The Minarets are a series of jagged peaks located in the Ritter Range

Ritter Range

The Ritter Range is a small mountain range within California's Sierra Nevada. Most of the mountain range lies within the Ansel Adams Wilderness. The Range is easily viewed from Minaret Summit, which is accessible by auto. The Ritter Range is most easily accessible from Mammoth Lakes, where hiking...

, a sub-range of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the state of California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. They are easily viewed from Minaret Summit

Minaret Summit

Minaret Summit is a mountain pass on Highway 203 in the central Sierra Nevada. The pass, lying on the Madera-Mono County border, is within the Mammoth Ranger District of the Inyo National Forest and located near Devils Postpile National Monument, Mammoth Lakes, and Mammoth Mountain. The elevation...

, which is accessible by auto. The peaks bear a certain resemblance to the minaret

Minaret

A minaret مناره , sometimes مئذنه) is a distinctive architectural feature of Islamic mosques, generally a tall spire with an onion-shaped or conical crown, usually either free standing or taller than any associated support structure. The basic form of a minaret includes a base, shaft, and gallery....

s of Islamic mosque

Mosque

A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...

s. Collectively, they form an arête

Arete

Areté is the term meaning "virtue" or "excellence", from Greek ἈρετήArete may also be used:*as a given name of persons or things:**Queen Arete , a character in Homer's Odyssey.***197 Arete, an asteroid....

, and are a prominent feature in the Ansel Adams Wilderness

Ansel Adams Wilderness

The Ansel Adams Wilderness is a wilderness area in the Sierra Nevada of California, USA. The wilderness is part of the Sierra and Inyo National Forests. The wilderness spans...

 which was known as the Minaret Wilderness until it was renamed in honor of Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams

Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....

 in 1984.

The peaks were named in 1868 by the California Geographical Survey, which reported: "To the south of Mount Ritter

Mount Ritter

Mount Ritter is located in the Sierra Nevada, in Madera County of California, in the Western United States. It is in the Ansel Adams Wilderness of the Inyo and Sierra National Forests. Mount Ritter is the 16th highest mountain peak of California.-Geography:...

 are some grand pinnacles of granite, very lofty and apparently inaccessible, to which we gave the name of 'the Minarets.'"
Seventeen of the Minarets have been given unofficial names, including Michael Minaret, Adams Minaret, Leonard Minaret, and Clyde Minaret. Clyde Minaret, named after Norman Clyde

Norman Clyde

Norman Clyde was a mountaineer, mountain guide, freelance writer, nature photographer, and self trained naturalist. He is well-known for achieving over 130 first ascents, many in California's Sierra Nevada and Montana's Glacier National Park...

, is the tallest of the spires. The Southeast Face Route

Southeast Face (Clyde Minaret)

The Southeast Face of Clyde Minaret is a technical rock climbing route on Clyde Minaret near Mammoth Lakes, CA and is featured in Fifty Classic Climbs of North America.- External links :**...

 of Clyde Minaret is a technical rock climb

Rock climbing

Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...

 featured in Fifty Classic Climbs of North America

Fifty Classic Climbs of North America

Fifty Classic Climbs Of North America is a climbing guidebook and history written by Steve Roper and Allen Steck. It is considered a definitive piece of climbing literature, known to many climbers as simply "The Book", and has served as an inspiration for more recent climbing books, such as Mark...

.The area is notable for two fatalities:

• Walter A. Starr, Jr.
  Walter A. Starr, Jr.
  Walter A. "Pete" Starr, Jr. was an American lawyer and mountain climber.A graduate of Stanford University, Starr was a respected lawyer in San Francisco, but he is better known for his abilities as a mountain climber and an explorer of the Sierra Nevada.In August 1933, he failed to return from a...
  
  , author of Starr’s Guide to the John Muir Trail and the High Sierra Region, fell to his death while solo-climbing the northwest face of Michael Minaret in 1933.
• Steve Fossett
  Steve Fossett
  James Stephen Fossett was an American commodities trader, businessman, and adventurer. Fossett is the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon...
  
  , an American aviator and adventurer, died in a plane crash near the Minarets in 2007.