Climate and Ecology
The Cascades Range is dramatically different in climate from west to east. While the west side is heavily forested and features species such as Douglas firs, western hemlock, Pacific silver firs, and Alaska yellow cedars, the eastern half is only forested at low elevations. East of the Cascades, where Yamsay lies, the climate becomes much drier, even arid. Precipitation levels significantly decline and vegetation becomes less, instead lodgepole pine, white fir, ponderosa pine, and juniper. To the south, chaparral vegetation such as beargrass and bitterbush prevails.
Diverse life exists within the range, including endangered species like Larch Mountain Salamanders and spotted owl. Amphibians like salamanders and frogs as well as birds are common. Mammals in the area consist of elk, mountain lions, deer, and black bears. Eastern Cascades fish include Lost River suckers and short sucker, which are both endemic species.
Read more about this topic: Yamsay Mountain
Famous quotes containing the words climate and/or ecology:
“The question of place and climate is most closely related to the question of nutrition. Nobody is free to live everywhere; and whoever has to solve great problems that challenge all his strength actually has a very restricted choice in this matter. The influence of climate on our metabolism, its retardation, its acceleration, goes so far that a mistaken choice of place and climate can not only estrange a man from his task but can actually keep it from him: he never gets to see it.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“... the fundamental principles of ecology govern our lives wherever we live, and ... we must wake up to this fact or be lost.”
—Karin Sheldon (b. c. 1945)