Lead Mountain | |
Elevation Ft: | 12546 |
Elevation Ref: | [1] |
Prominence Ft: | 465 |
Isolation Mi: | 0.98 |
Parent Peak: | Mount Cirrus (12,808 ft) |
Country: | United States |
State: | Colorado |
Region: | Grand County / Jackson County |
Region Type: | County |
Part Type: | Protected area |
Part: | Rocky Mountain National Park Never Summer Wilderness |
Range: | Rocky Mountains Never Summer Mountains |
Map: | Colorado#USA |
Label Position: | right |
Coordinates: | 40.4486°N -105.8971°W |
Coordinates Ref: | [2] |
Topo: | USGS Mount Richthofen |
Lead Mountain is a summit in Grand County, Colorado, in the United States.[2] With an elevation of, Lead Mountain is the 970th-highest summit in the state of Colorado.[1] Lead Mountain was named in 1879 on account of its lead deposits.[3]
Lead Mountain is situated on the Continental Divide along the boundary shared by Grand County and Jackson County. It is part of the Never Summer Mountains which are a subrange of the Rocky Mountains. The mountain is situated on the western boundary of Rocky Mountain National Park,[4] and the west side of the peak is in the Never Summer Wilderness, on land managed by Medicine Bow–Routt National Forest. Precipitation runoff from the mountain's west slope drains into tributaries of the Michigan River and the east slope drains into headwaters of the Colorado River. The counterintuitive direction of water flow is because the Continental Divide forms a loop in this area, whereby the peak's west slope runoff flows to the Atlantic Ocean and the east slope to the Pacific.
According to the Köppen climate classification system, the mountain is located in an alpine subarctic climate zone with cold, snowy winters, and cool to warm summers.[5] Due to its altitude, it receives precipitation all year, as snow in winter, and as thunderstorms in summer, with a dry period in late spring.