The La Garita Mountains are a high

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

in the

San Juan Mountains The San Juan Mountains is a high and rugged mountain range in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. The area is highly mineralized (the Colorado Mineral Belt) and figured in the gold and silver mining industry ...

, a sub-range of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

. The mountains are located in Saguache and

Mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...

counties in southwestern

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

and are almost entirely managed as public land within the Gunnison National Forest and the

Rio Grande National Forest Rio Grande National Forest is a 1.86 million-acre (7,530 km²) U.S. National Forest located in southwestern Colorado. The forest encompasses the San Luis Valley, which is the world's largest agricultural alpine valley, as well as one of the ...

. The La Garita Mountains lie within the La Garita Wilderness, one of Colorado's lesser known, but more picturesque, wilderness areas. "La Garita means "the lookout" in Spanish, and this wilderness amply deserves the name. From the summit of this wilderness's single fourteener (14,014 foot San Luis Peak), climbers can gaze across the upper

Rio Grande Valley The Lower Rio Grande Valley ( es, Valle del Río Grande), commonly known as the Rio Grande Valley or locally as the Valley or RGV, is a region spanning the border of Texas and Mexico located in a floodplain of the Rio Grande near its mouth. Th ...

and down the long stretch of the San Luis Valley. About 35 miles of the Continental Divide lie well above a sprawling forestland that provides ideal habitats for huge numbers of elk and mule deer.

Geology

During the Oligocene

epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...

, a series of

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...

building eruptions of titanic proportions, some as large as VEI-8, devastated what is now

and raised up the mountain chain, part of the

. The La Garita supervolcano's mega-colossal eruption created 5000 km³ of

tephra Tephra is fragmental material produced by a volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size, or emplacement mechanism. Volcanologists also refer to airborne fragments as pyroclasts. Once clasts have fallen to the ground, they re ...

, the largest eruption known. The volcanic area has been extinct for tens for millions of years and is of no danger to anyone.

Mountains

According to the

U.S. Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and ...

, the following peaks are part of the La Garita Mountains:

References

Mountain ranges of Colorado Ranges of the Rocky Mountains San Juan Mountains (Colorado) Landforms of Saguache County, Colorado Landforms of Mineral County, Colorado Rio Grande National Forest {{Colorado-geo-stub

Geology

Mountains

See also

References