Rocky Mountains by Nop Briex

About "Rocky Mountains"

by Nop Briex

About the artwork

The Rocky Mountains, short for the Rockies and also called the Rockies, are a large high mountain range in western North America. The Rockies cover an area more than 3,000 miles long from New Mexico through the United States to the far north of British Columbia in Canada. The mountain range lies between the Great Plains on the east side and has a series of basins and lows on the west side. It forms the Continental Divide, the watershed between rivers that flow into the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans on the one hand and the Pacific Ocean on the other. Its highest peak is that of Mount Elbert in Colorado at 4401 meters above sea level.

The Rocky Mountains are part of what is called the North American Cordillera, a mountainous region west of the Great Plains that extends from Alaska into southern Mexico. The Rockies are the easternmost mountain range since the others such as the Sierra Nevada, the Cascade Range and the Pacific Coast Ranges are all more western.

The mountain range was formed 80 to 55 million years ago during the Laramide Orogeny. Erosion by water and glaciers has since transformed the area into deep valleys and steep peaks. At the end of the last ice age, the first people settled in the Rockies. Large sections of the mountain range are protected as national parks and forest areas. The Rocky Mountains are a popular vacation destination for hikers, campers, mountaineers, fishermen, hunters and skiers, among others.