Mount Ballyhoo | |
---|---|
Highest point | |
Elevation | 1,650 ft (503 m) [1] |
Prominence | 1,650 ft (503 m) [1] |
Parent peak | Pyramid Peak (2,136 ft) [1] |
Isolation | 2.72 mi (4.38 km) [1] |
Coordinates | 53°54′51″N166°31′49″W / 53.9141729°N 166.5303972°W [2] |
Naming | |
Etymology | Ballyhoo |
Geography | |
Interactive map of Mount Ballyhoo | |
Location | Aleutians West Census Area |
Country | United States |
State | Alaska |
Parent range | Aleutian Range [3] |
Topo map | USGS Unalaska C-2 |
Geology | |
Rock age | Tertiary [4] |
Rock type | Andesitic [4] |
Mount Ballyhoo is a 1,650-foot-elevation (503-meter) summit in Alaska, United States.
Mount Ballyhoo is part of the Aleutian Range. [3] This iconic landmark of the Dutch Harbor area is set in Unalaska Bay as the high point of Amaknak Island of the Aleutian Islands. [5] Topographic relief is significant as the summit rises 1,650 feet (503 meters) above tidewater in approximately 0.3 miles (0.48 km). The Aleutian World War II National Historic Area is located on the mountain.
The mountain was named by author Jack London when he spent time in 1897 at Dutch Harbor which was the locale for his novel, The Sea-Wolf . [6] Jack stopped here en route to the Klondike Gold Rush and he named the mountain after his lead dog named "Ballyhoo." [7] Jack set foot at the top of the mountain, as did another writer, Rex Beach. [8] The mountain's toponym was published in 1965 by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and has been officially adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names. [2]
During World War II, the Japanese attacked Dutch Harbor on June 3–4, 1942, but American munitions and guns had been moved and placed on Mt. Ballyhoo the night before in anticipation of the raid. [9]
According to the Köppen climate classification system, Mount Ballyhoo is located in a subpolar oceanic climate zone with cold, snowy winters, and cool summers. [10] Winter temperatures can drop to 0 °F with wind chill factors below −10 °F.
The City of Unalaska is the main population center in the Aleutian Islands. The city is in the Aleutians West Census Area, a regional component of the Unorganized Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Unalaska is located on Unalaska Island and neighboring Amaknak Island in the Aleutian Islands off mainland Alaska. The population was 4,254 at the 2020 census, which is 81% of the entire Aleutians West Census Area. Unalaska is the second largest city in the Unorganized Borough, behind Bethel.
Dutch Harbor is a harbor on Amaknak Island in Unalaska, Alaska. It was the location of the Battle of Dutch Harbor in June 1942 and was one of the few sites in the United States to be subjected to aerial bombardment by a foreign power during World War II. It was also one of the few sites, besides the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, in incorporated U.S. territory to be bombed by the Japanese in the war.
Amaknak Island or Umaknak Island is the most populated island in the Aleutian Islands, an archipelago which is part of the U.S. state of Alaska.
Mount Hayes is the highest mountain in the eastern Alaska Range, in the U.S. state of Alaska. Despite not being a fourteener, it is one of the largest peaks in the United States in terms of rise above local terrain. For example, the Northeast Face rises 8,000 feet (2,440 m) in approximately 2 miles (3.2 km). This large vertical relief contributes to Mount Hayes being the 51st most topographically prominent peak in the world.
The Aleutian World War II National Historic Area is a U.S. National Historic Site on Amaknak Island in the Aleutian Island Chain of Alaska. It offers visitors a glimpse of both natural and cultural history, and traces the historic footprints of the U.S. Army Base, Fort Schwatka, located at the Ulakta Head on Mount Ballyhoo. The fort, 800 miles west of Anchorage, the nearest large urban center, was one of four coastal defense posts built to protect Dutch Harbor during World War II; Fort Schwatka is also the highest coastal battery ever constructed in the United States. The other Army coastal defense facilities were Fort Mears, Fort Learnard, and Fort Brumback. Engineers designed the concrete observation posts and command stations to withstand earthquakes and 100 mph winds. Although today, many of the bunkers and wooden structures of Fort Schwatka have collapsed, the gun mounts and lookouts are among the most intact in the country.
The Battle of Dutch Harbor took place on 3-4 June 1942, when the Imperial Japanese Navy launched two aircraft carrier raids on the Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and U.S. Army Fort Mears at Dutch Harbor on Amaknak Island, opening the Aleutian Islands campaign of World War II. The bombing marked the first aerial attack by an enemy on the continental United States and was the second time in history that the continental U.S. was bombed by someone working for a foreign power, the first being the accidental bombing of Naco, Arizona, in 1929.
The Dutch Harbor Naval Operating Base and Fort Mears were the two military installations built next to each other in Dutch Harbor, on Amaknak Island of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, by the United States in response to the growing war threat with Imperial Japan during World War II. In 1938, the Navy Board recommended the construction which began in July 1940. The first United States Army troops arrived in June 1941 and an air base constructed by the United States Navy was finished in September 1941. At the time of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, these were the only military installations in the Aleutian Islands.
The Aleutian Islands —also called the Aleut Islands, Aleutic Islands, or, before 1867, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain of 14 main, larger volcanic islands and 55 smaller ones. Most of the Aleutian Islands belong to the U.S. state of Alaska, with the archipelago encompassing the Aleutians West Census Area and the Aleutians East Borough. The Commander Islands, located further to the west, belong to the Russian federal subject of Kamchatka Krai, of the Russian Far East. The islands form part of the Aleutian Arc of the Northern Pacific Ocean, and occupy a land area of 6,821 sq mi (17,666 km2) that extends westward roughly 1,200 mi (1,900 km) from the Alaskan Peninsula mainland, in the direction of the Kamchatka Peninsula; the archipelago acts as a border between the Bering Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Crossing longitude 180°, at which point east and west longitude end, the archipelago contains both the westernmost and easternmost parts of the United States, by longitude. The westernmost U.S. island, in real terms, however, is Attu Island, west of which runs the International Date Line.
Mount Foresta is an 11,000+ ft multi-peak massif located in Wrangell–St. Elias National Park, in the Saint Elias Mountains of Alaska in the United States. Rising high above the lower western margin of the Hubbard Glacier, the summit of Mount Foresta is just over nine miles (14 km) from tidewater at Disenchantment Bay, 12 mi (19 km) northwest of Mount Seattle, 14.5 mi (23 km) southeast of Mount Vancouver, and 46 mi (74 km) north of Yakutat.
Mount Bertha is a 10,204-foot (3,110-meter) glaciated mountain summit located in the Fairweather Range of the Saint Elias Mountains, in southeast Alaska, United States.
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