O'Sullivan Peak, also known as Sunrise Peak, is an mountain

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

located in Salt Lake County,

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

, United States.

Description

O'Sullivan Peak is located southeast of downtown

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...

in the Twin Peaks Wilderness on land managed by Wasatch–Cache National Forest. The peak is set in the

Wasatch Range The Wasatch Range ( ) or Wasatch Mountains is a mountain range in the western United States that runs about from the Utah-Idaho border south to central Utah. It is the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains, and the eastern edge of the Gr ...

which is a subset 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 great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Can ...

. Precipitation runoff from the mountain's south slope drains to Little Cottonwood Creek, whereas the north slope drains to Big Cottonwood Creek, and both creeks flow west to the

Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...

Topographic relief Terrain (), alternatively relief or topographical relief, is the dimension and shape of a given surface of land. In physical geography, terrain is the lay of the land. This is usually expressed in terms of the elevation, slope, and orientati ...

is significant as the summit rises above

Little Cottonwood Canyon Little Cottonwood Canyon lies within the Wasatch-Cache National Forest along the eastern side of the Salt Lake Valley, roughly 15 miles from Salt Lake City, Utah. The canyon is part of Granite, a CDP and "Community Council" designated by Salt ...

in 1.4 mile (2.25 km). This mountain's toponym was officially adopted in 1978 by the

United States Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a Federal government of the United States, federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geogr ...

to remember Timothy H. O'Sullivan (1840–1882), civil war and western frontier photographer who visited this area as the official photographer of the King Survey and

Wheeler Survey The Wheeler Survey, carried out in 1872-1879, was one of the "Four Great Surveys" conducted by the United States government after the Civil War primarily to document the geology and natural resources of the American West. Supervised by First Lieu ...

.United States Board on Geographic Names, ''Decisions on Geographic Names in the United States''
Decision List No. 7803, 1978, p. 25.

References

Gallery

File:Sunrise and Dromedary Peaks from the summit of Twin Peaks.jpg, West aspect centered, viewed from Twin Peaks File:O'Sullivan Peak, aka Sunrise Peak.jpg, Summit to left File:View from Snowbird ski slopes.jpg, Twin Peaks, O'Sullivan Peak and Dromedary Peak viewed from the southeast from the Snowbird ski area File:O'Sullivan Peak se.jpg, Southeast aspect viewed from Little Cottonwood Canyon File:O'Sullivan se.jpg, Southeast aspect of O'Sullivan Peak and Dromedary Peak viewed from Germania Pass File:Sunrise Peak, Dromedary Peak, and a small pond.jpg, North aspect of O'Sullivan Peak, with Dromedary Peak to the left File:View from Circle All.jpg, Dromedary Peak (left), O'Sullivan Peak (left of center), Twin Peaks (right) viewed from the north. File:Timothy H O'Sullivan by F.G. Ludlow, Carson City, c1871-74.jpg, Timothy H. O'Sullivan

External links

* O'Sullivan Peak
weather forecast
* Photographs by Timothy H. O'Sullivan
Wikimedia
{{Portal bar, Geography, Geology, Mountains Mountains of Utah Mountains of Salt Lake County, Utah Three-thousanders of the United States Wasatch-Cache National Forest Wasatch Range