Wheeler Peak (New Mexico)
Wheeler Peak is, at 13,167 feet (4,013 m), the highest peak in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is located northeast of Taos in the northern part of the state, and just 2 miles southeast of the ski slopes of Taos Ski Valley. It lies in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains.
Formerly named Taos Peak, after the nearby town of Taos, New Mexico, it was renamed Wheeler Peak in 1950. A plaque at the summit states that the mountain was:
Named in honor of Major George Montague Wheeler (1842–1905) who for ten years led a party of surveyors and naturalists collecting geologic, biologic, planimetric and topographic data in New Mexico and six other southwestern states.
Read more about Wheeler Peak (New Mexico): Nearby Peaks and Features, Climbing
Famous quotes containing the words wheeler and/or peak:
“The wheel that squeaks the loudest
Is the one that gets the grease.”
—Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] (1818–1885)
“In the mountains, the shortest way is from peak to peak: but for that you must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks: and those to whom they are addressed, great and lofty.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)