The Sierra Nevada Range 161 



highest of all, 14,501 feet. The vicinity of Mount Whitney is 

 the culminating part of the range. To the south of Mount 

 Whitney altitudes of the highest peaks decline to 12,000, 9,000, 

 and 6,000 feet. Cache Peak, north of Tehachapi Pass, is 6,705 

 feet. 



East and West Slopes Compared 



The east front of the Sierra Nevada Range is among the 

 greatest mountain escarpments in the world. It is less impos- 

 ing toward the north where it is broken by minor ridges. 

 East of Yosemite National Park it has a height of 6,000 feet 



Photo by Adolph Knopf, U. S. Geol. Survey 

 FIG. 5 1 . Summit region of the Sierra Nevada, west of Mount Whitney. 



above the basin of Mono Lake. Farther south, west of Bishop 

 and Big Pine, it stands abruptly at 10,000 feet, and east of 

 Mount Whitney and west of Owens Lake, at the culminating 

 part of the range, it is nearly 11,000 feet, or about two miles, 

 above the plain of Owens Valley. The east slope of the Sierra 

 Range is an abrupt wall extending for 300 miles from Honey 

 Lake, in Lassen County, to Owens Valley, in Inyo County. 

 The fault wall that thus marks the eastern front of the range 

 is a great continuous fault by which the country to the east 

 the Great Basin of Nevada and Utah has been dropped or 



