Mount Wallace is a 13,377-foot-elevation (4,077 meter) mountain summit located on the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in 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 on the shared boundary of

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 King ...

with

John Muir Wilderness The John Muir Wilderness is a wilderness area that extends along the crest of the Sierra Nevada of California for , in the Inyo and Sierra National Forests. Established in 1964 by the Wilderness Act and named for naturalist John Muir, it encompa ...

, and along the common border of

Fresno County Fresno County (), officially the County of Fresno, is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 1,008,654. The county seat is Fresno, the fifth-most populous city in Cali ...

with

Inyo County Inyo County () is a county in the eastern central part of the U.S. state of California, located between the Sierra Nevada and the state of Nevada. In the 2020 census, the population was 19,016. The county seat is Independence. Inyo County ...

. It is west of the community of Big Pine, northwest of Mount Powell, southwest of Picture Peak, and southeast of Mount Haeckel, which is the nearest higher neighbor. Mount Wallace ranks as the 79th-highest summit in California, and the ninth-highest in the Evolution Region.

History

In 1895, Sierra Club explorer Theodore S. Solomons named a group of mountains in the Sierra Nevada after exponents of

Darwin's theory of evolution Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations tha ...

. These six peaks are now known collectively as the Evolution Group. Solomons wrote: "At a distance of two miles it he wall of Mount Darwinrises perpendicularly five or six hundred feet, forming Mt. Haeckel, and a mile beyond again rises several hundred feet higher, though not quite so sharply, forming the peak called Mt. Wallace... Next morning uly 16, 1895we climbed Mt. Wallace." This mountain is named for Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist who is best known for developing the theory of evolution contemporaneously with Darwin. The other five peaks were named after

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

, John Fiske, Ernst Haeckel,

Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression " survival of the fi ...

, and

Thomas Henry Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stori ...

. The 1895 climb by Theodore Solomons and party was 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.

Climate

Mount Wallace 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, 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 marke ...

from this mountain drains northeast into Bishop Creek, and west into Evolution Creek, which is a

San Joaquin River The San Joaquin River (; es, Río San Joaquín) is the longest river of Central California. The long river starts in the high Sierra Nevada, and flows through the rich agricultural region of the northern San Joaquin Valley before reaching Suis ...

tributary.

Gallery

File:Picture Peak, Wallace, Haeckel.jpg, Mt. Wallace's summit centered (behind ridge)
Picture Peak (left), Mt. Haeckel in upper right. Clyde Spires far left. File:Aspen Grove, Sierra Nevada, CA 10-8-18.jpg, Mt. Haeckel centered, top of Wallace behind ridge to left

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Mount Wallace
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wallace, Mount Inyo National Forest Mountains of Inyo County, California Mountains of Fresno County, California Mountains of Kings Canyon National Park Mountains of the John Muir Wilderness North American 4000 m summits Mountains of Northern California Sierra Nevada (United States)

History

Climate

Gallery

See also

References

External links