Mountain Ranges of Washington (U.S. State) - North Cascades (Paperback)

Chapters: North Cascades. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 72. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The North Cascades are a section of the Cascade Range of western North America. They span the border between the Canadian province of British Columbia and the US state of Washington and are officially named in Canada as the Cascade Mountains. They are predominantly non-volcanic, but include the stratovolcanoes Mount Baker, Glacier Peak and Coquihalla Mountain, which are part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc. The portion in Canada is known as the Canadian Cascades, a designation that also includes the mountains above the east bank of the Fraser Canyon as far north as the town of Lytton, at the confluence of the Thompson and Fraser Rivers. The American portion of the North Cascades and the adjoining Skagit Range in British Columbia are most notable for their dramatic scenery and challenging mountaineering, both resulting from their steep, rugged topography. While all of the peaks but the two volcanoes are under 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in elevation, the low valleys provide great local relief, often over 6,000 feet (1,800 m). The summits of the rest of the Canadian Cascades are not glaciated in the same way and feature rock "horns" rising from plateau-like uplands, with the Manning Park and Cathedral Park areas known for their extensive alpine meadows, as is also the case with the eastern flank of the US portion of the range. Typical landscape in the western part of the North Cascades The large amount of precipitation, much of it in the form of snow, and the resulting glaciation, combine with the regional uplift to create a dramatic landscape in the western part of the range. Deep, U-shaped valleys carved by glaciers in Pleistocene time separate sharp ridges and peaks carved into steep shapes by mo...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=46925