Black Mountain (near Los Altos, California)

Black Mountain is a summit on Monte Bello Ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains of west Santa Clara County, California, south of Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, and west of Cupertino. It is located on the border between Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve and Monte Bello Open Space Preserve, with the summit located in the former. Early Spanish explorers commonly named tree- or chaparral-covered summits which look black in the distance Loma Prieta, from the Spanish (loma-hill, prieta-dark). The Spanish also called the middle portion of the Santa Cruz Mountains the Sierra Morena meaning (morena-brunette, sierra-mountain range), extending from Half Moon Bay Road (California State Route 92) south to a gap at Lexington Reservoir, and which includes a summit called Sierra Morena. There are over 100 "Black Mountains" in California.

History

After extensive logging operations in the nineteenth century, Italian farmers and winemakers settled on the flanks of Montebello Ridge. Dairies in the Santa Cruz Mountains supplied much of the milk for San Francisco and the Peninsula. There was a large dairy near what is now the Montebello Open Space Preserve's main parking area on Page Mill Road, and cattle freely grazed the slopes of Black Mountain. Ranch buildings dotted the landscape.

Montebello Islands

The Montebello Islands, also known as the Monte Bello Islands, are an archipelago of around 174 small islands (about 92 of which are named) lying 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of Barrow Island and 130 kilometres (81 mi) off the Pilbara coast of north-western Australia. Montebello is Italian for "beautiful mountain". The islands form a conservation park administered by the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation, and it is likely that the shallow waters around them will become a marine conservation reserve. The islands were the site of three nuclear weapons tests by the British military in the 1950s.

Description

The islands of the archipelago have a collective land area of about 22 km² The largest islands, Hermite (or Hermit) and Trimouille have areas of 1022 ha and 522 ha respectively. They consist of limestone rock and sand. The rocky parts are dominated by Triodia hummock grassland with scattered shrubs, while the sandy areas support grasses, sedges and shrubs, mainly Acacia. Patches of mangroves grow in sheltered bays and channels of the archipelago, especially at Hermite Island. The climate is hot and arid with an annual average rainfall of about 320 mm.

Monte Bello

Monte Bello, Italian for beautiful mountain, can refer to:

See also