Castle Mountains (California)

The Castle Mountains are located in the Eastern Mojave Desert, in northeastern San Bernardino County, California and Clark County, Nevada. The range lies south and east of the New York Mountains, southwest of Searchlight and west of Cal-Nev-Ari, Nevada.[2]

This article is about the mountain range. For the National Monument that encompasses most of the range, see Castle Mountains National Monument.
Castle Mountains
Location of Castle Mountains[1]
Highest point
Elevation1,567 m (5,141 ft)
Geography
CountryUnited States
StateCalifornia and Nevada
Range coordinates35°19′28.968″N 115°4′43.932″W
Topo mapUSGS Hart Peak

The range lies at the northeastern end of the Lanfair Valley, and reaches an elevation of 5,543 feet above sea level at the summit of Hart Peak. The mountains lie in a southwest-northeasterly direction in both states, although most of the range is in California. The Piute Range lies to the southeast.[3]

Canadian NewCastle Gold Ltd. currently holds the rights to the Castle Mountain Mine Area, an open pit gold mine in the southern Castle Mountains. The company has the right to excavate nearly 10 million tons of ore through 2025. Due to low gold prices, however, mining has been suspended since 2001.[4][5]

Castle Mountains National Monument

Castle Mountains National Monument was established by President Obama on 12 February 2016.[6][5][7] It designates a portion of the Castle Mountains and the surrounding area a National Monument, managed by the National Park Service. It protects 20,920 acres between the interstates I−15 and I−40. The old mining camp of Hart close to the California−Nevada border is in it.[8]

Castle Mountains National Monument is surrounded on three sides by the NPS Mojave National Preserve.

The national monument surrounds the Castle Mountain Mine Area. The proclamation establishing the monument states that after any mining and reclamation are completed in the Area, or after 10 years if no mining occurs, the Federal land in the 8,340 acre Castle Mountain Mine Area is to be transferred to the National Park Service.[4]

See also
  • Mountain ranges of the Mojave Desert
  • Natural history of the Mojave Desert
  • Mojave National Preserve topics

References
  1. "Castle Mountains". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  2. California Road and Recreation Atlas, 2005, pg. 98
  3. Shtier, Seth (December 22, 2015). "East Mojave's Castle Mountains deserve national monument protection: Guest commentary". The San Bernardino Sun. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
  4. Marketwired.com: "NewCastle's Gold Project not included in New Castle Mountain Monument" . accessed 14 February 2016.
  5. Los Angeles Times: "Volcanic spires and Joshua trees: Obama protects 1.8 million acres in California's desert", 11 February 2016, by Louis Sahagun; accessed 14 February 2016.
  6. Whitehouse.gov: Presidential Proclamation − Establishment of the Castle Mountains National Monument, 12 February 2016.
  7. Campaign for the California Desert.org: Fact sheet for Castle Mountains National Monument
  8. Sahagun, Louis (2016-02-11). "Obama creates 3 new national monuments to protect 1.8 million acres of California desert". latimes.com. Retrieved 2016-02-12.
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