Nearby Peaks and Features
Just north of Wheeler Peak is Mount Walter. At 13,141 feet (4,005 m) it is the second highest named summit in New Mexico, but it is not usually considered an independent peak as it has only about 80 feet (24 m) of topographic prominence. It is sometimes mistaken for Wheeler Peak, since it is along the standard route to Wheeler. Lake Fork Peak at 12,881 feet (3,926 m) lies just across Williams Lake and to the west of Wheeler Mountain.
The Taos Ski Valley lies to the northwest of Wheeler Peak, while both the town of Taos and Taos Pueblo are about 15 miles (24 km) to the southwest.
Wheeler Peak is the focus of the 19,661-acre (79.57 km2) Wheeler Peak Wilderness area in the Carson National Forest. Much of the mountain area just south of the peak is on Taos Pueblo land. Some 48,000 acres (190 km2) was returned to the pueblo from the Carson National Forest in 1970 and another 764 acres (3.09 km2) in 1996.
Read more about this topic: Wheeler Peak (New Mexico)
Famous quotes containing the words nearby, peaks and/or features:
“... runs off
three-leggèd, scared,
but tarries nearby and will
return. A friend.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“The stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting things which matter for a nation—the great peaks we had forgotten, of Honour, Duty, Patriotism, and, clad in glittering white, the great pinnacle of Sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to Heaven.”
—David Lloyd George (1863–1945)
“The features of our face are hardly more than gestures which force of habit made permanent. Nature, like the destruction of Pompeii, like the metamorphosis of a nymph into a tree, has arrested us in an accustomed movement.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)