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Exploring the beautiful nature of California


California Nature: Mountains


There really isn’t much you can’t do in California. It’s a state with more than its share of mountains, ancient forests, lovely beaches, and baking deserts.  Almost anywhere in California, mountains are in sight, charming and glorifying every landscape. The main central portion of California displays only one valley, and two chains of mountains which seem almost perfectly regular in trend and height: the Coast Range on the west side, the Sierra Nevada on the east. These two ranges coming together in curves on the north and south enclose a magnificent basin, with a level floor more than 400 miles long, and from 35 to 60 miles wide. This is the grand Central Valley of California, the waters of which have only one outlet to the sea through the Golden Gate. The Coast Range, rising against the ocean, from 2000 to 8000 feet high, is composed of innumerable forest-crowned spurs, ridges, and rolling hill-waves which enclose a multitude of smaller valleys; some looking out through long, forest-lined vistas to the sea; others, with but few trees, to the Central Valley; while a thousand others yet smaller are embosomed and concealed in mild, round-browed hills, each with its own climate, soil, and productions.
coastal mountain range in California California's coastal mountains trace a sinuous 800-mile course from the northwest corner of Del Norte County south to the Mexican border. Except for a break in the chain at the Golden Gate, they form a continuous series of ranges and valleys, separating the coast from the Great Central Valley and the deserts of the interior. This mountainous barrier has a dramatic effect on California's climate: storms originating over the Pacific Ocean bring rain to the western slopes, while the eastern slopes remain relatively dry. The coastal mountains constitute four geomorphic provinces or geologic regions within California. The northern-most is the Klamath Mountains province, which lies near the coast in northwestern Del Norte County and extends north into Oregon. The northwest-trending Coast Ranges, the largest of the state's geomorphic provinces, rises abruptly from the shore in northern Humboldt County and extend 400 miles south to the Santa Ynez River in Santa Barbara County. The Transverse Ranges lie along an east- west axis, from the Santa Barbara coast to the Mojave Desert, creating a natural barrier between Central and Southern California. The massive Peninsular Ranges complete the coastal mountain system, extending south from the Los Angeles Basin to the tip of the Baja Peninsula.
The Sierra is about 500 miles long, 70 miles wide, and from 7000 to nearly 15,000 feet high. Glaciers are still at work in the shadows of the peaks, and thousands of lakes and meadows shine and bloom beneath them, and the whole range is furrowed with canons to a depth of from 2000 to 5000 feet, in which once flowed majestic glaciers, and in which now flow and sing a band of beautiful rivers. Every winter the High Sierra and the middle forest region get snow in glorious abundance, and even the foot-hills are at times whitened. Then all the range looks like a vast beveled wall of purest marble. The rough places are then made smooth, the death and decay of the year is covered gently and kindly, and the ground seems as clean as the sky. And though silent in its flight from the clouds, and when it is taking its place on rock, or tree, or grassy meadow, how soon the gentle snow finds a voice! Slipping from the heights, gathering in avalanches, it booms and roars like thunder, and makes a glorious show as it sweeps down the mountain-side, arrayed in long, silken streamers and wreathing, swirling films of crystal dust.
view of all mountain ranges in California nature The north half of the range is mostly covered with floods of lava, and dotted with volcanoes and craters, some of them recent and perfect in form, others in various stages of decay. The south half is composed of granite nearly from base to summit, while a considerable number of peaks, in the middle of the range, are capped with metamorphic slates, among which are Mounts Dana and Gibbs to the east of Yosemite Valley. Mount Whitney, the culminating point of the range near its southern extremity, lifts its helmet-shaped crest to a height of nearly 14,700 feet. Mount Shasta, a colossal volcanic cone, rises to a height of 14,440 feet at the northern extremity, and forms a noble landmark for all the surrounding region within a radius of a hundred miles. Residual masses of volcanic rocks occur throughout most of the granitic southern portion also, and a considerable number of old volcanoes on the flanks, especially along the eastern base of the range near Mono Lake and southward. But it is only to the northward that the entire range, from base to summit, is covered with lava. The Cinder Cone  marks the most recent volcanic eruption in the Sierra. It is a symmetrical truncated cone about 700 feet high, covered with gray cinders and ashes, and has a regular unchanged crater on its summit, in which a few small pines are growing.
 These trees show that the age of the cone is not less than eighty years. It stands between two lakes, which a short time ago were one. Before the cone was built, a flood of rough vesicular lava was poured into the lake, cutting it in two, and, overflowing its banks, the fiery flood advanced into the pine-woods, overwhelming the trees in its way, the charred ends of some of which may still be seen projecting from beneath the snout of the lava-stream where it came to rest. Later still there was an eruption of ashes and loose obsidian cinders, probably from the same vent, which, besides forming the Cinder Cone, scattered a heavy shower over the surrounding woods for miles to a depth of from six inches to several feet. The history of this last Sierra eruption is also preserved in the traditions of the Pitt River Indians. They tell of a fearful time of darkness, when the sky was black with ashes and smoke that threatened every living thing with death, and that when at length the sun appeared once more it was red like blood. 
 
 
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