Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Sierra Nevada and Cascades boundary

This summer I had the wonderfull opportunity of driving to Oregon and Washington for a family vacation. One of the highlights was climbing a cascade peak. It was Mt. Bachelor. Who could imagine eight and a half feet of snow pack at 7400' in June. The drive up was awesome. I was dumbfounded by the size of Shasta. We could see it from I5 when we were about 120 miles away from it. During the drive I wondered where the Sierra Nevada ends and the Cascades begin. The two mountain ranges are very different from one another. Does anyone know what is the boundary to these two great ranges?

Rafael...

I think the consensus among geologists for the Sierra Nevada-Cascade Range boundary is FREDONYER PASS, at latitude 40.35878 degrees north and longitude 120.86757 degrees west. The pass is 296 straight-line miles from Mount Whitney.

It's one of my favorite peaks, Rafael, and visible from mid-Oregon as well. I believe it's visible from about Medford and am reasonably certain the top 1K' or so is visible from Crater Lake. While Rainier is taller, I recall reading somewhere that in terms of volume, Shasta is larger.

If you're interested a closer look at it, I posted photos and a TR on Webshots from a trip in 2006. The link is here.

Yes, Mt Shasta can be seen from the top of Mt Bachelor. I think we decided it was the bump just to the left of the seam in the pano. When I was taking this picture back in the early 90's, it was very clear with the naked eye which one was Sahsta.

Gary

Logan is the largest mountain in the world. I seem to remember that Rainer was 5th largest just behind Mt Blanc.

But Shasta seemed like a lot longer hike to the top than it should have taken.

Great pics and TR KevinR.I love reading others adventures.

Thanks, Doc.

Steve - I poked around the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory here and Rainier and Shasta are classified as stratovolcanos. Shasta has a larger volume, followed by Adams and then Rainier.

I was surprised by the size of Adams. I know it "feels" big when you're on it, but not as large as either Shasta nor Rainier.