Best of Salida  - Rocky Mountain Geology and 14er Information

The legendary Rocky Mountains are perhaps the most prominent asset of the state of Colorado and of Chaffee County. Few geographic formations boast the majesty and rugged splendor of these peaks, and equally few have had such a profound influence on the peoples of the surrounding regions.

About 70 million years ago, the shallow inland sea retreated from Colorado for the last time. The cause of the retreat was a tremendous uplift, the Laramide Orogeny, of the entire Rocky Mountain chain. A very important consequence of this orogeny was the deposition of minerals in Colorado. During the Quartenary Period that followed a vast cooling took place and as a result immense mountain glaciers were formed. These glaciers began near the crest of the mountains and slowly ground their ways down to the valleys.In their paths they left steepened slopes, carved cirques and deposited great masses of rock at their terminus. The effects of these glaciers can readily be seen in the glacier carved cirques of the Sawatch Range.

Sometimes referred to as "the backbone of the Continent", the Sawatch Range towers above the Arkansas valley below.The early surveyor Hayden called the range one of the grandest of eruptive masses on the continent. Fifteen fourteeners rise in the Sawatch, including the three highest peaks of the Rockies, more than any other range in the contiguous 48 states. The Range averages about 20 miles in width and stretches for 90 miles. The Continental Divide is an integral part of this portion of the Rocky Mountains. More impressive for their massiveness and altitude than their ruggedness-----The name "sawatch" comes from an Indian word meaning " blue earth."

An expedition in 1869 led by a geology professor at Harvard traversed Trout Creek Pass to behold three massive, prominent peaks. The three peaks were named Harvard, Yale and Princeton often referred to as the Collegiate Peaks of the Sawatch Range. Mt. Columbia was named later by one of Columbia's alumni, not to be outdone by other academics, who ascended the peak and named it.

Both the Mosquito Range and the Sawatch Range are a part of the Laramide Uplift. Sedimentary rocks of the Mosquito Range dip east and those of the Sawatch, dip west. Under stream deposits near the town of Granite is Precambrian granite that is 1750 million years old.

The Upper Arkansas Fourteeners are:

Mount of the Holy Cross
14,005 (53rd highest)
The northernmost of the Sawatch fourteeners. A remote and rugged site that was not officially documented until Wm. H. Jackson photographed it on glass plate in 1873. The Holy Cross areas has been a religious shrine, a national monument and a bombing range. The cross is a natural rock formation made visible at distances by snowy conditions.

Mount Massive
14,421 (2nd highest)
Mt. Massive has seven summits over 14,000 feet and dominates the Leadville area.

Mount Elbert
14,433 (Highest point in Colorado)
The highest peak in the Rockies. It was named for Samuel T. Elbert, territorial governor.

La Plata Peak
14,336 (5th Highest)
This fourteener sits between Leadville and Aspen. It is an impressive site seen from Independence Pass.Its north ridge is a destination for mountaineers who enjoy technical climbing.

Mount Oxford
14,153 (27th Highest)
Was named by Jerome Hart of the Colorado Mountain Club in 1931. A Rhodes scholar, he found an appropriate tag for the unnamed peak.

Mount Belford
14, 197 (19th Highest)
Mount Belford and its neighbors, Mount Oxford and Missouri Mountain lie along the divide between Clear and Pine Creeks in the northern part of the county near the ghost towns of Winfield and Vicksburg. Belford was named for colorado's first US congressman, Rep. Jaime Belford,

Missouri Mountain
14,067 (36th Highest)
Probably named by miners from the state of Missouri.

Huron Peak
14,005 (52nd Highest)
Located in the same area as the Missouri, Oxford, Belford triad, this peak can be accessed via the ghost town of Winfield.

Mount Harvard
14,420 (3rd Highest)
The highest peak in Chaffee County was named in 1864 by a geology professor from Harvard.

Mount Columbia
14,073 (35th Highest)
Was named in 1916 by Roger Toll of the Colorado Mountain Club when he found an unnamed peak and christened it with his alma mater's name.

Mount Yale
14,196 (21st Highest)

Mount Princeton
14,197 (18th Highest)
Mt. Princeton is located at the junction of four USGS maps--Harvard, Garfield, Buena Vista and Poncha springs. It's magnificent profile dominates the scenery and is the first peak you see as you make the descent from Trout Creek Pass.

Mount Antero
14,269 (10th Highest)
Mount Antero is the tallest peak in Colorado named for an Indian, Chief Antero of the Uintah band of Ute Indians, who helped keep peace during the uprisings in the 1860's and 1870's. Antero was one of the signatories of the Washington Treaty of 1880 which revised an earlier treaty and led to the Utes losing most of their land. Antero was a proponent of peace during the difficult relations between the Ute and the whites in the late 1860's and 1870's.

Early prospectors in the area looked at Mt. Antero to be a source of silver--but none was found and no claim was staked. What was missed was that the peak was a rich source of gemstones and in 1884, Nathaniel Wanemaker discovered a number of blue aquamarines near the peak. Since that time, Mt. Antero has proved an extraordinary source of aquamarines, topaz and clear and smoky quartz crystals. Some of the clear crystals have been huge and common smoky quartz crystals have weighed as much as fifty pounds.

Another highly prized mineral found on Mt. Antero is beryllium, a lightweight, corrosion-resistant, rigid, steel-gray metal. It is valued as an aerospace structural material, as a moderator and reflector in nuclear reactors, and in a copper alloy used for springs, electrical contacts, and non-sparking tools.

Mount Shavano
14,229 (17th Highest)
Named for Chief Shavano of the Tabeguache band of Ute Indians, Shavano is usually climbed in tandem with Mt. Tabeguache. Mt. Shavano Snow Angel is a local legend during the winter.

Tabeguache Mountain
14,155 (26th Highest)
Named for a band of Ute Indians, Mt. Tabeguache was not considered to be a separate mountain until 1931.