Portal:Mountains

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Introduction

Silvretta panorama from the Ochsenkopf

A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher than a hill, typically rising at least 300 metres (980 ft) above the surrounding land. A few mountains are isolated summits, but most occur in mountain ranges.

Mountains are formed through tectonic forces, erosion, or volcanism, which act on time scales of up to tens of millions of years. Once mountain building ceases, mountains are slowly leveled through the action of weathering, through slumping and other forms of mass wasting, as well as through erosion by rivers and glaciers.

High elevations on mountains produce colder climates than at sea level at similar latitude. These colder climates strongly affect the ecosystems of mountains: different elevations have different plants and animals. Because of the less hospitable terrain and climate, mountains tend to be used less for agriculture and more for resource extraction, such as mining and logging, along with recreation, such as mountain climbing and skiing.

The highest mountain on Earth is Mount Everest in the Himalayas of Asia, whose summit is 8,850 m (29,035 ft) above mean sea level. The highest known mountain on any planet in the Solar System is Olympus Mons on Mars at 21,171 m (69,459 ft). (Full article...)

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Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally, upland refers to a range of hills, typically from 300 m (980 ft) up to 600 m (2,000 ft), while highland is usually reserved for ranges of low mountains. However, the two terms are interchangeable and also include regions that are transitional between hilly and mountainous terrain. (Full article...)

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The Crease Range is a small, low mountain range in northern western British Columbia, Canada, located on north-central Graham Island of Haida Gwaii, between Lan and Adam Lakes. It has an area of 79 km² and consists of hills. It is a subrange of the Queen Charlotte Mountains which in turn form part of the Insular Mountains. (Full article...)

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A bornhardt ( /ˈbɔːrnˈhɑːrt/) is a dome-shaped, steep-sided, bald rock outcropping at least 30 metres (100 ft) in height and several hundred metres in width. They are named after Wilhelm Bornhardt (1864–1946), a German geologist and explorer of German East Africa, who first described the feature.

While bornhardt was originally used to sometimes denote a type of inselberg (literally island mountain—an isolated dome in an otherwise flat landscape), the term bornhardt is used in modern literature to refer to domed hills and mountains regardless of isolation; thus, not all bornhardts are inselbergs and not all inselbergs are bornhardts. Bornhardts are commonly composed of igneous rocks, often granites, but examples of gneiss, quartzite and arkose bornhardts exists. (Full article...)

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Selected climbing article

Supplementary oxygen

Expedition climbing (or expedition-style or pejoratively siege climbing), is a type of mountaineering that uses a series of well-stocked camps on the mountain that lead to the summit (e.g. Base Camp, Camp 1, Camp 2, etc.,), and which are supplied by teams of mountain porters. In addition, expedition climbing can also employ multiple 'climbing teams' to work on the climbing route—not all of whom are expected to make the summit—and allows the use of supports such as fixed ropes, aluminum ladders, supplementary oxygen, and sherpa climbers. By its nature, expedition climbing often requires weeks to complete a given climbing route, and months of pre-planning given the greater scale of people and equipment that need to be coordinated for the climb.

'Expedition style' climbing is in direct contrast to 'alpine style' climbing, which involves a single small fast-moving summit climbing team that carries all their supplies and equipment (e.g. no mountain porters or sherpas) and makes little use of support (e.g. no supplementary oxygen or fixed ropes). As a result of having less equipment and supplies, alpine-style teams need to complete their climbing route in days and it is thus considered a riskier form of mountaineering (e.g. if they get trapped in a storm, they have no supplies to wait for the storm to pass). Some argue that this risk is balanced by the fact that alpine-style teams spend less time on the mountain, thus reducing their exposure to other serious risks such as from avalanches and seracs. (Full article...)

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General images

The following are images from various mountain-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Climber approaching the summit of Manaslu at 8,163 metres (from Mountaineering)
Image 2The Ocean Ridge, the world's longest mountain range (chain) (from Mountain range)
Image 3Edelweiss, a plant associated with mountain sports (from Mountaineering)
Image 4Choppering out the injured – with Mt. Forbes in the background (from Mountain rescue)
Image 5Climbers ascending Mount Rainier looking at Little Tahoma Peak (from Mountaineering)
Image 6A subalpine lake in the Cascade Range, Washington, United States (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 7British mountaineer William Cecil Slingsby became known as the father of Norwegian mountaineering and contributed greatly to its popularization with his classic book Norway, the Northern Playground (from Mountaineering)
Image 8Winter campers bivouaced in the snow (from Mountaineering)
Image 9An alpine mire in the Swiss Alps (from Mountain)
Image 10This 1848 "Sketch showing the actual elevation of the Snow Line in different Latitudes" by Alexander Keith Johnston shows the snow lines of mountains in America, Europe and Asia (from Snow line)
Image 11Mountaineers climbing in South Tyrol (from Mountain)
Image 12Edward Whymper (1840–1911), painting by Lance Calkin (from Mountaineering)
Image 13Pirin Mountain, Bulgaria, part of the fault-block Rila-Rhodope massif (from Mountain)
Image 14Mountain rescue team members and other services attend to a casualty in Freiburg Germany. (from Mountain rescue)
Image 15The Namcha Barwa Himal, east part of the Himalayas as seen from space by Apollo 9 (from Mountain range)
Image 16Mount Everest, Earth's highest mountain (from Mountain)
Image 17The city of La Paz reaches up to 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) in elevation. (from Mountain)
Image 18Fuji volcano (from Mountain)
Image 19The Andes, the longest mountain range on the surface of the Earth, have a dramatic impact on the climate of South America (from Mountain range)
Image 20Illustration of mountains that developed on a fold that has been thrust (from Mountain)
Image 21Iranian oak scrub in the Zagros Mountains (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 22Mountaineers, c. 1900 (from Mountaineering)
Image 23Mountaineers proceed across snow fields on South Tyrol; other climbers are visible further up the slopes. (from Mountaineering)
Image 24Alpine flora near Cascade Pass (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 25Fixed lines and ladders are distinguishing characteristics of expedition style mountaineering (from Mountaineering)
Image 26Tropical montane forest at around 2,000 m in Malaysia (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 27Chimborazo, Ecuador, whose summit is the point farthest away from the Earth's center (from Mountain)
Image 28The Catskills in Upstate New York represent an eroded plateau. (from Mountain)
Image 29Everest is highest from sea level (green), Mauna Kea is highest from its base (orange), Cayambe is farthest from Earth's axis (pink) and Chimborazo is farthest from Earth's centre (blue) (from Mountain)
Image 30Temperate montane forest in Bavaria, Germany (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 31Alpine landscape below Malyovitsa Peak, Rila Mountain, Bulgaria (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 32Montes Apenninus on the Moon was formed by an impact event. (from Mountain range)
Image 33Stretcher box in Cumbria, England, prepositioned equipment saves mountain rescue teams having to trudge up mountains with it. (from Mountain rescue)
Image 34A stand of mountain birch at around 750 m in Trollheimen, typical of Scandinavian subalpine forests (from Montane ecosystems)
Image 35Car of Horská služba (Czech Republic) (from Mountain rescue)
Image 36The northern Urals at high latitude and elevation have an alpine climate and barren ground. (from Mountain)
Image 37Cabane du Trient, a mountain hut in the Swiss Alps (from Mountaineering)
Image 38A mountain rescue team in Iran moving a casualty. (from Mountain rescue)
Image 39Antique climbing tools (from Mountaineering)
Image 40Waimea Canyon, Hawaii, is known for its montane vegetation. (from Montane ecosystems)

Selected skiing article

A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area – a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In North America, it is more common for ski areas to exist well away from towns, so ski resorts usually are destination resorts, often purpose-built and self-contained, where skiing is the main activity. (Full article...)