Mount Conness is a mountain in the Sierra Nevada range, to the west of the Hall Natural Area. Conness is on the boundary between the

Inyo National Forest Inyo National Forest is a United States National Forest covering parts of the eastern Sierra Nevada of California and the White Mountains of California and Nevada. The forest hosts several superlatives, including Mount Whitney, the highest po ...

and

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ...

. The

Conness Glacier The Conness Glacier is on the steep northeast cirque of Mount Conness, east of the Sierra Nevada crest, in the U.S. state of California. The glacier is situated at about . and can be seen from Saddlebag Lake to the east. The glacier is the larges ...

lies north of the summit.

History

Mount Conness is named for

John Conness John Conness (September 22, 1821 – January 10, 1909) was a first-generation Irish-American businessman who served as a U.S. Senator (1863–1869) from California during the American Civil War and the early years of Reconstruction. He intr ...

(1821–1909), a native of Ireland who came to United States in 1836. Conness was a member of California legislature (1853–1854, 1860–1861) and the United States Senator from California (1863–1869). He resided in Massachusetts from 1869 until his death in 1909. In 1860 Josiah Dwight Whitney, Jr. was appointed State Geologist of California and he organized the California Geological Survey (1863–1870). Whitney, along with William H. Brewer,

Clarence King Clarence Rivers King (January 6, 1842 – December 24, 1901) was an American geologist, mountaineer and author. He was the first director of the United States Geological Survey from 1879 to 1881. Nominated by Republican President Rutherford B. Hay ...

, James T. Gardiner, Charles F. Hoffmann, Lorenzo G. Yates, Richard D. Cotter and others, made an extensive survey of California, including the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite region. Whitney wrote:

"Mount Conness bears the name of a distinguished citizen of California, now a United States Senator, who deserves more than any other person, the credit of carrying the bill, organizing the Geological Survey of California, through the Legislature, and who is chiefly to be credited for another great scientific work, the Survey of the 40th Parallel."

Clarence King, a geologist for the Survey and the first to ascend Mount Conness along with James T. Gardiner in 1864, wrote:

"I recognized the old familiar summit... and that firm peak with titan strength and brow so square and solid, it seems altogether natural we should have named it for California’s statesman, John Conness."

Climbing

Conness is a training ground for alpine climbing since it utilizes all aspects of mountaineering: trails, scrambling, and glacier trekking; all at a high altitude for California. Usually climbers camp near

Tioga Pass Tioga Pass is a mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. State Route 120 runs through it, and serves as the eastern entry point for Yosemite National Park, at the Tioga Pass Entrance Station. It is the highest elevation ...

and begin the climb at dawn. It takes about a full day to summit. The summit block consists of

scrambling Scrambling is a mountaineering term for ascending steep terrain using one's hands to assist in holds and balance.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. It is also used to describe terrain that falls between hiking and rock climbing (as a “scrambl ...

along a knife edge ridge leading to the summit consisting of views to the east of the

and to the west toward

Tuolumne Meadows Tuolumne Meadows () is a gentle, dome-studded, sub-alpine meadow area along the Tuolumne River in the eastern section of Yosemite National Park in the United States. Its approximate location is . Its approximate elevation is . The term ''Tuolumne Me ...

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Conness, Mount Mountains of Yosemite National Park Mountains of Mono County, California Mountains of Tuolumne County, California Mountains of Northern California North American 3000 m summits