Chopaka Mountain, also known as Mount Chopaka, is a summit in the leeward flank of the

North Cascades The North Cascades are a section of the Cascade Range of western North America. They span the border between the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington and are officially named in the U.S. and Canada as the Casca ...

. Its summit area is a Natural Area Preserve comprising , and features a mountain goat population and various rare plants. The last surviving native herd of

bighorn sheep The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspec ...

in Washington was located on Chopaka Mountain until hunted out in the 1920s.

Name origin

According to the

British Columbia Geographical Names Information System The BC Geographical Names (formerly BC Geographical Names Information System or BCGNIS) is a geographic name web service and database for the Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This co ...

, in their record on nearby Chopaka, British Columbia, Chopaka was either an

Okanagan The Okanagan ( ), also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is par ...

hunter turned to stone by "coyote", or a maiden transformed into stone.12th Report of the Okanagan Historical Society, 1948, citing A. Walsh and Parham, cited in Another meaning is given by regional climbing guide author

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 ...

who states that ''Chopaka'' is an Indian word meaning "high mountain".

References

External links

* Mountains of Washington (state) North Cascades of Washington (state) Mountains of Okanogan County, Washington Washington Natural Areas Program Protected areas of Okanogan County, Washington {{OkanoganCountyWA-geo-stub

Name origin

See also

References

External links