The Medicine Bow Mountains are 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 ...

that extend from northern

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 ...

into southern

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

. The northern extent of this range is the sub-range the Snowy Range. From the northern end of Colorado's

Never Summer Mountains The Never Summer Mountains (from Arapaho: ''Ni-chebe-chii'') are a mountain range in the Rocky Mountains in north central Colorado in the United States consisting of over twenty named peaks. The range is located along the northwest border of Rock ...

, the Medicine Bow mountains extend north from Cameron Pass along the border between Larimer and

Jackson Jackson may refer to: Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Queensland, a locality in the Maranoa Region * Jackson South, Queensland, a locality in the Maranoa Region * Jackson oil field in Durham, ...

counties in Colorado and northward into south central Wyoming. In Wyoming, the range sits west of Laramie, in Albany and

Carbon Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...

counties to the route of the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

and U.S.

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one of the ori ...

. The mountains often serve as a symbol for the city of Laramie. The range is home to Snowy Range Ski Area. The highest peak in the range is Clark Peak (), located in the

Rawah Wilderness The Rawah Wilderness is administered by the USDA Forest Service. It is located on the Canyon Lakes Ranger District of the Roosevelt National Forest in Colorado, near the Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mou ...

along the southern end of the range in Northern

.The elevation of Clark Peak includes an adjustment of +1.628 m (+5.34 ft) from NGVD 29 to NAVD 88. Much of the range is located within the

Medicine Bow National Forest Medicine is the science and practice of caring for patients, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practice ...

in Wyoming. The highest peak on the Wyoming side is

Medicine Bow Peak Medicine Bow Peak () is the highest peak in the Snowy Range, a part of the Medicine Bow Mountains, about west of Laramie, Wyoming. It lies within Medicine Bow National Forest and is the highest point in southern Wyoming. The summit lies in ...

(). The range is drained along the western flank by the

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

and

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

rivers, tributaries of the North Platte in North Park. On its eastern flank it is drained by the

Laramie River The Laramie River is a tributary of the North Platte River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 21, 2011 in the U.S. states of Colorado and Wyomi ...

, another tributary of the North Platte.

Geology

The Medicine Bow Mountains resulted from continental compression 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 ...

. Beginning about 70 million years ago, the Rockies began uplifting along

thrust fault A thrust fault is a break in the Earth's crust, across which older rocks are pushed above younger rocks. Thrust geometry and nomenclature Reverse faults A thrust fault is a type of reverse fault that has a dip of 45 degrees or less. I ...

s that broke up the

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 ...

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

Earth's crust Earth's crust is its thick outer shell of rock, referring to less than one percent of the planet's radius and volume. It is the top component of the lithosphere, a solidified division of Earth's layers that includes the crust and the upper ...

. By 50 million years ago, all of Wyoming's major mountain ranges were elevated and the major basins defined. Rocks exposed along the flanks and peaks of the Medicine Bow Mountains span the Precambrian to modern, with the peaks composed of 2.4-2.0 billion year old Medicine Peak Quartzite. This rock was once a shallow marine sand deposit that has since been compressed and heated during burial, forming the

metamorphic rock 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, caus ...

quartzite Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock that was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tecton ...

. What may be traces of multicellular animals are preserved in this rock, making it of particular interest to

paleontologists Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

. The

Cheyenne belt The Cheyenne Belt is the tectonic suture zone between the Archean-age Wyoming craton to the north and the Paleoproterozoic-age Yavapai province to the south. It runs through the southeastern quadrant of the state of Wyoming, United States. It was f ...

, the 1.78–1.74 billion year old suture between the

Wyoming craton The Wyoming Craton is a craton in the west-central United States and western Canada – more specifically, in Montana, Wyoming, southern Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, and parts of northern Utah. Also called the Wyoming Province, it is the init ...

and the Yavapai province that formed as North America was assembled, is exposed in the Medicine Bow Mountains.

Fauna

Wildlife abounds in these mountains, with mule deer, elk, moose, black bear, mountain lions, coyotes, marmots, pika, Richardson's ground squirrels, bobcats, and lynx as well as a tremendous variety of birds. Brook and rainbow trout as well as grayling and golden trout are found in the streams. A disjunct population of arctic fairy shrimp (Brachinecta paludosa) has been documented in a few lakes in the northern part of the range.

Research

Since 1987, the Glacier Lakes area of the Snowy Range has been home to the Glacier Lakes Ecosystem Experiments Site (GLEES), a field unit of the

Rocky Mountain Research Station The Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) is one of five regional units that make up the United States Forest Service Research and Development organization — the most extensive natural resources research organization in the world. The station ...

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency within the United States Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture. It administers the nation's 154 United States National Forest, national forests and 20 United States Natio ...

. Areas of scientific inquiry at the site include atmospheric pollutant deposition, forest carbon and water vapor cycling, effect of insect outbreaks, and alpine lake and stream hydrology. The site is in extent and hosts facilities for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP), the National Dry Deposition Network (NDDN), and AmeriFlux (

Eddy covariance The eddy covariance (also known as eddy correlation and eddy flux) is a key atmospheric measurement technique to measure and calculate vertical turbulent fluxes within planetary boundary layer, atmospheric boundary layers. The method analyses hig ...

Airline crash

This mountain range is also home to some of the remains of a

Douglas DC-4 The Douglas DC-4 is an American four-engined (piston), propeller-driven airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Military versions of the plane, the C-54 and R5D, served during World War II, in the Berlin Airlift and into the 1960 ...

aircraft, operated as

United Airlines Flight 409 United Air Lines Flight 409 was a scheduled flight which originated in New York City, New York. The final flight destination was San Francisco, California, with stops in Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake City. The aircraft operating the service, a D ...

. The aircraft crashed into Medicine Bow Peak on October 6, 1955, killing all 66 people on board.

Historical sites

* Ryan Park Camp opened in 1930 as a

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...

(CCC) camp during the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

. From 1942 to 1945 Ryan Park Camp operated as

World War 2 World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilisin ...

Prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

(POW) camp. * Brush Creek Work Center, built by the Ryan Park Camp, is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on April 11, 1994. Brush Creek Work Center was designed by

architects of the United States Forest Service An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

in rustic style. with * Parker Ranch House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 13, 1985. * Centennial Work Center is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, placed on April 11, 1994. * Centennial Depot in

Centennial, Wyoming Centennial is a small mountain-town in Albany County, Wyoming, Albany County, Wyoming, United States. It serves a fairly large surrounding landscape, along with a few ranches, located along a gently sloping hillside traversed by a highway. Becau ...

built in 1907, now part of the Nici Self Historical Museum. * Brooklyn Lodge built in 19223 for former rodeo performer Harry "Hoot" Jones.

References

External links

*
Medicine Bow Mountains @ PeakbaggerMedicine Bow Mountains on summitpost.orgSnowy Range info page on summitpost.orgSnowy Range photo album on summitpost.org
{{Authority control Ranges of the Rocky Mountains Mountain ranges of Colorado Mountain ranges of Wyoming Landforms of Larimer County, Colorado Landforms of Jackson County, Colorado Landforms of Albany County, Wyoming Landforms of Carbon County, Wyoming