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California Fourteeners

There are eleven Californian peaks with an elevation of 14000 feet or more and having at least 300 feet of prominence (rising 300 feet above any saddle connecting it to anything higher). Four additional peaks with elevations above 14000 feet have attracted significant climber interest. These fifteen peaks are generally considered by climbers to be the California Fourteeners. All but two are in the Sierra Nevada.

I first climbed in the Sierra Nevada in 1986 when I hiked up the Mount Whitney Trail. I returned to the Sierra Nevada several times alone and with different partners to climb other peaks and gradually accepted the challenge of climbing all of the California Fourteeners. Keith Garlinghouse joined me in this challenge in later years and provided essential encouragement for me to complete it.

"... Then it seemed to me that the Sierra should be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it, rejoicing in its glorious floods of light, the white beams of the morning streaming through the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls, it still seems above all others the Range of Light."

- John Muir

The Peaks

Peak	Elevation (feet)	Prominence (feet)	Range	Year
Mount Whitney	14498	10078	Sierra Nevada	1986
Mount Williamson	14373	1643	Sierra Nevada	1998
White Mountain Peak	14246	7196	White Mountains	1988
North Palisade	14242	2894	Sierra Nevada	1990
Starlight Peak	14200+	80	Sierra Nevada	2007
Mount Shasta	14162	9762	Cascades	1986
Mount Sill	14153	353	Sierra Nevada	1990
Mount Russell	14088	1096	Sierra Nevada	1988
Polemonium Peak	14080+	160	Sierra Nevada	2001
Split Mountain	14058	1525	Sierra Nevada	2007
Mount Langley	14026	1165	Sierra Nevada	2006
Mount Tyndall	14019	1092	Sierra Nevada	2006
Middle Palisade	14012	1085	Sierra Nevada	1988
Mount Muir	14012	298	Sierra Nevada	1988
Thunderbolt Peak	14003	203	Sierra Nevada	1990

California Fourteeners

Individual Story

View from the top: Keith Garlinghouse fulfills quest to summit the ‘14ers’

General Information

Peakbagger.com: Paul's California 14,000-foot Peaks

References

1. Holmes, Don, Highpoints of the United States, Second Edition, University of Utah Press, 2000.
2. Moynier, John and Claude Fiddler, Sierra Classics: 100 Best Climbs in the High Sierra, Chockstone Press, 1993.
3. Porcella, Stephen F. and Cameron M. Burns, California's Fourteeners, Palisades Press, 1991.
4. Porcella, Stephen F. and Cameron M. Burns, Climbing California's Fourteeners, The Mountaineers, 1998.
5. Secor, R. J., The High Sierra: Peaks, Passes, and Trails, The Mountaineers, 1992.