Spearman Peak is a

summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topography, topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used ...

located in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, Canada.

Description

Spearman Peak is situated in the

Waddington Range The Waddington Range is a subrange of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is only about 4,000 km2 (1,545 sq mi) in area, relatively small in area within the expanse of the range, but it is t ...

of the

Coast Mountains The Coast Mountains (french: La chaîne Côtière) are a major mountain range in the Pacific Coast Ranges of western North America, extending from southwestern Yukon through the Alaska Panhandle and virtually all of the Coast of British Columbia ...

, in a remote wilderness area that few visit. Spearman Peak is set north of the community of Campbell River and southeast of

Mount Waddington Mount Waddington, once known as Mystery Mountain, is the highest peak in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. Although it is lower than Mount Fairweather and Mount Quincy Adams, which straddle the United States border between Alaska ...

, the highest peak of the entire Coast Mountains range. Other neighbors include

Mount Munday Mount Munday is one of the principal summits of the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. It is in elevation and stands in the Waddington Range six kilometres southeast of Mount Waddington , which is the highest summ ...

, Grenelle Mountain and Bravo Peak. 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 Spearman Peak's east slope drains to

Bute Inlet , image = Bute Inlet.jpg , image_size = 260px , alt = , caption = , image_bathymetry = , alt_bathymetry = , caption_bathymetry = , location = Strathcona RD, British Col ...

via Bravo Glacier → Tiedemann Glacier →

Homathko River The Homathko River is one of the major rivers of the southern Coast Mountains of the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is one of the few rivers that penetrates the range from the interior Chilcotin Country to the coastal inlets of the Pa ...

; and from the west slope to

Knight Inlet Knight Inlet (Kwakʼwala: ''Tsawatti'') is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast, and the largest of the major inlets in the southern part of the Coast. It is fifth in sequence of the great saltwater inlets north from the 49th ...

via Corridor Glacier → Franklin Glacier → Franklin River.

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 summit rises 1,365 meters (4,480 feet) above the Tiedemann Glacier in 2.5 kilometers (1.55 mile). The peak's toponym was officially adopted May 1, 1978, by the

Geographical Names Board of Canada The Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC) is a national committee with a secretariat in Natural Resources Canada, part of the Government of Canada, which authorizes the names used and name changes on official federal government maps of Canada ...

Climate

Based on 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 ...

, Spearman Peak has an

ice cap climate An ice cap climate is a polar climate where no mean monthly temperature exceeds . The climate covers areas in or near the high latitudes (65° latitude) to polar regions (70–90° north and south latitude), such as Antarctica, some of the northe ...

. 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 Coast Mountains where they are forced upward by 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 ...

), causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall. As a result, the Coast Mountains experience high precipitation, especially during the winter months in the form of snowfall. Temperatures can drop below −20 °C with wind chill factors below −30 °C. This climate supports the Corridor, Bravo and Tiedemann glaciers which surround the slopes of Spearman Peak.

Description

Climate

See also

References

External links