42 The American Geologist. July> 1903 - 
THE HANGING VALLEYS OF GEORGETOWN, 
COLORADO.* 
By \V. O. Crosby. 
PLATES XI-XIII. 
Georgetown is situated in the valley of Clear creek, a trib- 
utary of the South Platte draining the eastern slope of the 
Main Range in the latitude of Gray's Peak, in the county «of 
Clear creek, fifty miles by both creek and railroad from Den- 
ver, and at an altitude of 8,500 feet. The town lies at the 
northern foot of Leavenworth mountain (Figure 1) which, 
continued above timber line in McClellan mountain, divides the 
main stream from the important tributary known as Leaven- 
worth creek. Below Leavenworth mountain the trend of the 
valley is northward for about two miles, between the long, 
straight ridge of Griffith and Saxon mountains on the east and 
the slightly divided Republican. Democrat, and Columbian 
mountains on the west, to the foot of Empire pass, where Col- 
umbia mountain is connected with Douglas mountain by a low, 
sharp ridge. At this point a long detrital cone, heading in a 
prominent gulch on Saxon mountain, obstructs the drainage 
across the entire breadth of the valley. Below this obstruction 
the bottom of the valley is narrow, with little or no level land, 
and the stream falls rapidly as it winds around the base of one 
detrital cone after another; but above it, to the upper end of 
Georgetown and the base of Leavenworth, the valley floor is 
approximately level for a breadth of 1,000 to nearly 2,000 feet, 
suggesting the silted-up bed of a temporary lake, above which 
the mountains rise abruptly 3,000 to 4,500 feet. Up stream the 
north-south course of this part of the valley is continued in the 
valley of Leavenworth creek, between Independence mountain 
on the east and Leavenworth mountain on the west, as far as 
the beautiful morainal lakelets known as Green lake (2^2 
miles) and Clear lake (3 miles) and beyond; while Clear creek, 
above Georgetown, swings in a graceful curve to its normal 
westerly course before reaching Silver Plume (2 l /> miles) and 
holds this course to its source in the Snowy Range. 
The interest of this paper centers in the relations of these 
two valleys to that part of the main valley immediately below 
* Reprinted from Technology Quarterly, vol. xvi, No. 1, March, 1903. 
