Wheeler Peak, Mountain summit in Great Basin National Park, White Pine County, United States
Wheeler Peak is a mountain summit in Great Basin National Park, reaching 3,982 meters and ranking as Nevada's second-highest peak. Its upper slopes are bare grey and brown rock, with a faint pale patch near the top, and its summit rises as a long, uneven ridge of connected rocky peaks. The mountain has a headwall above a large glacial cirque, large moraines and an active rock glacier.
In 1854–1855 Lieutenant Colonel Edward Steptoe named the peak for Jefferson Davis, then US Secretary of War. In 1869 the Wheeler Survey proposed honoring George Wheeler, its leader; the name was later applied to the main summit. The neighboring peak, formerly Jeff Davis Peak, was renamed Doso Doyabi, Shoshone for White Mountain, in 2019.
The mountain environment supports diverse plant communities, including ancient bristlecone pine trees that rank among the oldest living organisms on Earth.
The Wheeler Peak Summit Trail starts near the end of Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive and runs directly to the summit as a class 1 hike. Afternoon storms are likely in summer. A paved road from the Great Basin National Park visitor center reaches several small camping areas, the highest more than halfway up the mountain.
The rock glacier on Wheeler Peak is not ice but a slow-moving mass of frozen debris on the mountain's slopes. Nearby stands Doso Doyabi, about a mile east at 12,775 feet, renamed in 2019 from Jeff Davis Peak; in Shoshone the name means White Mountain.
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