Turtlehead Mountain is a

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 ...

Clark County Clark County may refer to: *Clark County, Arkansas *Clark County, Idaho *Clark County, Illinois *Clark County, Indiana *Clark County, Kansas *Clark County, Kentucky *Clark County, Missouri *Clark County, Nevada, containing Las Vegas *Clark County, ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

, United States.

Description

Turtlehead Mountain, also known as Turtlehead Peak, is located west of downtown

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

in the

Spring Mountains The Spring Mountains are a mountain range of Southern Nevada in the United States, running generally northwest–southeast along the west side of Las Vegas and south to the border with California. Most land in the mountains is owned by the Uni ...

which are a subrange of the Great Basin Ranges. It is set on land administered 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, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

as the

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area The Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in Clark County, Nevada, United States, is an area managed by the Bureau of Land Management as part of its National Landscape Conservation System, and protected as a National Conservation Area. ...

. Turtlehead Mountain is composed of

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

which formed about 250 million years ago during the

Paleozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma a ...

. Precipitation runoff from the mountain's slopes drains into Red Rock Wash which is part of the

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

watershed.

Topographic relief Terrain (), alternatively relief or topographical relief, is the dimension and shape of a given surface of land. In physical geography, terrain is the lay of the land. This is usually expressed in terms of the elevation, slope, and orientati ...

is significant as the summit rises over above Brownstone Basin in one mile (1.6 km). Access to the summit is via the Turtlehead Peak Trail which covers five miles and gains 2,000 feet of elevation.Crystal Wood, ''Explorer's Guide Las Vegas: A Great Destination'', The Countryman Press, 2010, , p. 190. This mountain's descriptive toponym has been officially adopted by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

Climate

Turtlehead Mountain is set within the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...

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 below freezing.

Gallery

File:Turtlehead Peak (45636316264).jpg File:Red Rock Canyon National Conservationa Area.jpg File:Turtlehead Peak evening 1.jpg

References

External links

* Turtlehead Mountain
Weather
{{Portal bar, Geography, Geology, Mountains, Nevada Mountains of Clark County, Nevada Mountains of Nevada One-thousanders of the United States Mountains of the Great Basin Spring Mountains

Description

Climate

See also

Gallery

References

External links