Banner Peak is the second tallest peak in the

Ritter Range The Ritter Range is a small mountain range within California's Sierra Nevada. Most of the mountain range lies within the Ansel Adams Wilderness. The John Muir Trail passes by many lakes within the Ritter Range. The most prominent peaks of the Rit ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

. The mountain is tall, and there are several

glaciers A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

on its slopes. It lies within the boundaries of the

Ansel Adams Wilderness The Ansel Adams Wilderness is a wilderness area in the Sierra Nevada of California, United States. The wilderness spans ; 33.9% of the territory lies in the Inyo National Forest, 65.8% is in the Sierra National Forest, and the remaining 0.3% cover ...

; at the foot of the peak lie Garnet Lake, Lake Ediza, and the famous

Thousand Island Lake Thousand Island Lake is a large alpine lake in the Sierra Nevada, within the Ansel Adams Wilderness in eastern Madera County, California. The lake is named for the many small rocky islands that dot its surface. Theodore Solomons probably establi ...

. Banner Peak is near the town of

Mammoth Lakes Mammoth Lakes is a town in Mono County, California, and is the county's only incorporated community. It is located immediately to the east of Mammoth Mountain, at an elevation of . As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 7,191, r ...

; from there, climbers can hike to the foot of the mountain where various routes reach the summit, the easiest of which is a from the west end of Thousand Island Lake and then the saddle between Banner Peak and the slightly taller

Mount Ritter Mount Ritter is the highest mountain in Madera County, California, Madera County, California, in the Western United States, at an elevation of . It is also the highest and most prominent peak of its namesake, the Ritter Range, a subrange of the S ...

. Other nearby lakes include Lake Catherine and Shadow Lake. The peak was named in 1883 by

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

topographer Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scie ...

Willard D. Johnson who observed a banner cloud streaming from the summit.

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, notabl ...

system, Banner Peak is located in an

alpine climate Alpine climate is the typical weather (climate) for elevations above the tree line, where trees fail to grow due to cold. This climate is also referred to as a mountain climate or highland climate. Definition There are multiple definitions of ...

zone. Most

weather front A weather front is a boundary separating air masses for which several characteristics differ, such as air density, wind, temperature, and humidity. Disturbed and unstable weather due to these differences often arises along the boundary. For in ...

s originate in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, and travel east toward the Sierra Nevada mountains. As fronts approach, they are forced upward by the peaks (

orographic lift Orographic lift occurs when an air mass is forced from a low elevation to a higher elevation as it moves over rising terrain. As the air mass gains altitude it quickly cools down adiabatically, which can raise the relative humidity to 100% and cr ...

), causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall onto the range.

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Banner Peak
Mountains of the Ansel Adams Wilderness Mountains of Madera County, California North American 3000 m summits Mountains of Northern California Mountains of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Inyo National Forest Sierra National Forest {{MaderaCountyCA-geo-stub