North Guard is a remote mountain summit located near the northern end of the

Great Western Divide The Great Western Divide is a Sierra Nevada mountain range that forms part of the border between the Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. Some of the summits of the Great Western Divide reach well over . The High Sierra Trail crosses the ra ...

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. ...

of 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

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 ...

, southeast of

Mount Farquhar Mount Farquhar, or Mount Francis Farquhar, is a peak in Kings Canyon National Park. It is named in for Francis P. Farquhar, a conservationist who played a key role in creating the park. Geography Mount Farquhar is, in the southern portion of ...

, and north-northwest of

Mount Brewer Mount Brewer is on the Great Western Divide, a sub-range of the Sierra Nevada in California. It is located in Kings Canyon National Park, The peak was named for William Henry Brewer who worked on the first California Geological Survey and was ...

, 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 word ...

is significant as the east aspect rises above East Lake in three miles. North Guard ranks as the 87th highest summit in California, and the second highest point of the northern Great Western Divide. It's not as high as Mount Brewer, but offers better climbing and is considered one of the classic climbing routes in the Sierra Nevada.

History

The names North Guard and South Guard first appeared on either side of Mt. Brewer on Lieutenant Milton F. Davis’ map of 1896.Francis P. Farquhar, Place Names of the High Sierra (1926)
/ref> 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 July 12, 1925, via the southwest face by

Norman Clyde Norman Clyde (April 8, 1885 – December 23, 1972) was a mountaineer, mountain guide, freelance writer, nature photographer, and self-trained naturalist. He is well known for achieving over 130 first ascents, many in California's Sierra Nevada an ...

, who is credited with 130 first ascents, most of which were in the Sierra Nevada. A class 4 route on the northeast aspect was first climbed in 1934 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. The first ascent via the class 5.8 East Face was made in 1981 by

Fred Beckey Friedrich Wolfgang Beckey (14 January 1923 – 30 October 2017), known as Fred Beckey, was an American rock climber, mountaineer and book author, who in seven decades of climbing achieved hundreds of first ascents of the tallest peaks and best ro ...

and Rick Nolting.American Alpine Journal, 1983, The Mountaineers Books, page 154.

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, North Guard 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 north to

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 nort ...

, and west to Roaring River, which are both tributaries 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 ...

Gallery

File:Mt. Brewer to the South, from Glen Pass.jpg, Left to right: South Guard, Mt. Brewer, North Guard, Mt. Farquhar File:"Mt. Brewer, Kings River Canyon (Proposed as a national park)," California, 1936., ca. 1936 - NARA - 519924.jpg, Mt. Brewer and North Guard by

Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advoca ...

ca. 1936 File:Farquhar, North Guard, Brewer.jpg, Mt. Farquhar (left), North Guard (center), Mt. Brewer (right), from southwest.

References

External links

{{stack} * Weather forecast
North Guard
* North Guard Rock Climbing
Mountainproject.com
Mountains of Tulare County, California Mountains of Kings Canyon National Park North American 4000 m summits Mountains of Northern California Sierra Nevada (United States)

History

Climate

See also

Gallery

References

External links