Mount Hitchcock is a mountain summit located 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

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. ...

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

Sequoia National Park Sequoia National Park is an American national park in the southern Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California. The park was established on September 25, 1890, and today protects of forested mountainous terrain. Encompassing ...

, and is south-southwest of

Mount Whitney Mount Whitney (Paiute: Tumanguya; ''Too-man-i-goo-yah'') is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States and the Sierra Nevada, with an elevation of . It is in East–Central California, on the boundary between California's Inyo and Tu ...

, southwest of

Mount Muir Mount Muir is a peak in the Sierra Nevada of California, south of Mount Whitney. This peak is named in honor of Scottish-born John Muir, a famous geologist, conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club. The southernmost section of the Joh ...

, and west of

Trail Crest Trail Crest is a mountain trail pass on the Mount Whitney Trail that crosses the Sierra Crest. East of the pass are 97 switchbacks leading down to Trail Camp in Inyo National Forest. West of the pass is Sequoia National Park and the trail lead ...

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 it rises approximately above Hitchcock Lakes in less than one-half mile. Mt. Hitchcock ranks as the 112th highest summit in California.

History

In 1881, Rev. Frederick H. Wales of Tulare climbed nearby Mount Young, where he left a record of its name, and the name of the peak south of it, for which he suggested the name "Mount Hitchcock."Francis P. Farquhar, Place Names of the High Sierra (1926)
/ref> This mountain's name was officially adopted in 1909 by the

U.S. Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geographic names throughout the federal governm ...

to honor the eminent American geologist

Charles Henry Hitchcock Charles Henry Hitchcock (August 23, 1836 – November 5, 1919) was an American geologist. Life Hitchcock was born August 23, 1836, in Amherst, Massachusetts. His father was Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864) who was a professor of geology and natur ...

(1836–1919). Hitchcock was teaching at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

while Wales was a Dartmouth student (1872 graduate). 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 ...

of the summit was made in September 1881, by Frederick H. Wales via the west slope.R. J. Secor, ''The High Sierra Peaks, Passes, Trails'', 2009, Third Edition, Mountaineers Books, , page 63.John D. and Ruth Mendenhall, Arthur B. Johnson, Braeme Gigas, Howard Koster, ''A Climber’s Guide to the High Sierra'', (1954)
/ref> During the same month, Wales also made the first ascent of

Mount Kaweah Mount Kaweah () is a mountain in California's Sequoia National Park and forms part of the Kaweah Peaks Ridge, a spur of the Great Western Divide which extends south from Triple Divide Peak (Tulare County, California), Triple Divide Peak. It has a ...

. Wales Lake, three miles to the north of Hitchcock, was named after him.

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, Mount Hitchcock has 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 ...

. 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 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 this mountain drains west to the

Kern River The Kern River, previously Rio de San Felipe, later La Porciuncula, is an Endangered, Wild and Scenic river in the U.S. state of California, approximately long. It drains an area of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains northeast of Bakersfiel ...

via Whitney Creek.

Gallery

File:Mt Hitchcock and lake.jpg, summit centered File:Mt. Hitchcock and Hitchcock Lakes.jpg, Mt. Hitchcock above Hitchcock Lakes File:Hitchcock Lakes, Mount Hitchcock.jpg, Northeast aspect. (Kaweah Peaks upper right) File:Mount Hitchcock.jpg, Northeast aspect. (Kaweah Peaks at top) File:Mt. Hitchcock dawn.jpg, Mt. Hitchcock at dawn File:Mt. Hitchcock.jpg File:Mount Hitchcock (California).jpg, East face in 1935

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Mount Hitchcock
* Mt. Hitchcock rock climbing
Mountainproject.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hitchcock, Mount Mountains of Tulare County, California Mountains of Sequoia National Park North American 4000 m summits Mountains of Northern California Sierra Nevada (United States)

History

Climate

See also

Gallery

References

External links