Anthracite Range


The Anthracite Range is a mountain range in the West Elk Mountains, a sub-range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The range is located in Gunnison County of western Colorado and lies within the West Elk Wilderness of the Gunnison National Forest. The Anthracite Range is one of several prominent laccoliths found in the West Elk Mountains.

Geology

The Anthracite Range is a laccolith, formed when magma intruded into sedimentary strata of the Mesaverde Formation approximately 30 million years ago. Subsequent erosion has removed the softer, overlying sedimentary rock thereby exposing the more resistant igneous rock that characterizes the mountain today. The range is composed of quartz monzonite porphyry and granodiorite porphyry. The Anthracite Range was glaciated, and the most prominent glacial cirques are located on the north and east sides of the range.
The range is named after anthracite, a high-quality, metamorphized coal found in the sedimentary rock of the Mesaverde Formation at the base of this and nearby laccoliths.

Summits

The Anthracite Range is an east-west oriented ridge less than in length, but there are several summits of interest to mountaineers and peakbaggers. From west to east, these summits include: the Anthracite Range High Point ; Unnamed Peak 12,300 ; Ohio Peak ; and Unnamed Peak 11,555. These summits are most often accessed from Ohio Pass where a climber's trail enters the wilderness area, traverses southwest across talus slopes then up through a cirque to the ridge just west of Unnamed Peak 11,555. From there, the summits are reached by hiking along the ridge.