Raft River Mountains facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Raft River Mountains
Raft River Mountains from the southeast
Highest point
Peak	Bull Mountain
Elevation	9,925 ft (3,025 m)
Dimensions
Length	40 mi (64 km) E/W
Width	35 mi (56 km) N/S
Area	765 sq mi (1,980 km2)
Geography
Country	United States
State	Utah
Parent range	Basin and Range Province

The Raft River Mountains are a mountain range in northern Box Elder County, Utah, United States. The mountains are located in Raft River Division of the Minidoka Ranger District of Sawtooth National Forest. The highest point is Bull Mountain near the Dunn Benchmark at 9,925 ft (3,025 m), and the ghost town of Yost is on the north central slopes. Tributaries of the Raft River drain the northern slopes of the range to the Snake River then Columbia River and Pacific Ocean, while the southern slopes drain to the Great Salt Lake.

Geography

Located in the Sawtooth National Forest, the range's montane forest ecoregion is "surrounded by montane steppes and desert". The range is oriented in an east–west orientation, and is a portion of the Great Basin Divide and the Basin and Range Province between the Bonneville Basin of the Great Basin (south).

The Raft River Mountains are the southeast edge of the Columbia Basin (green) in the small northwest Utah portion of the Great Basin Divide. The Great Basin side (tan) of the range is in the Northern Great Salt Lake Desert Watershed (formerly of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville).

Geology

The central mass of the range consists of Precambrian metamorphic rocks. The Elba Quartzite with interlayered schist outcrops along the southern slopes of the range and in the Grouse Creek Mountains to the southwest. Cambrian quartzite outcrops in the west part of the range and in the Grouse Creek range and the Goose Creek Mountains to the west. The thinly bedded quartzites have been quarried for building stone in the area.

Flora and fauna

The range's plants and animals include pines and rodents of the Northern Basin & Range ecoregion of the Columbia Plateau.

Camping and activities

The range's Bull Flat trail leads to Bull Flat, Bull Lake, and Bull Mountain, and passes former mines (the trailhead is near a campground).

Peaks

An old Forest Service Cabin in the Raft River Mountains

Road along a snowbank in the Raft River Mountains