Mount Sill is one of the fourteeners of the Sierra Nevada in California. It is located in the Palisades

Palisades (California Sierra)

The Palisades are a group of peaks in the central part of the Sierra Nevada in the US state of California. They are located about southwest of the town of Big Pine, California...

, a group of striking rock peaks with a few small glacier

Glacier

A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...

s on their flanks. Mount Sill is located 0.6 miles (1 km) east of North Palisade

North Palisade

North Palisade is the third highest mountain in the Sierra Nevada range of California. It is the highest peak of the Palisades group of peaks in the central part of the range. It sports a small glacier and several highly prized rock climbing routes on its northeast side.- History :North Palisade...

, the high point of the group. The two peaks are connected by a high, rocky ridge, on the north side of which lies the Palisade Glacier

Palisade Glaciers

The Palisade Glacier is a glacier located on the northeast side of the Palisades within the John Muir Wilderness in the central Sierra Nevada of California. The Palisade Glacier is the largest glacier in North America....

. Mount Sill lies on the main Sierra Crest

Sierra Crest

The Sierra Crest is a ~ generally north-to-south ridgeline that demarcates the broad west and narrow east slopes of the Sierra Nevada and that extends as far east as the Sierra's topographic front...

, but is at a point where the crest turns sharply, giving it particularly striking summit views. On one side is Kings Canyon National Park

Kings Canyon National Park

Kings Canyon National Park is a National Park in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of Fresno, California. The park was established in 1940 and covers...

 and Fresno County

Fresno County, California

Fresno County is a county located in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California, south of Stockton and north of Bakersfield. As of the 2010 census, it is the tenth most populous county in California with a population of 930,450, and the sixth largest in size with an area of . The county...

; on the other is the John Muir Wilderness

John Muir Wilderness

The John Muir Wilderness is a wilderness area that extends along the crest of the Sierra Nevada of California, USA for , in the Inyo and Sierra National Forests. Established in 1964 by the Wilderness Act and named for naturalist John Muir, it contains...

, Inyo National Forest

Inyo National Forest

Inyo National Forest is a federally administered forest in the United States. The forest covers parts of the eastern Sierra Nevada of California, and the White Mountains of California and Nevada. It contains two wilderness areas: the John Muir Wilderness and the Ansel Adams Wilderness...

 and Inyo County

Inyo County, California

-National protected areas:* Death Valley National Park * Inyo National Forest * Manzanar National Historic Site-Major highways:* U.S. Route 6* U.S. Route 395* State Route 127* State Route 136* State Route 168* State Route 178...

.

Routes on Mount Sill are found on all sides of the peak and range in difficulty from scrambles

Scrambling

Scrambling is a method of ascending rocky faces and ridges. It is an ambiguous term that lies somewhere between hillwalking and rock climbing. It is often distinguished from hillwalking by defining a scramble as a route where hands must be used in the ascent...

  to a moderately technical rock climbs

Rock climbing

Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...

 (class 5.7).

The mountain is called Nen-i-mish ("the Guardian of the Valley") by the indigenous Northern Paiute

Paiute

Paiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...

 people.
Its English name was coined, in 1904, by Joseph LeConte

Joseph Nisbet LeConte

Joseph Nisbet LeConte was a noted explorer of the Sierra Nevada. He was also a cartographer, a photographer and a professor of mechanical engineering. He often went by J. N. LeConte in photographs and articles...

, a noted mountaineer

Mountaineering

Mountaineering or mountain climbing is the sport, hobby or profession of hiking, skiing, and climbing mountains. While mountaineering began as attempts to reach the highest point of unclimbed mountains it has branched into specialisations that address different aspects of the mountain and consists...

, in honor of American poet Edward Rowland Sill

Edward Rowland Sill

Edward Rowland Sill , American poet and educator, was born in Windsor, Connecticut.He graduated from Yale in 1861, where he was Class Poet and a member of Skull and Bones. He engaged in business in California, and entered the Harvard Divinity School in 1867 but soon left it for a position on the...

.

See also

• List of California fourteeners
• Mountain peaks of California
  Mountain peaks of California
  This article comprises three sortable tables of major mountain peaks of the U.S. State of California.Topographic elevation is the vertical distance above the reference geoid, a precise mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface...
  
  
• Palisades of the Sierra Nevada

External links