Black Mountains (California)

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Black Mountains
Dantes View 1.jpg
A hiker walks up Dante's View, in the Black Mountains
Highest point
PeakFuneral Peak,Black Mountains (California)
Elevation 6,384 ft (1,946 m)
Geography
Relief map of California.png
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Black Mountains [1]
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Black Mountains (California) (the United States)
CountryUnited States
StateCalifornia
District Inyo County
Range coordinates 36°8′55.837″N116°39′31.160″W / 36.14884361°N 116.65865556°W / 36.14884361; -116.65865556
Topo map USGS  Dantes View

The Black Mountains are a mountain range located in the southeastern part of Inyo County, California, within southeastern Death Valley National Park.

Contents

Geography

Geography of Death Valley National Park area. Wpdms shdrlfi020l death valley.jpg
Geography of Death Valley National Park area.

The Black Mountains are a southern range of the Amargosa Range System and lie in a generally north–south direction at their southwestern end. Their formation has been classified as the Amargosa Chaos.

Lower Death Valley lies to the west & southwest of the Black Mountains section, with Greenwater Valley and the Greenwater Range to the northeast. The Black Mountains and Greenwater Range abut the Funeral Mountains on the north, also at the southern terminus of the Amargosa Range. The Amargosa River turns south-southwest, around the three sub-ranges, then northwest into Death Valley. The Owlshead Mountains are to the south across the Amargosa River and its steep descent into Death Valley.

Features

The range reaches an elevation of 6,384 feet (1,946 m) above sea level at Funeral Peak. Dante's View and Coffin Peak lie at the northern end of the range.

Death Valley Railroad from the Black Mountains to Amargosa Desert 1910-rp1947-ca furnace-creek 30-crop.jpg
Death Valley Railroad from the Black Mountains to Amargosa Desert

History

The Lila C Mine, of "The Borax King" Francis Marion Smith and his Pacific Coast Borax Company, was developed to mine borax just east of the range. Around 1914 he built the Death Valley Railroad to primarily serve the newer Ryan C. Mine above it within the Black Mountains, with a spur to the Lila C. tracks.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Funeral Mountains</span> Mountain range along the eastern wall of Death Valley

The Funeral Mountains is a short, arid mountain range in the United States along the California-Nevada border approximately 100 mi (160 km) west of Las Vegas. The mountains are considered a subrange of the Amargosa Range that form the eastern wall of Death Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amargosa River</span> River in Nevada and California, United States

The Amargosa River is an intermittent waterway, 185 miles (298 km) long, in southern Nevada and eastern California in the United States. It drains a high desert region, the Amargosa Valley in the Amargosa Desert northwest of Las Vegas, into the Mojave Desert, and finally into Death Valley where it disappears into the ground aquifer. Except for a small portion of its route in the Amargosa Canyon in California and a small portion at Beatty, Nevada, the river flows above ground only after a rare rainstorm washes the region. A 26-mile (42 km) stretch of the river between Shoshone and Dumont Dunes is protected as a National Wild and Scenic River. At the south end of Tecopa Valley the Amargosa River Natural Area protects the habitat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amargosa Valley</span>

The Amargosa Valley is the valley through which the Amargosa River flows south, in Nye County, southwestern Nevada and Inyo County in the state of California. The south end is alternately called the "Amargosa River Valley'" or the "Tecopa Valley." Its northernmost point is around Beatty, Nevada and southernmost is Tecopa, California, where the Amargosa River enters into the Amargosa Canyon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhyolite, Nevada</span> Ghost town in Nevada, United States

Rhyolite is a ghost town in Nye County, in the U.S. state of Nevada. It is in the Bullfrog Hills, about 120 miles (190 km) northwest of Las Vegas, near the eastern boundary of Death Valley National Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of the Death Valley area</span> Geology of the area in California and Nevada

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Places of interest in the Death Valley area</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amargosa Range</span> Mountain range bordering Death Valley

The Amargosa Range is a mountain range in Inyo County, California and Nye County, Nevada. The 110-mile (180 km) range runs along most of the eastern side of California's Death Valley, separating it from Nevada's Amargosa Desert. The U-shaped Amargosa River flows clockwise around the perimeter of the range, ending 282 feet (86 m) below sea level in the Badwater Basin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Marion Smith</span> American Mining businessman

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pacific Coast Borax Company</span> United States mining company founded in 1890

The Pacific Coast Borax Company (PCB) was a United States mining company founded in 1890 by the American borax magnate Francis Smith, the "Borax King".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Owlshead Mountains</span> Mountains in California

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amargosa Desert</span> Desert in Nevada and California, United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greenwater Range</span>

The Greenwater Range is a mountain range located in the eastern Mojave Desert in Inyo County, California. They are located west of the section of California State Route 127 north of Shoshone, California.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dante's View</span>

Dante's View is a viewpoint terrace at 1,669 m (5,476 ft) height, on the north side of Coffin Peak, along the crest of the Black Mountains, overlooking Death Valley. Dante's View is about 25 km (16 mi) south of Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bullfrog Hills</span> Mountain range in Nevada, United States

The Bullfrog Hills are a small mountain range of the Mojave Desert in southern Nye County, southwestern Nevada. Bullfrog Hills was so named from a fancied resemblance of its ore to the color of a bullfrog.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryan, California</span> Unincorporated community in California, United States

Ryan is an unincorporated community in Inyo County, California that is now privately owned and stewarded by the Death Valley Conservancy. A former mining community and company town, Ryan is situated at an elevation of 3,045 feet (928 m) in the Amargosa Range, 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Dante's View and 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Furnace Creek.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amargosa Opera House and Hotel</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Tecopa</span> Lake in California, USA

Lake Tecopa is a former lake in Inyo County, southern California. It developed during the Miocene and the Pleistocene within a tectonic basin close to the border with Nevada. Fed by the Amargosa River and some neighbouring washes, it eventually culminated to a surface area of 235 square kilometres (91 sq mi) around 186,000 years ago and left sediments. Afterwards, the Amargosa River cut a gorge out of the lake and into Death Valley with its Lake Manly, draining the lake. The present-day towns of Shoshone, California and Tecopa, California lie within the basin of the former lake.

References

  1. "Black Mountains". Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior . Retrieved 2009-05-04.