The Mountains

What to include on your Montana map: All counties & county seats; all 7 reservations

Rivers: Clark Fork, Kootenai, Marias, Milk, Musselshell, Missouri, Yellowstone, Bighorn, Tongue, Powder, Jefferson, Madison, Gallatin, Sun; also Flathead Lake and Ft. Peck Reservoir

Yellowstone & Glacier National Parks

Mountains: Bitterroots, Bear’s Paw, Rockies, Continental Divide, Bighorns

The Bitterroot Range

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The Bitterroot RangeSeparates Montana from Idaho

3,000 to 10,000 feet in elevation

A member of the Lewis & Clark expedition called the Bitterroots “the most terrible mountains I ever beheld.”

Trapper Peak is the highest point

Contains the Lolo National Forest

Threatened by logging & motorized recreation

The Bitterroot Range

The Bear’s Paw Mountains

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The Bear’s Paw

Mountains

The Bear’s Paw MountainsSouth of

Havre

Locally known as “The Bear Paws”

"From where the sun

now stands, I will fight

no more, forever."

~Chief Joseph, Nez

Perce

Bear’s Paw Mountains: Sawtooth

Mountain

The Bighorn Mountains

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The Bear’s Paw

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The Bighorn MountainsOfficially part of the Rocky

Mountains

After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Sioux Indians withdrew into the Bighorn Mountains, fragmenting tribes.

The

Bighorn

Mountains

Another view of the Bighorn Mountains

The Rocky Mountains

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The Bear’s Paw

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The Rocky MountainsA series of parallel ranges

Montana’s Rockies are called “The Northern Rocky Mountains”

The Rocky Mountains

Another view of Montana’s Rocky Mountains

Haystack Butte Near Augusta and the Rocky Mountain Front, this

butte is about an hour’s drive from Great Falls.

The Mission Mountains, part of the Montana Rockies, as seen from the National Bison Range

near Missoula

The National Bison Range

Mountaineer Peak in the Mission Mountains Note the glacier in the center of the photo – it has

shrunk to a fraction of its former size.

The Beartooth Mountains, near Red Lodge in southern Montana, are the highest mountains in the state. The jagged peak in the center is called “the Bear’s Tooth.”

Granite Peak, also part of the Beartooth Mountains, is Montana’s highest peak at 12,807

feet!

The Continental Divide

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The Continental DivideImaginary Line

East of the Divide, water drains to the Gulf of Mexico

West of the Divide, water drains to the Pacific

Two views of Chief Mountain Located near the Continental Divide, Chief

Mountain is one of the most famous mountains in Glacier National Park.

The Anaconda-Pintler Range Often just called

“the Pintlers,” these mountains run along the Continental Divide near Anaconda, Montana and have peaks over 10,000 feet high.

This photo shows the Maloney Basin in the Pintlers.

The Sapphire Mountains Another

beautiful Montana mountain range that can be found between the Pintlers and Missoula.

Aspen trees in the foothills of the Absaroka mountains

First Peoples Buffalo Jump Near Ulm, just outside Great Falls, this site was

formerly known as Ulm Pishkun.

The Great Burn In 1910, an enormous forest fire called “the Great Burn”

wiped out 250,000 acres of forest, about 30 miles outside Missoula. You can still see evidence of this fire today:

St. Mary Lake in Glacier Park One of the most popular sites in Glacier.