Alaska Range

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Alaska Range is a 650-km-long (400 mi) mountain range in the southcentral region of the U.S. state of Alaska, from Iliamna Lake at its southwest end to White River in Canada in the southeast. The highest mountain in North America, Mount McKinley (Denali), is in the Alaska Range.

The range forms a generally east-west arc with its northernmost part in the center, and from there trending southwest towards the Alaska Peninsula and the Aleutians, and trending southeast into the Pacific Coast Ranges. The mountains act as a high barrier to the flow of moist air from the Gulf of Alaska northwards, and thus has some of the harshest weather in the world. The heavy snowfall also contributes to a number of large glaciers.

The range is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and the Denali fault that runs along the southern edge of the range is responsible for a number of earthquakes. However, there are no volcanoes in the range.

Part of the range is protected within Denali National Park and Preserve. The George Parks Highway from Anchorage to Fairbanks and the Richardson Highway from Valdez to Fairbanks pass through low parts of the range.

The name "Alaskan Range" appears to have been first applied to these mountains in 1869 by naturalist W. H. Dall. The name eventually became "Alaska Range" through local use. In 1849 Constantin Grewingk applied the name "T schigmit" to this mountain range. A map made by the General Land Office in 1869 calls the southwestern part of the Alaska Range the "Chigmit Mountains" and the northeastern part the "Beaver Mountains".