Mountain range in western North America
The
Cascade Range
or
Cascades
is a major
mountain range
of western
North America
, extending from southern
British Columbia
through
Washington
and
Oregon
to
Northern California
. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as many of those in the
North Cascades
, and the notable
volcanoes
known as the
High Cascades
. The small part of the range in British Columbia is referred to as the
Canadian Cascades
or, locally, as the
Cascade Mountains
. The highest peak in the range is
Mount Rainier
in Washington at 14,411 feet (4,392 m).
The Cascades are
part of the
Pacific Ocean
's
Ring of Fire
, the ring of volcanoes and associated mountains around the Pacific Ocean. All of the eruptions in the
contiguous United States
over the last 200 years have been from
Cascade volcanoes
. The two most recent were
Lassen Peak
from 1914 to 1921 and a
major eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980
. Minor eruptions of Mount St. Helens have also occurred since, most recently from 2004 to 2008.
[3]
The Cascade Range is a part of the
American Cordillera
, a nearly continuous chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that form the western "backbone" of North,
Central
, and
South America
.
The Cascades are home to many national parks and protected areas, including
North Cascades National Park
,
Mount Rainier National Park
,
Crater Lake National Park
, and
Lassen Volcanic National Park
. The northern half of the
Pacific Crest Trail
follows the range.
Geography
[
edit
]
The Cascades extend northward from
Lassen Peak
(also known as Mount Lassen) in northern
California
to the confluence of the
Nicola
and
Thompson
rivers in
British Columbia
. The
Fraser River
separates the Cascades from the
Coast Mountains
in Canada,
as does the
Willamette Valley
from the upper portion of the
Oregon Coast Range
. The highest volcanoes of the Cascades, known as the High Cascades,
dominate their surroundings, often standing twice the height of the nearby mountains. They often have a visual height (height above nearby crestlines) of one mile or more. The highest peaks, such as the 14,411-foot (4,392 m) Mount Rainier, dominate their surroundings for 50 to 100 miles (80 to 161 km).
The northern part of the range, north of Mount Rainier, is known as the
North Cascades
in the United States but is formally named the Cascade Mountains north of the
Canada?United States border
, reaching to the northern extremity of the Cascades at
Lytton Mountain
.
Overall, the North Cascades and Canadian Cascades are extremely rugged; even the lesser peaks are steep and glaciated, and valleys are quite low relative to peaks and ridges, so there is great local
relief
.
The southern part of the Canadian Cascades, particularly the
Skagit Range
, is geologically and topographically similar to the North Cascades, while the northern and northeastern parts are less glaciated and more plateau-like, resembling nearby areas of the
Thompson Plateau
.
The range is near the Pacific Ocean and in the region's
prevailing westerly winds
, so it receives significant rain and snowfall, especially on the western slopes due to
orographic lift
, with annual snow accumulations of up to 1,000 inches (2,500 cm) (= 83 feet (25 m)) in some areas.
Mount Baker
in Washington recorded a national record single-season snowfall in the winter of 1998?99 with 1,140 inches (2,900 cm) (= 95 feet (29 m)).
[8]
Before that year,
Mount Rainier
held the American record for snow accumulation at Paradise in 1978. It is not uncommon for some places in the Cascades to have over 500 inches (1,300 cm) of annual snow accumulation, such as at
Lake Helen
, near Lassen Peak.
[9]
Most of the High Cascades are therefore white with snow and ice year-round. The western slopes are densely covered with
Douglas-fir
(
Pseudotsuga menziesii
),
western hemlock
(
Tsuga heterophylla
) and
red alder
(
Alnus rubra
),
while the drier eastern slopes feature mostly
ponderosa pine
(
Pinus ponderosa
), with some
western larch
(
Larix occidentalis
),
mountain hemlock
(
Tsuga mertensiana
) and
subalpine fir
(
Abies lasiocarpa
) and
subalpine larch
(
Larix lyallii
) at higher elevations.
Annual rainfall is as low as 9 inches (230 mm) on the eastern
foothills
due to a
rain shadow
effect.
Beyond the eastern foothills is an
arid
plateau that was largely formed 17 to 14 million years ago by the many flows of the
Columbia River Basalt Group
. Together, these sequences of fluid
volcanic rock
form the 200,000-square-mile (520,000 km
2
)
Columbia Plateau
in eastern Washington, Oregon, and parts of western Idaho.
[13]
The
Columbia River Gorge
is the only major break of the range in the United States. When the Cascades began to rise 7 million years ago in the late
Miocene
, the Columbia River drained the relatively low Columbia Plateau. As the range grew, erosion from the Columbia River was able to keep pace, carving out the gorge and major pass seen today. The gorge also exposes uplifted and warped layers of basalt from the plateau.
[14]
[15]
History
[
edit
]
Before European exploration, First Nations tribes named many peaks, including "Wy'east" for
Mount Hood
,
[16]
"Seekseekqua" for
Mount Jefferson (Oregon)
,
[16]
"M'laiksini Yaina" for
Mount McLoughlin
,
[16]
"Tahoma", the
Lushootseed
name for Mount Rainier,
[17]
and "Louwala-Clough", meaning "smoking mountain" for Mount St. Helens.
[18]
In early 1792, British navigator
George Vancouver
explored
Puget Sound
and gave English names to the high mountains he saw. Mount Baker was named for Vancouver's third lieutenant,
Joseph Baker
, although the first European to see it was
Manuel Quimper
, who named it
la gran montana del Carmelo
("Great
Mount Carmel
") in 1790.
Mount Rainier was named after Admiral
Peter Rainier
. Later in 1792, Vancouver had his lieutenant
William Robert Broughton
explore the lower
Columbia River
. He named
Mount Hood
after
Lord Samuel Hood
, an
admiral
of the
Royal Navy
.
Mount St. Helens
was sighted by Vancouver in May 1792, from near the mouth of the Columbia River. It was named for
Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St Helens
, a British diplomat.
[20]
Vancouver's expedition did not, however, name the mountain range which contained these peaks. He referred to it simply as the "eastern snowy range". Earlier Spanish explorers called it
Sierra Nevada
, meaning "snowy mountains".
In 1805, the
Lewis and Clark Expedition
passed through the Cascades on the Columbia River, which for many years was the only practical way to pass that part of the range. They were the first non-indigenous people to see
Mount Adams
, but they thought it was Mount St. Helens. When they later saw Mount St. Helens they thought it was Mount Rainier.
On their return trip, Lewis and Clark spotted a
high but distant snowy pinnacle
that they named for the sponsor of the expedition, U.S. President
Thomas Jefferson
.
[22]
Lewis and Clark called the Cascade Range the "Western Mountains".
The Lewis and Clark expedition, and the many settlers and traders that followed, met their last obstacle to their journey at the
Cascades Rapids
in the Columbia River Gorge, a feature on the river now submerged beneath the
Bonneville Reservoir
. Before long, the great white-capped mountains that loomed above the rapids were called the "mountains by the cascades" and later simply as the "Cascades". The earliest attested use of the name "Cascade Range" is in the writings of botanist
David Douglas
in 1825.
[25]
In 1814,
Alexander Ross
, a fur trader with the
North West Company
, seeking a viable route across the mountains, explored and crossed the northern Cascades between
Fort Okanogan
and Puget Sound. His report of the journey is vague about the route taken. He followed the lower
Methow River
into the mountains. He might have used
Cascade Pass
to reach the
Skagit River
. Ross was the first European-American to explore the Methow River area and likely the first to explore the
Stehekin River
and Bridge Creek region. Due to the difficulty of crossing the northern Cascades and the paucity of beaver, fur-trading companies made only a few explorations into the mountains north of the Columbia River after Ross.
Exploration and settlement of the Cascades region by Europeans and Americans was accelerated by the establishment of a major trading post of the
Hudson's Bay Company
(HBC) at
Fort Vancouver
near today's
Portland, Oregon
. From this base HBC trapping parties traveled throughout the Cascades in search of beaver and other fur-bearing animals. For example, using what became known as the
Siskiyou Trail
, Hudson's Bay Company trappers were the first non-natives to explore the southern Cascades in the 1820s and 1830s, establishing trails which passed near
Crater Lake
,
Mount McLoughlin
,
Medicine Lake Volcano
,
Mount Shasta
, and Lassen Peak.
[27]
The course of political history in the
Pacific Northwest
saw the spine of the Cascade Range being proposed as a boundary settlement during the
Oregon Dispute
of 1846. The United States rejected the proposal and insisted on the
49th parallel north
, which cuts across the range just north of Mount Baker. Throughout the period of dispute and up to the creation of the
Crown Colony
of British Columbia in 1858, the Hudson's Bay Company's
York Factory Express
route, as well the route of fur brigades, followed the Okanogan River along the east edge of the Cascades and the Columbia River through the range. Passes across the range were not well known and little used.
Naches Pass
was used for driving cattle and horses to
Fort Nisqually
.
Yakima Pass
was also used by the Hudson's Bay Company.
American settlement of the flanks of the Coast Range did not occur until the early 1840s, at first only marginally. Following the
Oregon Treaty
the inward flux of migration from the
Oregon Trail
intensified and the passes and back-valleys of what is now the state of Washington were explored and populated, and it was not long after that railways followed. Despite its being traversed by several major freeways and rail lines, and its lower flanks subjected to major logging in recent decades, large parts of the range remain intense and forbidding alpine wilderness. Much of the northern half of the Cascades, from Rainier north, have been preserved by
U.S. national
or British Columbia
provincial parks
(such as
E.C. Manning Provincial Park
), or other forms of protected area.
[29]
The Canadian side of the range has a history that includes the
Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
of 1858?60 and its famous
Cariboo Road
, as well as the older Hudson's Bay Company Brigade Trail from the Canyon to the Interior, the Dewdney Trail, and older routes which connected east to the
Similkameen
and
Okanagan
valleys.
The southern mainline of the
Canadian Pacific Railway
penetrated the range via the passes of the
Coquihalla River
, along one of the steepest and snowiest routes in the entire
Pacific Cordillera
. Near
Hope, B.C.
, the
railway roadbed
and the
Othello Tunnels
, now decommissioned, are popular tourist recreation destinations for hiking and bicycling. The pass is used by the
Coquihalla Highway
, a government
megaproject
built as part of the
Expo 86
spending boom of the 1980s, which is now the main route from the Coast to the British Columbia interior. Traffic formerly went via the
Fraser Canyon
, to the west, or via
Allison Pass
and
Manning Park
along
Highway 3
to the south, near the border.
The
Barlow Road
was the first established land path for U.S. settlers through the Cascade Range in 1845, and formed the final overland link for the
Oregon Trail
(previously, settlers had to raft down the
treacherous rapids
of the Columbia River). The Road left the Columbia at what is now
Hood River
and passed along the south side of Mount Hood at what is now
Government Camp
, terminating in Oregon City. There is an interpretive site there now at "The End of The Oregon Trail". The road was constructed as a toll road ? $5 per wagon ? and was very successful.
In addition, the
Applegate Trail
was created to allow settlers to avoid rafting down the Columbia River. The Trail used the path of the
California Trail
to north-central
Nevada
. From there, the Trail headed northwest into northern California, and continued northwest towards today's
Ashland, Oregon
. From there, settlers would head north along the established Siskiyou Trail into the
Willamette Valley
.
With the exception of the 1915 eruption of remote Lassen Peak in Northern California, the range was quiet for more than a century. Then, on May 18, 1980, the dramatic eruption of
Mount St. Helens
shattered the quiet and brought the world's attention to the range. Geologists were also concerned that the St. Helens eruption was a sign that long-dormant Cascade volcanoes might become active once more, as in the period from 1800 to 1857 when a total of eight erupted. None have erupted since St. Helens, but precautions are being taken nevertheless, such as the
Cascades Volcano Observatory
and Mount Rainier Volcano
Lahar
Warning System in
Pierce County, Washington
.
[30]
Geology
[
edit
]
The Cascade Range is made up of a band of thousands of very small, short-lived volcanoes that have built a platform of lava and volcanic debris. Rising above this volcanic platform are a few strikingly large volcanoes, like Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens, that dominate the landscape.
[31]
The Cascade volcanoes define the Pacific Northwest section of the
Ring of Fire
, an array of volcanoes that rim the Pacific Ocean. The Ring of Fire is also known for its frequent earthquakes. The volcanoes and earthquakes arise from a common source:
subduction
, where the dense
Juan de Fuca oceanic plate
plunges beneath the
North American Plate
.
[32]
As the
oceanic slab
sinks deep into the Earth's interior beneath the continental plate, high temperatures and pressures allow water molecules locked in the minerals of solid rock to escape. The water vapor rises into the pliable mantle above the subducting plate, causing some of the mantle to melt. This newly formed magma rises toward the Earth's surface to erupt, forming a chain of volcanoes (the Cascade Volcanic Arc) above the subduction zone.
[32]
Human uses
[
edit
]
Soil conditions for farming are generally good, especially downwind of
volcanoes
. This is largely because volcanic rocks are often rich in
potassium
-bearing minerals such as
orthoclase
, and erode relatively easily. Volcanic debris, especially
lahars
, also helps to spread mineral-rich volcanic material, and the storage of water in the form of snow and ice is also important for agriculture. The snow-capped mountains, such as Mt. Hood and
Mt. Bachelor
, are used as
ski resorts
in the late winter, while in the summer they become popular
hiking
and
mountaineering
locations. Much of their meltwater eventually flows into reservoirs, where it is used for recreation, while its potential energy is captured to generate
hydroelectric power
before the water is used to
irrigate
crops.
Because of the abundance of powerful streams, many of the major westward-draining rivers of the Cascades have been dammed to provide
hydroelectric power
. One of these,
Ross Dam
on the
Skagit River
, retains a reservoir which spans the border southeast of
Hope, British Columbia
, extending 2 miles (3.2 km) into Canada. At the foot of the southeast flank of Mount Baker, at
Concrete, Washington
, the
Baker River
is dammed to form
Lake Shannon
and
Baker Lake
.
The Cascades harbor a largely-untapped potential for
geothermal power
. The
U.S. Geological Survey
Geothermal Research Program has been investigating this potential. Some of this energy is already being used in places like
Klamath Falls, Oregon
, where volcanic steam is used to heat public buildings.
[33]
The highest recorded underground temperature found in the range is 510 °F (266 °C) at 3,075 feet (937 m) below
Newberry Volcano
's
caldera
floor.
Ecology
[
edit
]
Forests of large, coniferous trees (
western red cedars
, Douglas-firs, western hemlocks,
firs
,
pines
,
spruces
, and others) dominate most of the Cascade Range. Cool, wet winters and warm, dry summers (largely a result of oceanic influence) favor evergreen species, whereas mild temperatures and rich soils promote fast and prolonged growth.
[34]
[35]
As a traveler passes through the Cascade Range, the climate first gets colder, then warmer and drier east of the crest.
[36]
Most of the Cascades' lower and middle elevations are covered in
coniferous forest
; the higher altitudes have extensive
meadows
as well as
alpine tundra
and
glaciers
. The southern part of the Cascades are within the
California Floristic Province
, an area of high
biodiversity
.
[
citation needed
]
Silver fir
predominates above 2500 ft, while there are
moors
,
meadows
, and
mountain hemlock
/
subalpine fir
groves from 4500 to 6000 ft on the west side. The
treeline
is at ~6000 feet. On the east side, subalpine forests of
larch
trees grade to
pine
and interior
fir
forests below 4200 ft, which grade to
ponderosa
below 2500 ft, which in turn grades to semidesert
scrub
near sea level. Above 7500 ft, the landscape is barren with either no plants or only
moss
and
lichen
.
[37]
Black bears
,
coyotes
,
bobcats
,
cougars
,
beavers
,
deer
,
elk
,
moose
,
mountain goats
and a few
wolf
packs returning from Canada live in the Cascades. Fewer than 50
grizzly bears
reside in the Cascades of Canada and Washington.
[38]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
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- ^
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.
opentopomap.org
. Retrieved
2023-05-08
.
- ^
"Mount Rainier"
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,
United States Department of the Interior
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2023-05-08
.
- ^
"Mount St. Helens: 2004?2008 Renewed Volcanic Activity"
.
Cascades Volcano Observatory
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the original
on April 28, 2015
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November 9,
2013
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- ^
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on June 6, 2012.
- ^
McLaughlin, Mark (October 14, 2010).
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.
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. Retrieved
November 9,
2013
.
- ^
Straub, Kristen; Link, Paul.
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.
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the original
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. Retrieved
November 3,
2013
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- ^
Harrison, John (October 31, 2008).
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.
Columbia River History
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November 9,
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- ^
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November 9,
2013
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a
b
c
Hale, Jamie (17 May 2019),
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,
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, retrieved
25 October
2021
- ^
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.
Naming the Cascade Range Volcanoes
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.
- ^
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.
Mount St. Helens Volcano, Washington
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- ^
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- ^
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Majors, Harry M. (1975).
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. Van Winkle Publishing Co. p. 150.
ISBN
978-0-918664-00-6
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- ^
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.
- ^
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.
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. U.S. Geological Survey. Archived from
the original
on May 11, 2008.
- ^
This article incorporates
public domain material
from
Pacific ? Cascades Volcanic Province
.
United States Geological Survey
.
- ^
a
b
This article incorporates
public domain material
from
Pacific ? Cascades Volcanic Province
.
United States Geological Survey
.
- ^
"Geothermal Utility"
. City of Klamath Falls. Archived from
the original
on October 6, 2010.
- ^
This article incorporates
public domain material
from
"Pacific Northwest"
(PDF)
.
Status and Trends of the Nation's Biological Resources
.
- ^
Waring, RH; Franklin, JF (1979). "Evergreen coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest".
Northwest Science
.
204
(4400): 1380?1386.
Bibcode
:
1979Sci...204.1380W
.
doi
:
10.1126/science.204.4400.1380
.
PMID
17814182
.
S2CID
28313427
.
- ^
"Ecoregions of Western Washington and Oregon"
(PDF)
. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2017-05-25
. Retrieved
November 4,
2013
.
- ^
"Life Zones in Washington"
.
- ^
Rice, Nathan (November 14, 2011).
"The forgotten North Cascades grizzly bear"
.
High Country News
. Paonia, Colorado.
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. Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society Press.
ISBN
978-0-87595-243-7
.
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. Seattle, Washington: The Mountaineers Books.
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978-1-59485-136-0
.
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3333133
.
- Dzurisin, Dan; Stauffer, Peter H.; Hendley, James W. II (2000) [1997].
Living With Volcanic Risk in the Cascades
. U.S. Geological Survey.
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. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
978-0-521-47323-1
.
- Harris, Stephen L. (2005).
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978-0-87842-511-2
.
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. British Columbia Department of Mines and Petroleum Resources. Archived from
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- Martin, James (2002).
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. Seattle, Washington: Sasquatch Books.
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.
- Mueller, Marge; Mueller, Ted (2002).
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.
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. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
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.
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]
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