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Mount Sneffels facts for kids

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Mount Sneffels
MtSneffelsMarch2008.jpg
View of Mount Sneffels from the north
Highest point
Elevation 14,150 ft (4315.4 m) NAVD88
Prominence 3050 ft (930 m)
Isolation 15.71 mi (25.3 km)
Listing
Geography
Mount Sneffels is located in Colorado
Mount Sneffels
Mount Sneffels
Location in Colorado
Location High point of Ouray County, Colorado, United States
Parent range San Juan Mountains, Highest summit of the Sneffels Range
Topo map USGS 7.5' topographic map
Mount Sneffels, Colorado

Mount Sneffels is the highest summit of the Sneffels Range in the Rocky Mountains of North America. The prominent 14,158-foot (4315.4 m) fourteener is located in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness of Uncompahgre National Forest, 6.7 miles (10.8 km) west by south (bearing 256°) of the City of Ouray in Ouray County, Colorado, United States. The summit of Mount Sneffels is the highest point in Ouray County.

Mountain

Mount Sneffels is notable for its great vertical relief, as it rises 7,200 feet above the town of Ridgway, Colorado 6 miles to the northeast.

The primary route to the summit follows a creek bed up from Yankee Boy Basin. A secondary route follows a ridge line to the summit from the saddle of Blue Lakes Pass.

Mount Sneffels was named after the volcano Snæfell, which is located on the tip of the Snæfellsnes peninsula in Iceland. That mountain and its glacier, Snæfellsjökull, which caps the crater like a convex lens, were featured in the Jules Verne novel A Journey to the Center of the Earth. An area on the western flank of Mount Sneffels gives the appearance of volcanic crater.

Seen from the Dallas Divide on State Highway 62, Mount Sneffels is one of the most photographed mountains in Colorado.

Panorama of the Sneffels Range of the San Juan Mountains, photographed from Dallas Divide pass

Historical names

  • Mount Blaine
  • Mount Sneffels – 1906
  • Sneffels Peak

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Monte Sneffels para niños

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