The Ritter Range is a small mountain range within

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 ...

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 ...

. Most of the mountain range lies within 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 ...

. The

John Muir Trail The John Muir Trail (JMT) ( Paiute: Nüümü Poyo, ''N-ue-mue Poh-yo'') is a long-distance trail in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, passing through Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. From the northern terminus a ...

passes by many lakes within the Ritter Range. The most prominent peaks of the Ritter Range are

Mount Ritter Mount Ritter is the highest mountain in Madera County, California, Madera County, California, in the Western United States, at an elevation of . It is also the highest and most prominent peak of its namesake, the Ritter Range, a subrange of the S ...

, at 13,143 feet, Banner Peak, at 12,936 feet, Rodgers Peak, and the Minarets, a group of sharp peaks south of Mt. Ritter. Thousand Island Lake, Ediza Lake,

Garnet Lake Garnet Lake is located south of the hamlet of Garnet Lake, New York. Fish species present in the lake are pickerel, largemouth bass, yellow perch, and brown bullhead The brown bullhead (''Ameiurus nebulosus'') is a fish of the family Ictal ...

, Lake Catherine,

Minaret Lake Minaret Lake is a lake in the Ritter Range, a subrange of the Sierra Nevada, in California. It is located in extreme northeastern Madera County, within the Ansel Adams Wilderness of the Inyo National Forest. Minaret Lake is notable for bein ...

, Cecile Lake, and Shadow Lake all lie within the Ritter Range, and are accessible by trail. The range is named for

Carl Ritter Carl Ritter (August 7, 1779September 28, 1859) was a German geographer. Along with Alexander von Humboldt, he is considered one of the founders of modern geography. From 1825 until his death, he occupied the first chair in geography at the Univer ...

, who had been a teacher of

Josiah Whitney Josiah Dwight Whitney (November 23, 1819 – August 18, 1896) was an American geologist, professor of geology at Harvard University (from 1865), and chief of the California Geological Survey (1860–1874). Through his travels and studies in the ...

when he was a student in Berlin in the 1840s." The Ritter Range, near the Minarets and

, was the site of the plane crash of

Steve Fossett James Stephen Fossett (April 22, 1944 – September 3, 2007) was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon and in a fixed-wing aircraf ...

in 2007.

References

Mountain ranges of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Mountain ranges of Madera County, California Mountain ranges of Northern California {{MaderaCountyCA-geo-stub

See also

References