North Cascades

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Mount Shuksan, one of the most dramatic peaks 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 US state of Washington. They are predominantly non-volcanic, but include the stratovolcanos Mount Baker and Glacier Peak. The portion in Canada is known as the Canadian Cascades.

The North Cascades are most notable for their dramatic scenery and challenging mountaineering, both resulting from their steep, rugged geography. While all of the peaks but the two volcanos are under 10,000 feet (3,048 m) in elevation, the low valleys provide great local relief, often over 6,000 feet (1,830 m).

1 Boundaries of the North Cascades
2 Geology
3 Climate
4 Glaciers
5 Geography
6 History
7 Protected areas
8 Notable peaks
9 See also
10 Sources
11 External links

[edit] Boundaries of the North Cascades

The Fraser River and Similkameen River in British Columbia form the northern boundary of the North Cascades. On the east, the Okanogan River and the Columbia River bound the range. On the west, the foothills of the range are separated by a narrow coastal plain from Puget Sound.

The southern boundary of the North Cascades is less definite. For the purposes of this article, it will be taken as US Highway 2, running over Stevens Pass, or equivalently, the Skykomish River, Nason Creek, and the lower Wenatchee River. This roughly follows Beckey's division. (Beckey 1987:17)

[edit] Geology

The bulk of the North Cascades consists of "deformed and metamorphosed, structurally complex pre-Tertiary rocks" (Beckey 1987:17). These originated in diverse locations around the globe: the area is built of several ("perhaps ten or more") different terranes of different origins. (Beckey 1996: 10) In addition, oceanic crust from the Pacific Ocean is being subducted under the continental margin, which forms the current volcanos as well as a number of "dioritic, gabbroic, or other dark intrusions." (Mathews 1988:519-520) The current uplift began around 8 million years ago. (Mathews 1988:522)

[edit] Climate

The climate in the North Cascades varies considerably by location and elevation. The western slope of the range is wet and cool, with 60 to 250 inches (1.5 to 6.25 metres) of precipitation per year. Summers are comparatively dry, with far less precipitation than in winter. The eastern slope lies in the rain shadow of the range, since prevailing winds and most moisture come from the west, and hence is significantly drier than the western side of the main divide, approaching arid conditions in the eastern lowlands. (Mathews 1988:557-562, Beckey 1996:12) As with most mountain areas, precipitation increases dramatically with increasing elevation. As a result, there is a great deal of glaciation.

[edit] Glaciers

Mountain glaciers are a defining feature of the Cascades as a whole, and this is especially true of the North Cascades. The stratovolcanoes (Mount Baker and Glacier Peak) are the most obviously glaciated peaks, and have the largest glaciers, but many of the smaller, nonvolcanic peaks have glaciers as well. For example, the portion of the Cascades north of Snoqualmie Pass (roughly the North Cascades as defined in this article) have "756 glaciers of a minimum 0.1 km² area. Some 267 km² of terrain currently is covered by ice." (Beckey 1996:10, derived from Austin Post, USGS.) Since a brief advancing period in the 1950's, most of these glaciers have been steady or retreating. This is a serious concern to water managers in the region, as the glaciers (and the winter snowpack) form a large reservoir of water. (Beckey 1996:10).

[edit] Geography

The large amount of precipitation, much of it in the form of snow, and the resulting glaciation, combine with the regional uplift to create a dramatic landscape. Deep, U-shaped valleys carved by glaciers in Pleistocene time separate sharp ridges and peaks carved into steep shapes by more recent snow and ice.

[edit] History

Early inhabitants of the North Cascades included the Nooksack, Skagit, and Sauk-Suiattle Tribes on the west, and the tribes of the Okanogan Nation on the eastern side. Many current geographic names in the region are derived from native terms, either by transliteration or translation. Beckey notes that "Many names were derived from Chinook jargon, mostly applied by the Forest Service from 1910 to 1940; this dialect is incongruous here since it was a coastal Indian trade language." (Beckey 1996:141)

Fur traders entered the area in the first half of the nineteenth century, coming from Canada and from Astoria on the Columbia River. One of the earliest was Alexander Ross, of the Pacific Fur Company, who crossed the range in the summer of 1914. (Beckey 1996:203) The period of uncertainty surrounding the disputed Oregon Territory gave way in the second half of the century to a period of tentative US Army exploration, reconnaissance for possible railroad routes (none of which were viable north of the one eventually put in over Stevens pass, at the southern edge of the North Cascades) and various mining rushes.

Miners dominated the exploration and development of the range from the 1880s through the early twentieth century. For example, mines around the boomtown of Monte Cristo, in the southwest portion of the North Cascades, produced "between $1 and $2.7 million in silver and gold" (Beckey 1996:27). The Holden Mine, on the east side of the main divide, produced 106,000 tons of copper and 600,000 ounces of gold. (Beckey 1996:140)

Early settlers also arrived in the foothills of the North Cascades in the latter half of the 1800s, and utilized the range in a limited way as a source of timber and grazing land. However the range is so rugged that this exploitation was less dramatic than in other more gentle landscapes.

Early recreational use of the range included expeditions by the local climbing clubs, The Mountaineers and The Mazamas. However even these groups did not fully explore the inner reaches of the range and ascend the most difficult peaks until the 1930s and 1940s.

[edit] Protected areas

Diablo Lake, Colonial Peak and Pyramid Peak, in the North Cascades

The North Cascades include various protected areas. Chief among the areas in Washington is North Cascades National Park, occupying much of the area between Mount Baker and the Cascade divide. Contiguous with the Park are Ross Lake National Recreation Area and Lake Chelan National Recreation Area. Designated wilderness areas in the range include:

In British Columbia, protected areas include

[edit] Notable peaks

The following North Cascades peaks are notable for their height (absolute elevation):

Mountain	Height (ft)	Coordinates	Prominence (ft)	Parent mountain	First ascent
Mount Baker	10,778	48°46′N 121°48′W	8,881	Mount Rainier	1868 by Edmund T. Coleman and party
Glacier Peak	10,541	48°6′45.05″N, 121°6′49.70″W	7,501	Mount Rainier	1898 by Thomas Gerdine
Bonanza Peak	9,511	48°14′16″N, 120°51′58″W	3,711	Glacier Peak	1937 by Curtis James, Barrie James, Joe Leuthold
Mount Fernow	9,249	48°09′44″N, 120°48′30″W	2,809	Bonanza Peak	1932 by Oscar Pennington, Hermann Ulrichs
Mount Goode	9,220	48°28′58″N, 120°54′39″W	3,800	Bonanza Peak	1936 by Wolf Bauer, Philip Dickett, Joe Halwax, Jack Hossack, George MacGowan

(The above table uses a topographic prominence cutoff of 1000 feet, in order to list only highly independent peaks.)

The following peaks are notable for their topographic prominence:

Mountain	Height (ft)	Prominence (ft)	Parent mountain
Mount Baker	10,778	8,881	Mount Rainier
Glacier Peak	10,541	7,501	Mount Rainier
Round Mountain	5,320	4,780	Mount Baker
Mount Spickard	8,979	4,779	Mount Baker
Three Fingers	6,850	4,490	Glacier Peak

The following peaks are notable for their large, steep rise above local terrain. Peaks are listed roughly in decreasing order of local relief.

Mountain	Height (ft)
Mount Baker	10,778
Hozomeen Mountain	8,066
Mount Goode	9,220
Jack Mountain	9,066
Pugh Mountain	7,201
Mount Baring	6,125
Luna Peak	8,311
Mount Shuksan	9,127
Colonial Peak	7,771
Sloan Peak	7,835
Whitehorse Mountain	6,850
Agnes Mountain	8,115
Johannesburg Mountain	8,220
Glacier Peak	10,541
Slesse Mountain	8,002
American Border Peak	7,994
Davis Peak	7,051

[edit] See also

Cascades

[edit] Sources

Fred Beckey, Cascade Alpine Guide, Volume 1 (Second Edition), The Mountaineers, 1987.
Fred Beckey, Cascade Alpine Guide, Volume 2 (Second Edition), The Mountaineers, 1996.
Fred Beckey, Cascade Alpine Guide, Volume 3 (Second Edition), The Mountaineers, 1995.
Daniel Mathews, Cascade Olympic Natural History: A Trailside Reference, Raven Editions, 1988.
The Northwest Peakbagger's Asylum