Raft River Mountains

1

The Raft River Mountains are a mountain range in northern Box Elder County, Utah, United States. The mountains are located in the Raft River Division of the Minidoka Ranger District of the Sawtooth National Forest. The highest point is Bull Mountain, near the Dunn Benchmark, at 9925 ft, and the ghost town of Yost is on the north-central slopes. Tributaries of the Raft River drain the northern slopes of the range to the Snake River then Columbia River and Pacific Ocean, while the southern slopes drain to the Great Salt Lake.

Geography

Located in the Sawtooth National Forest, the range's montane forest ecoregion is "surrounded by montane steppes and desert". The range is oriented in an east–west orientation, and is a portion of the Great Basin Divide and the Basin and Range Province between the Bonneville Basin of the Great Basin (south).

Geology

The central mass of the range consists of Precambrian metamorphic rocks. The Elba Quartzite with interlayered schist outcrops along the southern slopes of the range and in the Grouse Creek Mountains to the southwest. Cambrian quartzite outcrops in the west part of the range and in the Grouse Creek range and the Goose Creek Mountains to the west. The thinly bedded quartzites have been quarried for building stone in the area.

Flora and fauna

The range's plants and animals include pines and rodents of the Northern Basin & Range ecoregion of the Columbia Plateau.

Camping and activities

The range's Bull Flat trail leads to Bull Flat, Bull Lake, and Bull Mountain, and passes former mines (the trailhead is near a campground).

Peaks

This article is derived from Wikipedia and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. View the original article.

Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Bliptext is not affiliated with or endorsed by Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation.

Edit article