Oregon Coast Range
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Saddle Mountain at Astoria in the Northern Oregon Coast Range
The Oregon Coast Range is a nearly 500 -mile mountain range in the U.S. state of Oregon, which is part of the series of mountain ranges along the North American Pacific coast.
Geography
The mountain consists of an irregular, up to 1249 meters high mountain chain, mainly to the west has some foothills. The Coast Range is divided into reaching from the Columbia River to the Salmon River Northern, in the reaching from Salmon to Umpqua River in the Central and reaching the Umpqua Coquille River to the Southern Coast Range. The border to the northern Willapa Hills in Washington is the Columbia River in the east about two-thirds are limited by the Willamette Valley, while the southern part is excreted in the Klamath Mountains and the Cascade Range. Numerous rivers such as the Nehalem, Alsea, Siletz, Siuslaw, Umpqua, and Coquille River originate in the Coast Range and empty into the Pacific Ocean.
Geology
The mountain range was created by plate tectonic forces. This 50 million years, a number of volcanic islands collided with the North American plate and the mountains auffalteten emerged. The now heavily eroded volcanoes form many of the projections and capes along the coast such as at Cape Lookout.
Climate
Due to its proximity to the Pacific prevails in the Coast Range a maritime climate. The average temperatures are moderate, ranging from 5 ° C in January to 14 ° C in July, the temperatures decrease at higher altitudes. The western winds bring moist air masses forth from the sea, the rain down as orographic rainfall on the west side of the Coast Range. The higher the frequency is, the higher the rainfall. The annual rainfall range of up to 3000 mm on the western side up to 1500 mm in the rain shadow to the east, where the summers are relatively dry. Precipitation falls mostly as rain, solid snow is rare.
Flora
For the original vegetation includes forests of Sikta - fir, western hemlock and Douglas- American. The forests exist today but almost entirely of secondary forest, as the original virgin forest has been cut down. Forest remnants found, inter alia, to in the Northern Coast Range in Ecola, Oswald West and Cape Lookout State Park and the three 90 -acre Wilderness Areas of the Siuslaw National Forest, are among the major parts of the densely forested Coast Range.
The highest peaks
- Marys Peak ( 1249m )
- Rogers Peak ( 1130 m )
- Grass Mountain ( 1098 m)
- Laurel Mountain ( 1094 m)
- Bone Mountain ( 1079 m)
- South Saddle Mountain ( 1056 m)
- Larch Mountain ( 1052 m)