Center Peak is a mountain summit located one mile west of the crest of the

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 ...

mountain range, in the northeast corner of

Tulare County Tulare County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia. The county is named for Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. ...

in northern

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 ...

. It is situated in eastern

Kings Canyon National Park Kings Canyon National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada, in Fresno and Tulare Counties, California. Originally established in 1890 as General Grant National Park, the park was greatly expanded and renamed to Kings ...

, southwest of the community of

Independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...

, south of University Peak, and two miles north of

Forester Pass Forester Pass is a mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada. Located on the Kings-Kern Divide and on the boundary between Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park, Forester Pass connects the drainages of Bubbs Creek (a tributary of the So ...

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 word ...

is significant as the north aspect rises above

Bubbs Creek Bubbs Creek is a -long tributary of the South Fork Kings River in the Sierra Nevada of California, within Kings Canyon National Park. The creek originates near Junction Pass (east of Forester Pass), in northeastern Tulare County. It flows north t ...

in one mile. The

John Muir Trail The John Muir Trail (JMT) (Northern Paiute language, Paiute: Nüümü Poyo, ''N-ue-mue Poh-yo'') is a long-distance trail in the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, passing through Yosemite National Park, Yosemite, ...

which traverses below the west slope of this remote peak provides an approach.

History

Cornelius Beach Bradley Cornelius Beach Bradley (November 18, 1843 – February 18, 1936) was an American English-language scholar. He served as professor of rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley (then called the University of California), and also extensiv ...

and Robert M. Price, each of the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...

, named it in 1898 when Bradley made the

first ascent In mountaineering, a first ascent (abbreviated to FA in guide books) is the first successful, documented attainment of the top of a mountain or the first to follow a particular climbing route. First mountain ascents are notable because they en ...

: "Two of these promontories, standing guard, as it were, the one at the entrance to the valley and the other just within it, form a striking pair, and we named them the Videttes. A third, standing more detached, and in the very center of the mighty cirque at the head of the valley, we named Center Peak."Francis P. Farquhar, Place Names of the High Sierra (1926)
/ref> The north face was first climbed by

David Brower David Ross Brower (; July 1, 1912 – November 5, 2000) was a prominent environmentalist and the founder of many environmental organizations, including the John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies (1997), Friends of the Earth (1969), Eart ...

and Hervey Voge on May 22, 1934.Steve Roper, ''The Climber's Guide to the High Sierra'', 1976, Sierra Club Books, , page 360. The Northwest Arête is considered one of the classic climbing routes in the Sierra Nevada, and was first climbed in 1983 by Claude Fiddler and

Vern Clevenger Vern Clevenger (born 1955 in Oakland, California) is a noted climber and landscape photographer. He made the first ascent of Cholatse in 1982. He lives in Mammoth Lakes, California with his wife and two children, Dylan and Sabrina. On April 13, ...

.John Moynier, Claude Fiddler, 1993, ''Sierra Classics 100 Best Climbs in the High Sierra'', Chockstone Press, , page 66.

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, Center 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, causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or

snowfall Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...

onto the range (

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 ...

). 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 headwaters of Bubbs Creek, a tributary of the

South Fork Kings River The South Fork Kings River is a tributary of the Kings River in the Sierra Nevada of Fresno County, California. The river forms part of Kings Canyon, the namesake of Kings Canyon National Park and one of the deepest canyons in North America wit ...

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Center Peak
* Center Peak photo
Flickr
{{Geographic Location 2 , Center = Center Peak , North = University Peak , Northeast = Golden Bear Lake , East =

Mount Bradley Mount Bradley () is a pyramidal peak, high, at the southeast end of a ridge descending from Detroit Plateau, surmounting Znepole Ice Piedmont to the east and Dreatin Glacier to the southwest. The peak is southwest of Mount Reece in the south ...

, Southeast =

Mount Keith Mount Keith is a mountain on the crest of California's Sierra Nevada, between Mount Bradley to the north, and Junction Peak to the southwest. Its north and west facing slopes feed the Kings River watershed by way of Bubbs Creek, and its east and ...

, South =

Junction Peak Junction Peak is a thirteener in the Sierra Nevada. Joseph Nisbet LeConte chose this name in 1896, noting that it marks the point where the Sierra Crest crosses the water divide of the Kern and Kings rivers. Today it also is the boundary between ...

, Southwest =

Mount Stanford Mount Stanford, at an elevation of , is on the Kings-Kern Divide in Kings Canyon National Park. It is named for Stanford University. It is the fifteenth tallest mountain in California and is located about from University Peak (California), Unive ...

, WSW =

Deerhorn Mountain Deerhorn Mountain is a peak in the Sierra Nevada in Tulare County, California. It is located along the Kings-Kern Divide in the southern part of Kings Canyon National Park. According to ''Place Names of the Sierra Nevada'' (Peter Browning), it ...

, West =

, Northwest =

East Vidette East Vidette is a mountain summit located two miles west of the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, in the northeast corner of Tulare County in northern California. It is situated in Kings Canyon National Park, west-southwest of the comm ...

Mountains of Tulare County, California Mountains of Kings Canyon National Park North American 3000 m summits Mountains of Northern California Sierra Nevada (United States)

History

Climate

See also

References

External links