The Alpine Northwest plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
Alpine Northwest’s center stands about 5,630 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 5,550 ft to 8,780 ft, a difference of 3,230 ft: mountain country. The highest named summit within 15 miles is Stewart Peak, about 10,050 ft, 10 miles southeast.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Alluvium and Colluvium (clay, silt, sand), from the Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old.
The section below crosses 11 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 5×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Sandstone, shale. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 7 mi of the line.
Sandstone, siltstone. Age: Early Triassic to Jurassic, 145 to 252 million years old. About 5 mi of the line.
Clay, silt, sand. Age: Pleistocene to Holocene, less than 2.6 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Mixed-clastic, volcanic. Age: Early Miocene to Pleistocene, 2 to 16 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Dolostone, limestone. Age: Middle Cambrian to Late Ordovician, 445 to 521 million years old. About 2 mi of the line.
Siltstone, sandstone, limestone. Age: Middle Jurassic to Late Jurassic, 145 to 175 million years old. About 1 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale. 5 smaller units along the line are not listed.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Alpine Northwest reaches the Pacific Ocean by way of Palisades Reservoir, the Snake and the Columbia: about 1,230 river miles.
Lakes on the way: American Falls Reservoir, Palisades Reservoir, Lake Umatilla and Brownlee Reservoir.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Alpine Northwest; river miles along the main stem, rounded.