Mount Watkins (California)

Mount Watkins is an mountain summit in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, in Mariposa County, California, United States.

Description Mount Watkins is located in Yosemite National Park, north of Half Dome, and northwest of Clouds Rest. Precipitation runoff from this mountain drains into Tenaya Creek which is a tributary of the Merced River. Topographic relief is significant as the summit rises above Tenaya Canyon in less than . The mountain is composed of Half Dome Granodiorite which formed during the Cretaceous period.Keith Daniel Putirka, Geologic Excursions from Fresno, California, and the Central Valley: A Tour of California s Iconic Geology, Geological Society of America, 2013, , p. 16. An ascent of the summit involves 7.4 miles of hiking (round-trip) with 750 feet of elevation gain, and the months of June through October offer the best conditions.Scott Turner, Day Hiking: Yosemite National Park, Mountaineers Books, 2021, . The approach is via the Snow Creek Trail starting near Olmsted Point.

History The mountain is named after Carleton Watkins (1829–1916), an American photographer in the 1800s whose photographs of Yosemite significantly influenced the United States Congress' decision to preserve it as a National Park. His photograph of Mount Watkins reflected in Mirror Lake was especially popular, and likely led to his name being affixed to this mountain.Francis P. Farquhar, Place Names of the High Sierra (1926) This mountain's toponym was officially adopted on June 30, 1932, by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, although it was featured in publications as early as 1871.Samuel Kneeland, The Wonders of the Yosemite Valley, and of California, A. Moore, 1871, p. 39. The Native American name for the mountain is "Waijau" which means Pine Mountain.Place Names of the High Sierra, Francis Peloubet Farquhar, Sierra Club, 1926, p. 102.

Climbing Along with El Capitan and Half Dome, Mount Watkins is one of the three main big walls in Yosemite for rock climbing.Jared Ogden, Big Wall Climbing: Elite Technique, The Mountaineers Books, 2005, , p. 192.

Rock climbing routes:

South Face - - First ascent July 1964 - Warren Harding, Chuck Pratt, Yvon ChouinardSouth Face, Mountainproject.com, Retrieved 2024-10-24.Maurice Isserman, Continental Divide: A History of American Mountaineering, W. W. Norton & Company, 2016, . Teabag Wisdom - class 5.11 - FA 2016 - Vitaliy Musiyenko, Chris KopplTeabag Wisdom, Mountainproject.com, Retrieved 2024-10-24. The Twisted Road - class 5.12The Twisted Road, Mountainproject.com, Retrieved 2024-10-24.

Climate According to the Köppen climate classification system, Mount Watkins is located in an alpine climate zone. Most weather fronts originate in the Pacific Ocean and travel east toward the Sierra Nevada mountains. As fronts approach, they are forced upward by the peaks (orographic lift), causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall onto the range.

Mount Watkins (California)

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