Cardinal Peak is the highest peak of the Chelan Mountains

Chelan Mountains

The Chelan Mountains, or Chelan Range is a mountain range in the U.S. state of Washington. Located west of the Columbia River, north of the Entiat River, and south of the Lake Chelan, the range is part of the North Cascades section of the Cascade Range...

, a subrange of the Cascade Range

Cascade Range

The Cascade Range is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, and the notable volcanoes known as the High Cascades...

 in the U.S. state

U.S. state

A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

 of Washington. It is located in Wenatchee National Forest

Wenatchee National Forest

Wenatchee National Forest is a U.S. National Forest located in Washington. With an area of 1,735,394 acres , it extends about 137 miles along the eastern slopes of the Cascade Range of Washington, USA from Okanogan National Forest to Gifford Pinchot National Forest...

 at the head of the Entiat River

Entiat River

The Entiat River is a tributary of the Columbia River, joining the Columbia near Entiat. The USGS lists two variant names for the Entiat River: En-ti-at-kwa River and Entiatqua River. En-ti-at-kwa is noted as being the original "Indian name", meaning "rapid water"...

 drainage basin

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

, in Chelan County. To the west and north, streams flow into Lake Chelan

Lake Chelan

Lake Chelan is a narrow, 55-mile-long lake in Chelan County, northern Washington state, U.S. It is the largest natural lake in Washington state...

. Cardinal Peak is less than 5 miles (8 km) from the lake and rising more than 7500 feet (2,286 m) above the lakeshore. At 8590 feet (2,618.2 m) high, it is the 49th highest peak in Washington. Its 2070 feet (630.9 m) prominence ranks 132nd in the state.

The rocks of Cardinal Peak are mainly granodiorite

Granodiorite

Granodiorite is an intrusive igneous rock similar to granite, but containing more plagioclase than orthoclase-type feldspar. Officially, it is defined as a phaneritic igneous rock with greater than 20% quartz by volume where at least 65% of the feldspar is plagioclase. It usually contains abundant...

 and hornblende

Hornblende

Hornblende is a complex inosilicate series of minerals .It is not a recognized mineral in its own right, but the name is used as a general or field term, to refer to a dark amphibole....

 quartz

Quartz

Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...

 diorite

Diorite

Diorite is a grey to dark grey intermediate intrusive igneous rock composed principally of plagioclase feldspar , biotite, hornblende, and/or pyroxene. It may contain small amounts of quartz, microcline and olivine. Zircon, apatite, sphene, magnetite, ilmenite and sulfides occur as accessory...

, minerals of the Cardinal Peak pluton

Pluton

A pluton in geology is a body of intrusive igneous rock that crystallized from magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Plutons include batholiths, dikes, sills, laccoliths, lopoliths, and other igneous bodies...

.

History

Cardinal Peak was named by Albert H. Sylvester because it is the highest peak in the region.