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🠈  Uinta Mountains  🠊

The Uinta Mountains is a range that runs East to west in Northeastern Utah just South of the Wyoming Border. The alignment of the mountains is unique in North America where most mountain ranges run North to South.

The name for the mountains comes from the Ute word for pine trees: Yoov-we-teuh. The pine trees of the area were aggressively harvested for the construction of the transcontinental railroad. Tie cutting for railroads continued to be a major industry on the North slope into the 20th centuryi; however, since the mountains sit on a high arid plain, the forests do not recover from logging as readily as those in the Eastern or Northwestern US.

The geological layers of the Uinta Mountains are of the f Neoproterozoic Age and consist of quartzite, slate, and shale. The peaks of the mountains were glaciated during the last ice age.

The mountains have numerous peaks over 11,000 including Hayden Peak, Mount Agassiz and Bald Mountain. The tallest mountain in the range is Kings Peak which is the highest mountain in the state at 13,528 feet in elevation. Many of the tallest peaks are in the High Uinta Wilderness Area.

The Northeast section of the Uintas is administered by the Uinta-Wasatch National Forest. The Southeast stretch of the mountains is administered by the Ashley National Forest which is headquartered in Vernal.

Rivers associated with the Uinta Mountains include the Bear and Weber River which flow Northeast before flowing into the Great Salt Lake. The Provo River flows from the Western half of the range and flows through Heber and Utah Valley before flowing into Utah Lake and into the Great Salt Lake.

The Green River starts in the Wind River Mountains to the North of the Uintas. It flows through Flaming Gorge then turns East and flows into Colorado before it turns South and runs through Split Mountain and Dinosaur National Monument before its epic journey through the canyonlands of Southern Utah on its voyage to the Gulf of Mexico.

References:

  1. NPS.gov - Tie Cutting in Uintas (Drawn 2/27/2017)

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