge separating the
San Luis Valley The San Luis Valley is a region in south-central Colorado with a small portion overlapping into New Mexico. The valley is approximately long and wide, making it the largest alpine valley in the world. It extends from the Continental Divide on ...
on the west from the watershed of the
Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in Colorado, specifically ...
on the east. The Sangre de Cristo Range rises over above the valleys and plains to the west and northeast. According to the
USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...
, the range is the northern part of the larger
Sangre de Cristo Mountains The Sangre de Cristo Mountains (Spanish language, Spanish for "Blood of Christ") are the southernmost mountain range, subrange of the Rocky Mountains. They are located in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico in the United States. The mountai ...
, which extend through northern
New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...
. Usage of the terms "Sangre de Cristo Range" and "Sangre de Cristo Mountains" is varied; however, this article discusses only the mountains between Poncha Pass and La Veta Pass.


Notable peaks

A 14er is a mountain peak that has an elevation of at least 14,000 feet. Colorado has 53, the most of any state. There are 10 14ers in the Sangre de Cristo Range, which can be seen in the table below.


Geography

The Sangre de Cristo Mountains run from Poncha Pass in Central Colorado to Glorieta Pass near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Most of the range is shared by two National Forests, which abut along the range divide. Most of the northeast (Arkansas River) side is located within the
San Isabel National Forest San Isabel National Forest is located in central Colorado. The forest contains 19 of the state's 53 fourteeners, peaks over high, including Mount Elbert, the highest point in Colorado. It is one of eleven national forests in the state of Col ...
, while most of the southwest (San Luis Valley) side is included in the
Rio Grande National Forest Rio Grande National Forest is a 1.86 million-acre (7,530 km2) U.S. National Forest located in southwestern Colorado. The forest encompasses the San Luis Valley, which is the world's largest agricultural alpine valley, as well as one of t ...
. The central part of the range is designated as the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness. The Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve sits on the southwestern flank of the range at the edge of the San Luis Valley. The range divide is traversed by no paved roads, only by
four-wheel drive A four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, is a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case pr ...
and foot trails over Hayden Pass, Hermit Pass, Music Pass, Medano Pass, and
Mosca Pass Mosca Pass, elevation , is a mountain pass in Alamosa and Huerfano counties in the Sangre de Cristo Range in southern Colorado. The pass lies on the eastern border of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve about 40 miles west of Walse ...
. The highest peak in the range, located in the south, is Blanca Peak at ; it is flanked by three other fourteeners: Little Bear Peak, Mount Lindsey, and Ellingwood Point.Ellingwood Point is not always counted as an official fourteener, as it has a high saddle connecting it with Blanca Peak, and hence a low
topographic prominence In topography, prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling ...
.
Other well-known peaks are the fourteeners of the Crestone group:
Kit Carson Mountain Kit Carson Peak, Officially known as the Kit Carson Mountain, is a high mountain summit of the Crestones in the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The fourteener is located ESE ( bearing 102°) of the Town ...
, Crestone Peak, Crestone Needle, and Humboldt Peak. Two sub-peaks of Kit Carson Mountain,
Challenger Point Challenger Point is a Elevation, high mountain summit of the Crestones in the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The fourteener is located east by south (Absolute bearing, bearing 102°) of the Crestone, Colorado, ...
and
Columbia Point Columbia Point is a high mountain summit of the Crestones in the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The thirteener is located east by south ( bearing 102°) of the Town of Crestone in Saguache County, Colora ...
, are named in memory of the crews of the
Space Shuttle Challenger Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' (OV-099) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after HMS Challenger (1858), the commanding ship of a Challenger expedition, nineteenth-century scientific exp ...
and the
Space Shuttle Columbia Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' (OV-102) was a Space Shuttle orbiter manufactured by Rockwell International and operated by NASA. Named after the Columbia Rediviva, first American ship to circumnavigate the globe, and the Columbia (personification) ...
. The range is also home to many high peaks in the 13,000 to 14,000 foot (3,900-4,300 m) range as it continues into New Mexico. In New Mexico most of the mountain area is managed by the US Forest Service in the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests.


Geology

The Colorado Sangre de Cristos are fault-block mountains similar to the
Teton Range The Teton Range is a mountain range of the Rocky Mountains in North America. It extends for approximately in a north–south direction through the U.S. state of Wyoming, east of the Idaho state line. It is south of Yellowstone National Park, ...
in Wyoming and the
Wasatch Range The Wasatch Range ( ) or Wasatch Mountains is a mountain range in the western United States that runs about from the Utah-Idaho border south to central Utah. It is the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains, and the eastern edge of the Gr ...
in Utah. Major fault lines run along the east and west sides of the range, and cut right through the mountains in some places. Like all fault-block mountain ranges, the Sangre de Cristos lack
foothills Foothills or piedmont are geography, geographically defined as gradual increases in elevation at the base of a mountain range, higher hill range or an highland, upland area. They are a transition zone between plains and low terrain, relief hill ...
which means the highest peaks rise abruptly from the valleys to the east and west, rising in only a few miles in some places. The mountains were pushed up around 5 million years ago, basically as one large mass of rock. The Sangre de Cristo range is still being uplifted today as faults in the area remain active. Due to uplift (elevation increase) and erosion, rock layers are missing, causing gaps in the range, called "unconformities." On the west side is the
San Luis Valley The San Luis Valley is a region in south-central Colorado with a small portion overlapping into New Mexico. The valley is approximately long and wide, making it the largest alpine valley in the world. It extends from the Continental Divide on ...
, a portion of the
Rio Grande Rift The Rio Grande rift is a north-trending continental rift zone. It separates the Colorado Plateau in the west from the interior of the North American craton on the east. The rift extends from central Colorado in the north to the state of Chihuah ...
. On the southeast side is the Raton Basin, a quiet but still active
volcanic field A volcanic field is an area of Earth's Earth's crust, crust that is prone to localized volcano, volcanic activity. The type and number of volcanoes required to be called a "field" is not well-defined. Volcanic fields usually consist of clusters ...
. On the northeast side are the
Wet Mountains The Wet Mountains are a small mountain range in southern Colorado, named for the amount of snow they receive in the winter as compared to the dry Great Plains to the east. They are a sub-range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, in the southern Roc ...
and the
Front Range The Front Range is a mountain range of the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America located in the central portion of the U.S. State of Colorado, and southeastern portion of the U.S. State of Wyoming. It is the first mountain range encounter ...
, areas of
Precambrian The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of t ...
igneous Igneous rock ( ), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rocks are formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. The magma can be derived from partial ...
and
metamorphic Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causi ...
rocks formed during the Colorado orogeny some 1.7 billion years ago and then uplifted more recently during the
Laramide orogeny The Laramide orogeny was a time period of mountain building in western North America, which started in the Late Cretaceous, 80 to 70 million years ago, and ended 55 to 35 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the o ...
. The Blanca Massif is also Precambrian rock, while most of the rest of the Sangres is composed of younger
Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...
- Pennsylvanian (about 250-million-year-old) rock, a mix of
sedimentary Sedimentary rocks are types of rock formed by the cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or deposited at Earth's surface. Sedime ...
conglomerates, silty mudstones and
shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...
s, sandstones, limestone beds and igneous
intrusion In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...
s. These sedimentary rocks originated as
sediment Sediment is a solid material that is transported to a new location where it is deposited. It occurs naturally and, through the processes of weathering and erosion, is broken down and subsequently sediment transport, transported by the action of ...
eroded Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is disti ...
from the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. Crestone Conglomerate are a feature on many of the peaks, including Crestone Needle. The conglomerate settled near the uplift and contains boulders as large as 6 feet in diameter.


Climate


History

Antonio Valverde y Cosio named the Sangre de Cristo range after the red-hue that he saw during the snowy sunrise. Sangre de Cristo means Blood of Christ in English. In the formation of the range, we can see fossils of footprints, shells and bones. In August 2009, the Sangre de Cristo Range was dedicated as a
National Heritage Area In the United States, a National Heritage Area (NHA) is a site designated by Act of Congress, intended to encourage historic preservation of the area and an appreciation of the history and heritage of the site. There are currently 62 NHAs, some o ...
(NHA), an area of cultural, natural, and historic preservation.


Economy

Today, tourism is the main economic activity.


See also

*
Southern Rocky Mountains The Southern Rocky Mountains are a major subregion of the Rocky Mountains of North America located in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, the central and western portions of Colorado, the northern portion of New Mexico, and ext ...
*
Mountain ranges of Colorado All the major mountain ranges in the state of Colorado, United States, are considered subranges of the Southern Rocky Mountains. As given in the table, topographic elevation is the vertical distance above the reference geoid, a mathematical mod ...


References

;Notes


External links


Sangre de Cristo Range @ Peakbagger
* ttp://www.daveharpe.com/public/colorado_20120225_001/ High resolution zoomable panorama of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range looking Westbr>CO & NM Sangre de Cristo Mountains
{{Authority control Mountain ranges of Colorado Sangre de Cristo Mountains Ranges of the Rocky Mountains Landforms of Custer County, Colorado Landforms of Saguache County, Colorado San Luis Valley of Colorado Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area