The Beartooth Mountains are located in south central

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

and northwest

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and are part of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, within

Custer George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars. Custer graduated from West Point in 1861 at the bottom of his class, b ...

, Gallatin and

Shoshone National Forest Shoshone National Forest ( ) is the first federally protected National Forest in the United States and covers nearly in the state of Wyoming. Originally a part of the Yellowstone Timberland Reserve, the forest is managed by the United States ...

s. The Beartooths are the location of Granite Peak, which at is the highest point in the state of Montana. The mountains are just northeast of

Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowst ...

and are part of the

Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) is one of the last remaining large, nearly intact ecosystems in the northern temperate zone of the Earth. It is located within the northern Rocky Mountains, in areas of northwestern Wyoming, southwestern M ...

. The mountains are traversed by road via the

Beartooth Highway The Beartooth Highway is an All-American Road in the western United States on a section of U.S. Route 212 in Montana and Wyoming between Red Lodge and the Northeast entrance of Yellowstone National Park. It crests at Beartooth Pass in Wyom ...

(U.S. 212) with the highest elevation at Beartooth Pass ). The name of the mountain range is attributed to a rugged peak found in the range, Beartooth Peak, that has the appearance of a bear's tooth. The Beartooth Mountains sit upon the larger Beartooth Plateau.

History

The remoteness of the region contributed to its obscurity until the 1870s. The

Crow tribe The Crow, whose autonym is Apsáalooke (), also spelled Absaroka, are Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana. Today, the Crow people have a federally recognized tribe, the Crow Tribe of Montana, with an Indian reservation locate ...

of Native Americans used the valleys of the mountains for hunting game animals and for winter shelter from the harsh winds of the plains. Though trappers entered the region in the 1830s, formal exploration by the U.S. Government did not occur until 1878. While gold had been discovered earlier in the mountain range, the major expansion of mining began in 1882. Expansion continued adding more infrastructure for the mines. As growth continued there were six companies that had stakes in the New World Mining District. Between 1900-1955 the district has produced over of gold, of silver, and amounts of copper, zinc, and lead ore. One of the main limiting factors was the remoteness. Over time many of the mines ceased operations due to lack of funds or collapses that were not financially viable to correct. In 1989 Crown Butte Mines proposed massive additions to operations in the area. Once they began preparations for starting new mining operations, they came under public scrutiny based on the proximity to

and public fears that waste would find its way into the park. In 1996 the federal government paid Crown Butte Mines $65 million to defray costs they had already paid; they had to pay $22.5 million to help repair the damage done to the surrounding environment. The Beartooth Mountains have been considered for inclusion in the national park system. In 1939, the director of the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

drafted a

presidential proclamation A presidential proclamation is a statement issued by a US president on an issue of public policy and is a type of presidential directive. Details A presidential proclamation is an instrument that: *states a condition, *declares a law and require ...

outlining the boundaries of a "Beartooth National Monument," but President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

never signed it. During the summer of 1960, The Wilderness Society organized an expedition into the Beartooths for Forest Service and National Park Service officials. Members of the expedition debated whether the mountains ought to be a wilderness area or a national park, but they reached no consensus and never made a formal proposal. Environmental advocates continued to push for the area's preservation in order to defend the northern borders of Yellowstone National Park from development. Finally, in 1975 the Beartooths were protected as part of the Absaroka–Beartooth Wilderness.

Ecology

The ecosystem of the Beartooth Mountains is one of the most unique in the Contiguous United States partly due to being part of the

. This space allows a great diversity with of nearly intact wilderness. With the protection to the terrestrial habitats all of the bodies of water are classified as Outstanding National Resource Waters, giving them the highest protections under the Clean Water Act. The cleanliness of the bodies of water led them to be used as a benchmark to compare others in the northern Rocky Mountains. Most of the current species are currently protected.

Fauna

The mountains are home to many of North America's largest animals, including one of the few grizzly bear populations in the contiguous United States. There are rare sightings of lynx and

wolverine The wolverine (), (''Gulo gulo''; ''Gulo'' is Latin for " glutton"), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscul ...

s and a population of cougars and recently reintroduced

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly un ...

. There are some of the largest herds of bison and elk in North America.

Flora

The Beartooth Mountains also have a very diverse range of trees, mostly conifers with stands of aspen and cottonwoods. The conifers mainly consist of

Engelmann spruce ''Picea engelmannii'', with the common names Engelmann spruce, white spruce, mountain spruce, and silver spruce, is a species of spruce native to western North America. It is mostly a high-altitude mountain tree but also appears in watered canyon ...

subalpine fir ''Abies lasiocarpa'', the subalpine fir or Rocky Mountain fir, is a western North American fir tree. Description ''Abies lasiocarpa'' is a medium-sized evergreen conifer with a very narrow conic crown, growing to tall, exceptionally , with a t ...

whitebark pine ''Pinus albicaulis'', known by the common names whitebark pine, white bark pine, white pine, pitch pine, scrub pine, and creeping pine, is a conifer tree native to the mountains of the western United States and Canada, specifically subalpine ...

, and

lodgepole pine ''Pinus contorta'', with the common names lodgepole pine and shore pine, and also known as twisted pine, and contorta pine, is a common tree in western North America. It is common near the ocean shore and in dry montane forests to the subalpin ...

below . Above there are few trees, the flora including grasses, wildflowers, and

sagebrush Sagebrush is the common name of several woody and herbaceous species of plants in the genus '' Artemisia''. The best known sagebrush is the shrub '' Artemisia tridentata''. Sagebrushes are native to the North American west. Following is an al ...

Geology

The Beartooth mountains are composed of Precambrian

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

and crystalline

metamorphic rock Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock ( protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, caus ...

s dated at approximately 2.7 to 4 billion years old, making these rocks among the oldest on Earth. The

Stillwater igneous complex The Stillwater igneous complex is a large Layered intrusion, layered mafic intrusion (LMI) located in southern Montana in Stillwater County, Montana, Stillwater, Sweet Grass County, Montana, Sweet Grass and Park County, Montana, Park Counties. ...

within the mountains is the location of the largest known deposits of

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Pla ...

and chromium and the second largest deposits of

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

found in the United States. Older ages (4-3.2 billion years) are found in

zircon Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of t ...

crystals in meta-sedimentary rocks. The most abundant rocks in the Beartooths (

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures a ...

, amphibolites and granites, as well as the Stillwater Complex) are 2.9-2.7 billion years old.

IUGS geological heritage site

In respect of their 'record of early crustal genesis and evolution', the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) included the 'Archean Rocks of the Eastern Beartooth Mountains' in its assemblage of 100 'geological heritage sites' around the world in a listing published in October 2022. The organisation defines an IUGS Geological Heritage Site as 'a key place with geological elements and/or processes of international scientific relevance, used as a reference, and/or with a substantial contribution to the development of geological sciences through history.'

Elevation and peaks

Huge expansive plateaus are found at altitudes in excess of with over 25 peaks exceeding . The mountains have over 300 pristine lakes and some waterfalls in excess of . Winters are severe with heavy snow and incessant winds. Approximately 25 small

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

s exist in the Beartooths with Grasshopper Glacier being one of the more distinctive. The highest peaks of the Beartooth Mountains are clustered in three groups, topped by Granite Peak, Mount Wood , and Castle Mountain . The cluster containing Mount Wood is named the Granite Range. The largest of these three contiguous areas above , which extends into Wyoming, is the one dominated by Castle Mountain.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Ranges of the Rocky Mountains Mountain ranges of Montana Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Landforms of Park County, Montana Landforms of Stillwater County, Montana Gallatin National Forest Shoshone National Forest Custer National Forest First 100 IUGS Geological Heritage Sites