Palisade Crest is a jagged ridge in The Palisades's region 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 ...

southeast of

Mount Sill Mount Sill is one of the fourteeners of the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada in California. It is located in the Palisades (California Sierra), Palisades, a group of prominent rock peaks with a few small glaciers on their flanks. Mount Sill ...

and northwest of

Middle Palisade Middle Palisade is a 14,018-foot (4,273 meters) peak in the central Sierra Nevada mountain range in the U.S. state of California. It is a fourteener, and lies on the Sierra Crest as part of the Palisades group, a group of prominent Sierra Nevad ...

. Its twelve pinnacles are unofficially named for characters from ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...

'' by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...

. The highest pinnacle, at , is called Gandalf Peak. The ridge marks the boundary between

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 ...

and the

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 ...

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, Palisade Crest 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 (

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.

Gallery

File:"From Windy Point, Kings River Canyon (Proposed as a national park)," California, 1936., ca. 1936 - NARA - 519936.jpg, Southwest aspect of Palisade Crest centered at top
Photo 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 ...

circa 1936
(Mt. Sill upper left, Middle Palisade upper right) File:Sierra Dawn.jpg, Palisade Crest (left),

Mount Jepson Mount Jepson is a 13,390-foot-elevation (4,081 meter) summit located on the shared boundary of Fresno County and Inyo County in California, United States. Description The peak is set on the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the ...

(middle),

(right).

References

Mountains of Kings Canyon National Park Mountains of the John Muir Wilderness Mountains of Inyo County, California Mountains of Fresno County, California Mountains of Northern California {{InyoCountyCA-geo-stub

Climate

Gallery

See also

References