Talk:Sierra Nevada

Please do not move this page to Sierra Nevada (U.S.) or Sierra Nevada (United States). Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms)#Acronyms as disambiguators for the policy.

Where is Orsmby County, Nevada? It isn't on the list or the map at List of Nevada counties. -- Zoe

IIRC, it was absorbed into Carson City, Nevada. (search search) See older discussion in Talk:Independent city. --Brion 07:10 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

Zoe: I'm puzzled at the reversion of the last edit by 12.231.69.77 (me), and the marking of the reversion as a minor edit. Certainly, I meant the edits to be a positive contribution and not noise or vandalism.

Let me try and explain the three edits that were made:

1. The material about the rotor was originally in the "Geography of California" page (not written by me) and it seemed far too specific for that page, so I moved it to this one. I was trying to be respectful of the other contributor(s) by not deleting their stuff, even if the material is extremely specific.

2. The National Forests are very important governmental units for the Sierra Nevada (controlling logging, wilderness, etc.) and I thought they deserved listing.

3. Mount Lassen is the southernmost of the Cascades, not really a part of the Sierra Nevada. Listing it twice seems contradictory.

I'm feeling terribly discouraged by this edit. I love California and its geography, but I just don't want to contribute any more to Wikipedia, because I think that anything I say will just get deleted with no discussion or explanation.--hike395

That must have been a mistake - I restored your text and please don't go. :) --mav

For the record, there is a function that is available to Administrators which is called "rollback". This is a function that will remove the changes made by the most recent contributor and restore a page to the state immediately prior to that/those contributions. It automatically fills in the comment as "Reverted to last edit by XXXXXXXXXX" and is automatically marked as a minor edit. It is also accomplished with a single mouse-click and occasionally happens by mistake.

--Dante Alighieri 07:36 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for the extra information! --hike395

I propose to move this to Sierra Nevada (U.S.). --Jiang

Is that standard? What's the rationale? (There are 61 links to the page, so it'll be a painful move) -- hike395 02:12, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Colorado River (U.S.), The West (U.S.) - that form just seems more standard here. It's okay to have redirects. We're not obligated to fix them. --Jiang 02:15, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Well, I don't feel strongly one way or the other about the name of the page. I'll probably feel obligated to fix the redirects, though :-( -- hike395 02:28, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Another possibility that I just thought of: Sierra Nevada (USA) is probably substantially more known than the original Sierra Nevada in Spain (perhaps our European contributors can comment on this?). If this is true, then perhaps we should

Move Sierra Nevada to Sierra Nevada (disambiguation)
Move Sierra Nevada (USA) to Sierra Nevada

Just a thought. Comments? -- hike395 03:12, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Please don't make us type the stupid dots over and over! Just use "(US)" if you must, but I can't think of any good reason to move this page; there are a thousand things more important. I didn't know there were other pages using "(U.S.)" to disambig; perhaps I'll move them at some point. ("U.S." instead of "US" is excessive pedantry, and not helpful to our readers.) It does need to keep the disambig in any case; the name "Sierra Nevada" is not that well known outside the western US - Europeans often confuse it with the Rockies for instance. Stan 03:38, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm. According to the USGS (http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnis/web_query.GetDetail?tab=Y&id=253582) the Sierra Nevada does go through Washoe County, Nevada and Douglas County, Nevada. No mention of Carson City though. Strangely enough though the Quads listed on that page aren't in either of those counties. Gar! Geography is confusing. --- Sdp 16:45, 20 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Ack. The USGS must think that the Carson Range is part of the Sierra. How else would it go through both Washoe & Douglas County? Should we change the definition back? -- hike395

My opinion is that we list the counties/city (Douglas, Carson City, and Washoe), and we say that they are part of the Carson Range which is a spur off of the Sierra Nevada. --- Sdp

That seems like a good idea. -- hike395

Metric conversions - I've done these to make the page understandable for global readership. For exact figures (summits, etc), I used the exact conversion figure (x 0.3048); for rounded figures (vegetation zones, etc), I used x 0.3 and rounded to the nearest 100m (which is still a lot more precise than place-to-place variation in the vegetation zone altitudes!) - MPF 21:51, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Since this is a US topic could you please reverse the metric (standard) order to standard (metric)? --mav

Northern extent of Sierra Nevada

My 1960 Encyclopaedia Britannica says, the Sierra Nevada are, "officially defined by the U.S. Geographic Board as being 'limited on the north by the gap south of Lassen Peak, and on the south by Tehachapi Pass'". I haven't found that definition on any current USGS sites, but I'd like to get the northern extent correct for Wikipedia. The lowest pass between the Pacific drainage and the Great Basin appears to be Beckwouth Pass, near the eastern end of route 70. Any comments? Mackerm 16:35, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's a tricky question. Definitely, Mount Lassen is a Cascade volcano, so should be excluded. Part of the definition is whether you consider geography, geology, or ecology. For an ecological definition, the United States Forest Service says that the Sierra Nevada stop at Susanville, California (see [1]). But, they claim that the Tehachapi Mountains are ecologically part of the Sierra Nevada, which doesn't make too much sense geologically (it's clear that the Tehachapis are part of the Transverse Ranges).

As a working definition of the northern boundary that matches the USFS ecological definition, I would propose putting the northern boundary at California State Route 36, which passes through Fredonyer Pass, a pass to the southeast of Mount Lassen. So, we can replace Mount Lassen with both of these landmarks.

Drawing the boundary at California State Route 70 excludes a lot of Plumas County, which I think is part of the Sierra Nevada, since the controverty over logging in the Sierra Nevada Forest Plan had issues in Plumas County.

-- hike395 17:28, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

My atlas puts Freedonyer pass at 5748 ft., as opposed to the 5206 ft. you report. It also has Beckwourth pass at 5228 ft. If you have recent altitude measurements for both, it would be a big help. But a 500 foot difference is significant.

I also have a problem with using Route 70 as a border, though it's a geographical problem. Route 70 starts out following the north fork of the Feather river, but then jumps over to the middle fork. I'd think a consistent boundary should follow one stream bottom to a headwater. But the middle fork is too far south for most people to swallow.

[edit] I just noticed that this USFS page: [2] puts the northern edge at the "Susan River" which looks like it starts on the East slope of Lassen. No help there. Mackerm 22:27, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

For the elevation of the pass, I just lookup up the USGS map and read the elevation of the benchmark. That probably wasn't at the peak of the pass -- I'll use your elevation & drop the lat/long (feel free to add what your Atlas says). -- hike395 02:13, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Later --- let's not dismiss the Susan River too quickly. For a while, it flows along California State Route 44, draining McCoy Flat Reservoir and Hog Flat Reservoir. It looks like the USFS boundary goes SW from there, leaving the Susan River. This definition would include Pegleg Mountain and Fredonyer Butte as Sierra peaks.

On the other hand, I've driven around up there, and if you blindfolded me and took me either north or south of Route 44, then unblindfolded me, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. It's all open Ponderosa pine (?) forest, with very gentle topography.

As an alternative to all of this (perhaps artificial) exactitude, how about saying that the northern boundary is approximately at Susanville, California? -- hike395 02:26, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Another data point (probably wrong), USGS says it ends at Mount Lassen ([3]). But, they also say it ends at the California/Nevada border, which is clearly wrong --- the White Mountains are in California and are definitely not part of the Sierra Nevada (being in the Basin and Range Province.

Several references put the boundary at the North fork of the Feather River, which is better known than Susanville. I'd be satisfied with that, except the upper reaches of the North Fork are well to the west of the Pacific Crest. So Fredonyer pass looks like the place. (You can correct the spelling of "Fredonyer" in the links. :) ) I'll leave the definition as you've written it, but I might add something about other Sierra passes in the body of the article.

My atlas doesn't have exact latitude/longitude markings. Sorry. I'll see if I can extract anything from the USGS site Mackerm 05:12, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Discussion about the title of this article and its recent change can be found at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (acronyms)#Changing article titles from XXXXX (US) to XXXXX (United States). Feel free to contribute. -- hike395 16:28, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"The Sierras"

I always assumed that the name "The Sierras" was used in the sense of each mountain being "a Sierra", or as a shortened form of "The Sierra Mountains". It does violate the meaning of "Sierra" as a name for the entire range or region, but that's imprecise speech for you. --Yath 17:19, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I was wrong about the tautology. "The Sierras" just means "the mountains" which is what people who live near them are likely to call them. Just like, as you say, we who live near New York City are likely to call it "The City." What I was thinking of was "Sierra Mountains" which is redundant or what some call a tautology, because it says, in effect, "mountain mountains". Thank you for calling me on it. Shoaler 18:21, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If that is the case, then calling it "The Sierras" is entirely proper. And given the fact that the locals refer to them in that way the majority of the time, it deserves a more prominent place than "The Sierra". --Yath 20:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a local, and I always use "The Sierra" (FWIW). Back in 1947, Francis Farquhar (an authority on place names in the Sierra) wrote a short article in the Sierra Club Bulletin, explaining why "Sierras" is less correct that "Sierra". You can see the article here.

I would prefer "The Sierra" to come first --- read the article and see for yourself.

-- hike395 22:32, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a Local as well, and I always say "the Sierras." However, this is in full knowledge that the proper way of referring to my wonderful Mountains would be "The Sierra Nevada," with no pluralization; it is one range. Everyone I know refers to them as "the Sierras," so I guess it's a matter of whether we want to go by usage, or what has historically been "proper." Canæn 06:15, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Geology of the Tehachapi Mountains

I'm not sure this material is correct, and may very well belong in the article on the Tehachapis, so I've moved the material to here. If someone does verify it, we can clean it up and either put it back or move it to the Tehachapi article.

At some time in it's past, the Sierras actually extended from N California all the way to the what is now the Mexican border in an almost straignt and unbroken chain. However, the San Andreas fault turned east and transected this range near the latitude of present day Los Angeles before turning south again and continuing down into what is now the gulf of Mexico.

Over the eons, the fault broke the mountain chain and pulled what are now the Tehachapi mountains, which were immediately north of the fault, out of alignment, turning this subsection of the Sierras 90 degrees and pulling it westward. The high desert area to the immediate east of this point was stretched as well forming the great Mojave desert and helping to form what is now Death Valley and several other parallel rifts to the north east. Sections of the primordal Sierras that existed south of the fault transection line now make up large pieces of the San Gabriel mountains that ring the Los Angeles basin.

Map needed

This article needs a little map showing where the Sierra Nevada are. Mentioning that it is the "south of California" is far too little information for most people outside the U.S. 80.60.172.181 18:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Geology description probably wrong

By 65 million years ago, the proto-Sierra Nevada was worn down to a range of rolling low mountains, a few thousand feet high. About 25 million years ago, the Sierra Nevada started to rise and tilt to the west.

According to a study published in the July 7 edition of the journal Science, there is two competing views on how Sierra Nevada developed. One is that the mountains rose from sea level in the last 3 to 5 million years, which is very recent on a geologic time scale. The other group suggests a much more ancient origin going back 60 million years or so. According to the study, the evidence now strongly suggests the that Sierra Nevada has not changed much in the last 40 to 50 million years.

Trade between the tribes

Paiutes and Miwoks were actually enemies and did not trade until the late 1800s. If you hit Charles F. Hoffmann link titled "Notes of Hetch Hetchy Valley"[4] you can read that not all Paiutes and Miwoks were on friendly terms. They had several battles. Many times the Monos, who are related to the Paiutes, were go-betweens. The Paiutes traded with the Monos and the Monos traded with western slope tribes.