Cordillera del Paine

The Cordillera del Paine is a small but spectacular mountain group in Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia. It is located 280 km (170 mi) north of Punta Arenas, and about 1,960 km south of the Chilean capital Santiago. It belongs to the Commune of Torres del Paine in Última Esperanza Province of Magallanes y Antártica Chilena Region. No accurate surveys have been published, and published elevations have been claimed to be seriously inflated, so the elevations given on this page...

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Monte Fitz Roy

Monte Fitz Roy (also known as Cerro Chaltén, Cerro Fitz Roy, or simply Mount Fitz Roy) is a mountain located near El Chaltén village, in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in Patagonia, on the border between Argentina and Chile. First climbed in 1952 by French alpinists Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone, it remains among the most technically challenging mountains on Earth for mountaineers. Monte Fitz Roy is the basis for the Patagonia clothing logo following Yvon Chouinard's ascent and subsequent film...

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Cerro Torre

Cerro Torre is one of the mountains of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in South America. It is located in a region which is disputed between Argentina and Chile, west of Cerro Chalten (also known as Fitz Roy). The peak is the highest in a four mountain chain: the other peaks are Torre Egger (2,685 m), Punta Herron, and Cerro Stanhardt. The top of the mountain often has a mushroom of rime ice, formed by the constant strong winds, increasing the difficulty of reaching the actual summit.First ascentCesare...

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Sugarloaf Mountain (Brazil)

Sugarloaf Mountain, is a peak situated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at the mouth of Guanabara Bay on a peninsula that sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean. Rising 396 metres (1,299 ft) above the harbor, its name is said to refer to its resemblance to the traditional shape of concentrated refined loaf sugar.   Overview  The mountain is only one of several monolithic morros of granite and quartz that rise straight from the water's edge around Rio de Janeiro. A glass-paneled cable car...

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Pedra Azul

Pedra Azul (Portuguese for "blue stone") is a Brazilian city in the state of Minas Gerais, located in the northeast of the state, in the Jequitinhonha River valley region. The population in 2007 was 24,851 in a total area of 1,619 km². The city belongs to the mesoregion of Jequitinhonha and to the microregion of Pedra Azul. The elevation of the municipal seat is 617 meters. It became a municipality in 1911. This municipality is located 16 km. to the east of the important BR-116...

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Gocta Cataracts a perennial waterfall with two drops

Gocta is a perennial waterfall with two drops located in Peru's province of Chachapoyas in Amazonas, approximately 700 kilometres (430 mi) to the northeast of Lima. It flows into the Cocahuayco River. Although the waterfall had been well known to locals for centuries (it is in full view of a nearby village), its existence was not made known to the world until after an expedition made in 2005 by a German, Stefan Ziemendorff, with a group of Peruvian explorers.At the time of the discovery Ziemendorff...

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Auyantepui location of Angel Falls

Auyantepui (Auyantepuy, Auyan-Tepui or Aiyan-Tepui), which in the language of the native Pemon people means "Devil's Mountain". It is visited on average three times a year. Despite this, it is one of the most famous tepuis (table-top mountains) in Venezuela. It is one of the largest (but not the highest) tepuis with an area of 700 km2 (270 sq mi) in the Guayana Highlands and is located in the Gran Sabana region in Bolivar State. Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world, drops from a cleft...

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Royal Gorge Cliff

The Royal Gorge (also Grand Canyon of the Arkansas) is a canyon on the Arkansas River near Cañon City, Colorado. With a width of 50 feet (15 m) at its base and a few hundred feet at its top, and a depth of 1,250 feet (380 m) in places, the 10-mile-long canyon is a narrow, steep gorge through the granite of Fremont Peak. It is one of the deepest canyons in Colorado. Natural history The path of the Arkansas River was already set when the granite uplift that would eventually form the Rocky Mountains...

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Longs Peak Diamond, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Longs Peak is one of the 53 mountains with summits over 14,000 feet in Colorado. It can be prominently seen from Longmont, Colorado, as well as from the rest of the Colorado Front Range. It is named after Major Stephen Long, who explored the area in the 1820s. Longs Peak is one of the most prominent mountains in Colorado, rising 7,000 feet above the town of Estes Park, Colorado to the northeast. Together with the nearby Mount Meeker, the two are sometimes referred to as the Twin Peaks (not to be...

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Recreation of Galcier National Park

Glacier is distant from major cities, and the closest airport is at Kalispell, Montana, southwest of the park. Amtrak trains stop at East and West Glacier. A fleet of restored 1930s White Motor Company coaches, called Red jammers, offer tours on all the main roads in the park. The drivers of the buses are called "Jammers," due to the gear-jamming that formerly occurred during the vehicles' operation. The tour buses were rebuilt in 2001. The buses were rebuilt by Ford Motor Company. The bodies were...

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Wildlife and ecology of Glacier National Park

Flora Glacier is part of a large preserved ecosystem collectively known as the "Crown of the Continent Ecosystem", all of which is primarily untouched wilderness of a pristine quality. Virtually all the plants and animals which existed at the time European explorers first entered the region are present in the park today. A total of over 1,132 plant species have been identified parkwide. The predominantly coniferous forest is home to various species of trees such as the Engelmann spruce, Douglas...

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Geography and geology Glacier National Park

The park is bordered on the north by Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, and the Flathead Provincial Forest and Akamina-Kishinena Provincial Park in British Columbia. To the west, the north fork of the Flathead River forms the western boundary, while its middle fork is part of the southern boundary. The Blackfeet Indian Reservation provides most of the eastern boundary, and the Lewis and Clark and the Flathead National Forests form the southern and western boundary. The remote Bob Marshall...

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Park management of Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park is managed by the National Park Service; park headquarters is in West Glacier, Montana. Visitation to Glacier National Park averages slightly less than 2 million visitors annually, however a relative few venture far from main roadways and hotels. Glacier National Park had an operating budget of $13,190,000 for fiscal year 2008. The 2008 budget was an increase over 2007 and was used to increase employee staffing levels, but monies for maintenance projects and road work was not...

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