Washington Mountains

The relief map of the state of Washington (located in the northwest corner of the contiguous United State) is dominated by the Cascade Mountain Range. (Maps are linked to their sources.) Running north-south about 100 to 200 miles from the ocean shore and deeply dissected by valleys carved by Pleistocene glaciers, especially on the west side of the range crest, it is bordered on the west by the Puget Sound lowlands and the lower Columbia River valley. West of Puget Sound lie the Olympic Mountains.

Prevailing winds transport abundant moisture from the nearby Pacific Ocean. The result is massive winter snowfall and an annual precipitation of 100 inches or more over large portions of the Cascade Mountain Range (dark cyan and purples). The precipitation map shows that the highest precipitation occurs on the western slopes and near the crest of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains.

It is fortunate for mountaineers, backpackers and hikers that nearly 47% of the land of Washington is owned by the public in one form or another. This does not include holdings by local governments and non-governmental organizations such as The Nature Conservancy. Washington has an extensive system of Wildernesses, National Parks, National Recreation Areas and State Parks that are managed by several governmental agencies, most notably the US Forest Service (USFS) and the National Parks Service (NPS). The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) with major holdings in neighboring Oregon has a minor role in Washington. These agencies have various (sometimes conflicting) mandates to manage the landscape for the public good and to protect wildlife habitat. Through their efforts and the vigilance of non-governmental watchdog groups such as the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defence Fund, large areas of Washington remain roadless and unexploited by logging, mining or other interests.

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Date created: 2002.03.13
Last modified: 2004.08.21
Copyright © 2002, Walter A. Siegmund

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Fjords and Sounds

In March, 2000, while touring New Zealand, our guidebook made the following distinction between sounds and fjords: A sound is a flooded river valley. A fjord is a flooded glacial valley. The guidebook said that Milford Sound is misnamed because it is a flooded glacial valley. Since then, I have been telling people that Puget Sound should be called Puget Fjord. Before saying it here, I did some checking and was unable to verify the New Zealand guidebook lore.

A web search (google) reveals 65 references to flooded river valleys and 429 references to drowned river valleys. Virtually all of these are bays (Chesapeake, Delaware, etc.) or river estuaries (Hudson). In the United States, Puget and Long Island Sounds are glacially modified estuaries.

The Dictionary of Geologic Terms concurs with the guidebook definition of fjord but gives no definition for sound. The River Book says that estuary is a drowned river valley in a coastal lowland area. A related term, ria, is a drowned river valley in an area of rolling coastal hills. Again, no definition is given for sound. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines sound as a long broad inlet of the ocean generally parallel to the coast

It appears to me that the usage of sound is consistent with the dictionary definition, rather than that of the New Zealand guidebooks. To refer to specific riverine features, terms such as estuary and ria that have well-defined meanings are to be preferred.