Stony Mountain is a mountain summit located in

Ouray County Ouray County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,874. The county seat is Ouray. Because of its rugged mountain topography, Ouray County is also known as the Switzerland of America. H ...

of southwest

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 ...

, United States. It is situated five miles southwest of the community of Ouray, on land managed by

Uncompahgre National Forest Uncompahgre National Forest is a U.S. National Forest covering 955,229 acres (1,492.55 sq mi, or 3,865.68 km2) in (in descending order of land area) parts of Montrose, Mesa, San Miguel, Ouray, Gunnison, Hinsdale, San Juan, and Delta C ...

. It is part of the

Sneffels Range The Sneffels Range, regionally conterminous with San Juans, is a young, prominent, and rugged range of mountains in southwestern Colorado of the San Juan Mountains. The Sneffels range form the southern border of Ouray County and run west to east ...

which is a subset of the

San Juan Mountains The San Juan Mountains is a high and rugged mountain range in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. The area is highly mineralized (the Colorado Mineral Belt) and figured in the gold and silver mining industry ...

, which in turn is part of 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 straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

. It is situated west of the

Continental Divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, no ...

, 1.3 miles southwest of

Potosi Peak Potosi Peak is a 13,786-foot-elevation (4,202 meter) mountain summit located in Ouray County of Colorado, United States. It is situated five miles southwest of the community of Ouray, on land managed by Uncompahgre National Forest. It is part ...

, and 1.15 miles northeast of parent Mount Emma.

Yankee Boy Basin Yankee Boy Basin is an alpine basin in Ouray County, southwestern Colorado. It is in the San Juan Mountains, protected within Uncompahgre National Forest. The basin−valley is well renowned for its display of wildflowers during the spring bloo ...

is surrounded by Stony Mountain,

Gilpin Peak Gilpin Peak is a high mountain summit in the Sneffels Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The thirteener is located in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness of Uncompahgre National Forest, north-northeast ( bearing 23°) of the Town of ...

Mount Sneffels Mount Sneffels is the highest summit of the Sneffels Range in the Rocky Mountains of North America. The prominent fourteener is located in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness of Uncompahgre National Forest, west by south ( bearing 256°) of the ...

, Cirque Mountain, and

Teakettle Mountain Teakettle Mountain, elevation , is a summit in the Sneffels Range of southwest Colorado. The peak is west of Ouray, Colorado, Ouray in the Uncompahgre National Forest. See also *List of mountain ranges of Colorado, List of Colorado mountain ra ...

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 w ...

is significant as the east aspect rises above Sneffels Creek in less than one mile. The mountain's name, which has been officially adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names, was in use before 1899 when

Henry Gannett Henry Gannett (August 24, 1846 – November 5, 1914) was an American geographer who is described as the "father of mapmaking in America."Evans, Richard Tranter; Frye, Helen M. (2009).History of the Topographic Branch (Division) (PDF). ''U.S. Geo ...

published it in ''A Dictionary of Altitudes in the United States''.Henry Gannett, ''A Dictionary of Altitudes in the United States'', 1899, US Government Printing Office, page 97.

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, Stony Mountain is located in an alpine subarctic climate zone with cold, snowy winters, and cool to warm summers. Due to its altitude, it receives precipitation all year, as snow in winter, and as thunderstorms in summer, with a dry period in late spring. 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 the mountain drains into tributaries of the

Uncompahgre River The Uncompahgre River is a tributary of the Gunnison River, approximately 75 mi (121 km) long, in southwestern Colorado in the United States. Lake Como at 12,215 ft (3723m) in northern San Juan County, in the Uncompahgre National ...

References

External links

* Weather forecast
National Weather Service
{{Mountains of Colorado Mountains of Ouray County, Colorado San Juan Mountains (Colorado) Mountains of Colorado North American 3000 m summits Uncompahgre National Forest