The Laramie Mountains are a
range
Range may refer to:
Geography
* Range (geographic), a chain of hills or mountains; a somewhat linear, complex mountainous or hilly area (cordillera, sierra)
** Mountain range, a group of mountains bordered by lowlands
* Range, a term used to i ...
of moderately high peaks on the eastern edge 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 ...
in the
U.S states of
Wyoming
Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...
and
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the 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 western edge of t ...
. The range is the northernmost extension of the line of the ranges along the eastern side of the Rockies, and in particular of the higher peaks of the
Front Range
The Front Range is a mountain range of the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America located in the central portion of the U.S. State of Colorado, and southeastern portion of the U.S. State of Wyoming. It is the first mountain range encountere ...
directly to the south. North of the range, the gap between the Laramie range and the
Bighorn Mountains
The Bighorn Mountains ( cro, Basawaxaawúua, lit=our mountains or cro, Iisaxpúatahchee Isawaxaawúua, label=none, lit=bighorn sheep's mountains) are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a nort ...
provided the route for historical trails, such as the
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what ...
, the
Mormon Trail
The Mormon Trail is the long route from Illinois to Utah that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints traveled for 3 months. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon ...
, and the
Pony Express
The Pony Express was an American express mail service that used relays of horse-mounted riders. It operated from April 3, 1860, to October 26, 1861, between Missouri and California. It was operated by the Central Overland California and Pik ...
.
The Laramie Mountains begin in northern Colorado and extend discontinuously into southeastern Wyoming between
Cheyenne
The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...
and
Laramie and northward to
Casper
Casper may refer to:
People
* Casper (given name)
* Casper (surname)
* Casper (Maya ruler) (422–487?), ruler of the Mayan city of Palenque
* Tok Casper, first known king of Maya city-state Quiriguá in Guatemala, ruling beginning in 426
* David ...
. (By some definitions the Laramies are only in Wyoming.) They are named after 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 Wyoming. ...
, which cuts through the range from southwest to northeast and joins the
North Platte River
The North Platte River is a major tributary of the Platte River and is approximately long, counting its many curves.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 21, 2011 In a ...
east of the range in eastern Wyoming. The mountains in turn give their name to the
Laramide orogeny
The Laramide orogeny was a time period of mountain building in western North America, which started in the Late Cretaceous, 70 to 80 million years ago, and ended 35 to 55 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the o ...
, the uplift of the
North American Plate
The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Asia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores. With an area of , it is the Earth's second largest tectonic plate, behind the Pacific ...
approximately 70 million years ago that created the present Rocky Mountains.
The highest portions of the Laramie mountains are mostly in public ownership, forming part of the
Medicine Bow-Routt and
Roosevelt
Roosevelt may refer to:
*Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), 26th U.S. president
*Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), 32nd U.S. president
Businesses and organisations
* Roosevelt Hotel (disambiguation)
* Roosevelt & Son, a merchant bank
* Roosevel ...
National Forests.
Geology
![Granite rock, Laramie Mtns, WY](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Granite_rock%2C_Laramie_Mtns%2C_WY.jpg)
The mountains consist of a series of
Precambrian
The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, 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 the ...
Sherman
granite
Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) 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 cools and solidifies undergro ...
monadnock
An inselberg or monadnock () is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain.
In Southern Africa a similar formation of granite is known as a koppie, a ...
s rising above a broad
erosion surface
In geology and geomorphology, an erosion surface is a surface of rock or regolith that was formed by erosion and not by construction (e.g. lava flows, sediment deposition) nor fault displacement. Erosional surfaces within the stratigraphic reco ...
that form extensive unwooded parks whose surfaces are generally at about above sea level. The high peaks of the range, which are much lower than those commonly associated with the Rocky Mountains, rise abruptly above the surrounding
peneplain
390px, Sketch of a hypothetical peneplain formation after an orogeny.
In geomorphology and geology, a peneplain is a low-relief plain formed by protracted erosion. This is the definition in the broadest of terms, albeit with frequency the usage ...
to altitudes between and above sea level, with the exceptions of
Laramie Peak
Laramie Peak Is the highest and most prominent peak in the Laramie Range of Wyoming. With a peak elevation of , it is the only peak in the Laramie Range to exceed an elevation of . It can be seen from great distances from both sides of the Laramie ...
in Wyoming which tops out at and
South Bald Mountain in Colorado rising to . The granitic soils were formed from the erosion of the surrounding monadnocks and have an effective depth of less than .
Three principal
life zone
The life zone concept was developed by C. Hart Merriam in 1889 as a means of describing areas with similar plant and animal communities. Merriam observed that the changes in these communities with an increase in latitude at a constant elevation ar ...
s are represented in the Laramies: Upper Sonoran, Transition and Canadian.
[Carpenter, J. R. 1956. An Ecological Glossary. Hafner, NY.] Some early sources indicated that the Hudsonian Zone occurs on Laramie Peak but there is nothing distinctive about either the flora or fauna on the top of this peak, for it consists of nothing but a large granite outcrop. On the eastern and north eastern slopes of the range the prairie/mountain transition is very gentle at the south end (between Cheyenne and Laramie) and much more abrupt and broken farther north. The elevation is lowest, about (1370 m), along the
North Platte River
The North Platte River is a major tributary of the Platte River and is approximately long, counting its many curves.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 21, 2011 In a ...
. On the western slopes the total relief is much less, as the floors of the three
intermontane
Intermontane is a physiographic adjective formed from the prefix " inter-" (''signifying among, between, amid, during, within, mutual, reciprocal'') and the adjective "montane" (inhabiting, or growing in mountainous regions, especially cool, moi ...
basins
Basin may refer to:
Geography and geology
* Depression (geology)
** Back-arc basin, a submarine feature associated with island arcs and subduction zones
** Debris basin, designed to prevent damage from debris flow
** Drainage basin (hydrology), a ...
that border the Laramies on this side (Shirley, Hanna and Laramie basins) rarely drop below . An extensive high plain and semi-desert extends from the Laramie Mountains south west as far as the Shirley Mountains. The Laramie Basin separates the Laramie Mountains from the
Medicine Bow Mountains
The Medicine Bow Mountains are a mountain range in the Rocky Mountains that extend from northern Colorado into southern Wyoming. The northern extent of this range is the sub-range the Snowy Range. From the northern end of Colorado's Never Summer ...
to the south and west, and its floor is above except for a few depressions and
blowouts (such as Cooper Lake).
The Laramie Mountains are bisected 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 Wyoming. ...
, which cuts a canyon through the mountains roughly due west of
Wheatland, and then continues its generally eastward course to join the North Platte River near the town of
Fort Laramie
Fort Laramie (founded as Fort William and known for a while as Fort John) was a significant 19th-century trading-post, diplomatic site, and military installation located at the confluence of the Laramie and the North Platte rivers. They joined ...
. The division marks the southern end of the continuous coniferous forest in the range, and separates the range into two parts. The southern part is generally drier and much more open, with little or no forest except for the southern end at Pole Mountain and surrounding area, where the interesting granite outcrops at
Vedauwoo
Vedauwoo () is an area of rocky outcrops (Sherman Granite) located in southeastern Wyoming, United States, north of Interstate 80, between Laramie and Cheyenne. Its name, according to some, is a romanized version of the Arapaho word "bito'o'w ...
provide climbing practice and grand picnic scenery.
The range is prominently visible from
Interstate 25
Interstate 25 (I-25) is a major Interstate Highway in the western United States. It is primarily a north–south highway, serving as the main route through New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. I-25 stretches from I-10 at Las Cruces, New Mexic ...
between Casper and Cheyenne.
Interstate 80
Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one o ...
and the
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...
cross the range between Cheyenne and Laramie on an outlying ramp of the High Plains called the "Gangplank".
See also
*
Geography of Wyoming
The U.S. state of Wyoming lies in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States and has a varied geography. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the sou ...
*
Mountain ranges of Colorado
This is a list of the major mountain ranges in the U.S. State of Colorado. All of these ranges are considered subranges of the Southern Rocky Mountains.
As given in the table, topographic elevation is the vertical distance above the reference ...
*
Laramide Belt — of the North American Cordillera''.
References
Further reading
* Blackstone, D. L. 1971. Traveler's guide to the geology of Wyoming. Bulletin of the Geological Survey of Wyoming. 55:1-90.
* Cary, M., 1917. Life zone investigations in Wyoming. Bulletin USDA Biological Survey. 42: 1-95.
* Dunbar, C. O. 1960. Historical Geology. J. Wiley & Sons, NY. 2nd Ed., fig. 308.
* Hardesty, Richard L. and Groothuis, Dennis R. ''Butterflies of the Laramie Mountains, Wyoming (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera.)'' The introduction provides additional information on the Laramie Mountains. A PDF version of this work may be downloaded a
Butterflies of the Laramie Mountains, Wyoming (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera.)
* Marshall, K. & Colbert, E. H. 1965. Stratigraphy and Life History. J. Wiley & Sons, NY.
* Porter, C. L. 1962. A flora of Wyoming. Part I. Bulletin of the University of Wyoming Agricultural Experimental Station. 402.
External links
*
{{Coord, 41, 38, N, 105, 40, W, display=title
Mountain ranges of Colorado
Mountain ranges of Wyoming
Ranges of the Rocky Mountains
North American Cordillera
Landforms of Laramie County, Wyoming
Landforms of Albany County, Wyoming
Landforms of Natrona County, Wyoming
Landforms of Larimer County, Colorado