The Gore Range (elevation approximately 12,000 ft) is a mountain range in the Rocky Mountains of north central Colorado in the United States. The native Ute name was the Shining Mountains.

The topography of the range is predominantly the result of glacial erosion and deposition during the Pleistocene epoch, forming numerous U-shaped valleys and cirques separated by jagged, sharp ridges aka arêtes. The range has been described as more one of ridges instead of separated peaks, with summits at ridge junctions and high points. Many of the summits have a similar elevation of around 13,000 feet (4000 meters).

History

The range was named for Sir St George Gore, 8th Baronet, an Irish hunter who visited the area in the 1850s on a notorious hunting expedition throughout the American West. Gore's three-year stopover in the American West had him traversing what is today the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. The figures are difficult to substantiate, but Gore himself claimed to have killed more than 2,000 buffalo, 1,600 elk and deer and 100 bears for sport, with the carcasses being left to rot.

Green Mountain Reservoir Trail

Green Mountain Reservoir Trail is in the northern Gore Range, part of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. state of Colorado. It is located among the developed campgrounds along the shore of Green Mountain Reservoir, Summit County. Green Mountain Reservoir is north of Interstate 70, west of Highway 9, north of Silverthorne and near Heeney. Green Mountain projects skyward at the north end of Green Mountain Reservoir, with an escarpment that may interest rock climbers and abandoned mines that place the area in historical context. Below the peak, the surrounding hills are high desert, covered in sagebrush. Among the sagebrush, many wildflowers bloom. Green Mountain Trail winds through sagebrush fields among the campsites on the eastern shore of Green Mountain Reservoir. Wildflowers that may be found in late spring include buttercup, mountain ball cactus, moss campion, Wyoming paintbrush Castilleja and alpine phlox. Greatest Hikes in Central Colorado: Summit and Eagle Counties, a hiking guide by Kim Fenske, provides a description of Green Mountain Reservoir Trail.

See also

References

  • Photographs of the Gore Range