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California Fourteeners

Split Mountain from Red Lake at Sunrise

Split Mountain from Red Lake at Sunrise

There are eleven Californian peaks with an elevation of 14000 feet or more and having at least 300 feet of prominence (rising 300 feet above any saddle connecting it to anything higher). Four additional peaks with elevations above 14000 feet have attracted significant climber interest. These fifteen peaks are generally considered by climbers to be the California Fourteeners. All but two are in the Sierra Nevada.

I first climbed in the Sierra Nevada in 1986 when I hiked up the Mount Whitney Trail. I returned to the Sierra Nevada several times alone and with different partners to climb other peaks and gradually accepted the challenge of climbing all of the California Fourteeners. Keith Garlinghouse joined me in this challenge in later years and provided essential encouragement for me to complete it.

"... Then it seemed to me that the Sierra should be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it, rejoicing in its glorious floods of light, the white beams of the morning streaming through the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls, it still seems above all others the Range of Light."

- John Muir

The Peaks

Peak Elevation
(feet)
Prominence
(feet)
Range Year
Mount Whitney 14498 10078 Sierra Nevada 1986
Mount Williamson 14373 1643 Sierra Nevada 1998
White Mountain Peak 14246 7196 White Mountains 1988
North Palisade 14242 2894 Sierra Nevada 1990
Starlight Peak 14200+ 80 Sierra Nevada 2007
Mount Shasta 14162 9762 Cascades 1986
Mount Sill 14153 353 Sierra Nevada 1990
Mount Russell 14088 1096 Sierra Nevada 1988
Polemonium Peak 14080+ 160 Sierra Nevada 2001
Split Mountain 14058 1525 Sierra Nevada 2007
Mount Langley 14026 1165 Sierra Nevada 2006
Mount Tyndall 14019 1092 Sierra Nevada 2006
Middle Palisade 14012 1085 Sierra Nevada 1988
Mount Muir 14012 298 Sierra Nevada 1988
Thunderbolt Peak 14003 203 Sierra Nevada 1990

California Fourteeners

climbed = Peaks climbed

Individual Story

View from the top: Keith Garlinghouse fulfills quest to summit the ‘14ers’

General Information

Peakbagger.com: Paul's California 14,000-foot Peaks

References

  1. Holmes, Don, Highpoints of the United States, Second Edition, University of Utah Press, 2000.
  2. Moynier, John and Claude Fiddler, Sierra Classics: 100 Best Climbs in the High Sierra, Chockstone Press, 1993.
  3. Porcella, Stephen F. and Cameron M. Burns, California's Fourteeners, Palisades Press, 1991.
  4. Porcella, Stephen F. and Cameron M. Burns, Climbing California's Fourteeners, The Mountaineers, 1998.
  5. Secor, R. J., The High Sierra: Peaks, Passes, and Trails, The Mountaineers, 1992.

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