Crowsnest Mountain

Crowsnest Mountain is a scenic mountain in the southern Canadian Rockies of southwestern Alberta, Canada. It can be seen from Alberta Highway 3 west of the town of Coleman in the Crowsnest Pass. The mountain was originally named by the Cree First Nations due to the ravens that nested in the area.[1] The scrambling route on the north side was first ascended in 1915.[1]

Crowsnest Mountain
Crowsnest Mountain, March 2010
Highest point
Elevation2,785 m (9,137 ft) [1]
Prominence925 m (3,035 ft) [2]
Parent peakMount Erris[2]
ListingMountains of Alberta
Coordinates49°42′13″N 114°34′26″W [3]
Geography
Crowsnest Mountain
Parent rangeCrowsnest Range
Topo mapNTS 82G/10
Geology
Age of rockPaleozoic (upper), Mesozoic (lower)
Mountain typeLimestone[1]
Climbing
First ascentJuly 28, 1904 by Tom Wilson, Christian Hasler sr., Friedrich Michel[1]
Easiest routemoderate scramble[4]

Geology

The grey rocks exposed in the cliffs on the upper part of Crowsnest Mountain are limestones and shales of Late Devonian to Early Mississippian age (the Palliser at the base, overlain by the Exshaw and Banff, with the Livingstone Formation at the summit). They were moved up from the west along the Lewis thrust fault and emplaced over younger rocks (the Late Cretaceous Belly River Formation) that underlie the wooded lower slopes of the mountain. During that movement they were formed into a broad syncline by fault-bend folding.[5][6]

The Devonian to Mississippian rocks are part of the Lewis thrust sheet which was originally continuous from the High Rock Range immediately to the west. The thrust sheet has since been cut through by erosion along Allison Creek, however, leaving Crowsnest Mountain and its northerly neighbour, Seven Sisters Mountain, standing together as an isolated klippe.[5][6]

References
  1. "Crowsnest Mountain". PeakFinder.com. Retrieved 2005-07-22.
  2. "Crowsnest Mountain". Bivouac.com. Retrieved 2008-12-31.
  3. "Crowsnest Mountain". Geographical Names Data Base. Natural Resources Canada. Retrieved 2010-07-31.
  4. Kane, Alan (1999). "Crowsnest Mountain". Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies. Calgary: Rocky Mountain Books. pp. 56–58. ISBN 0-921102-67-4.
  5. R.A.Price, 1961. Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 61-24 and Map 35-1961.
  6. R.A. Price, 1962. Geologic structure of the central part of the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of Crowsnest Pass. Journal of the Alberta Society of Petroleum Geologists, vol. 10, no. 7, p. 341-351.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.