Mount Lewis is a 12,350-foot-elevation (3,764 meter) mountain summit located along the

crest Crest or CREST may refer to: Buildings *The Crest (Huntington, New York), a historic house in Suffolk County, New York *"The Crest", an alternate name for 63 Wall Street, in Manhattan, New York *Crest Castle (Château Du Crest), Jussy, Switzerla ...

of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, in

Mono County Mono County ( ) is a county located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,195, making it the fourth-least populous county in California. The county seat is Bridgeport. The coun ...

of northern

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, United States. It is situated in 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% cove ...

, on land managed by

Inyo National Forest Inyo National Forest is a United States National Forest covering parts of the eastern Sierra Nevada of California and the White Mountains of California and Nevada. The forest hosts several superlatives, including Mount Whitney, the highest po ...

. The summit lies less than one mile outside of

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ...

's eastern boundary, and some of the lower western slope lies within the park. The mountain rises southeast of

Mono Pass Mono Pass is a mountain pass, just outside Yosemite National Park, near the region of Tuolumne Meadows. Mono Pass is between Mount Gibbs and Mount Lewis. There is another pass also named Mono less than 40 miles away in the Rock Creek/Little ...

, northeast of Parker Pass, and two miles north of

Parker Peak Parker Peak () is a peak of the Walker Mountains rising at the base of Evans Peninsula on Thurston Island. It was delineated from air photos taken by U.S. Navy Squadron VX-6 in January 1960. It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarct ...

, which is the nearest higher neighbor.

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 w ...

is significant as it rises over above Grant Lake in four miles which makes the mountain visible from Highway 395.

Etymology

The mountain is named in memory of Washington Bartlett "Dusty" Lewis (1884–1930), Superintendent of Yosemite National Park for 11 years from 1917 through 1928. He played a leading part in the development of the park and in standardizing uniforms for National Park Service employees. This geographical feature's name was officially adopted in 1930 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 govern ...

. Prior to 1930 this landform was known as Johnson Peak.

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 Lewis 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 o ...

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 contin ...

, 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. 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 marke ...

from this mountain drains into headwaters of Parker and Walker Creeks, both of which are tributaries of Rush Creek, which empties into

Mono Lake Mono Lake ( ) is a saline soda lake in Mono County, California, formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in an endorheic basin. The lack of an outlet causes high levels of salts to accumulate in the lake which make its water a ...

Gallery

File:Mammoth Peak - Mt. Lewis.jpg, West aspect seen from Mammoth Peak File:Mt. Lewis.jpg, North aspect of Mt. Lewis from Mono Pass Trail File:Stitched shot of the road leading to June Lake.jpg, Mount Wood, Parker Peak, Koip Peak, and Mount Lewis (right) File:Mount Lewis, Lower Sardine Lake.jpg, Mt. Lewis above Lower Sardine Lake File:Lower Sardine Lake.jpg, Mt. Lewis rises above Lower Sardine Lake (summit centered in back) File:W. B. Lewis, Superintendent of Yosemite National Park.jpg, W. B. Lewis circa 1926 File:New administration building in Yosemite National Park. Daniel Hull, NPS Director Stephen T. Mather, and W.B. Lewis. (Daniel Hull (f2e951f4fda346c993e020297a505fd4).jpg, Daniel Hull, Stephen T. Mather, and W. B. Lewis in 1924 File:Parker, Lewis,Hwy 158.jpg, Mt. Lewis (right) seen from Highway 158 File:Mt. Lewis, Koip Peak Pass.jpg, South aspect of Mt. Lewis (right) seen from Koip Peak Pass, (Parker Pass to left).

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Mount Lewis
* Mt. Lewis (photo)
Flickr
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Mount Mountains of Mono County, California Mountains of the Ansel Adams Wilderness North American 3000 m summits Mountains of Northern California Sierra Nevada (United States) Inyo National Forest

Etymology

Climate

Gallery

See also

References

External links