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The Boulder Batholith
UM field students climbing the Boulder Batholith. (Photo by Rick and Susie Graetz)
The Boulder Batholith
A batholith is a large mass of igneous rock covering an area of at least 40 square miles. The Boulder Batholith, small by world standards, stretches from the Helena area south to Dillon and...
Spanish Peaks
Bison roaming in the foothills of the Spanish Peaks (photo by Rick and Susie Graetz)
The first question is - how did this range get the name Spanish Peaks? No one knows for certain but it is thought these mountains were named for prospectors who came north into what would become Montana from...
Yellowstone National Park Mammoth Hot Springs
Mammoth Hot Springs is an extensive mass of travertine terraces that have been forming over thousands of years. Travertine is a crystalline limestone that forms in mineral springs saturated with dissolved calcium carbonate (CaCO3). The deposition of travertine at Mammoth is unique as most other...
Overthrust Geology in the Trilobite Range
Overthrust geology in the Bob Marshall Country taken atop of Pentagon Mountain (Photo Rick and Susie Graetz)
The Trilobite Range is a textbook example Overthrust geology. Countless millions of years ago, as the Northern Rockies were building, slabs of Precambrian (the oldest classification of...
First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park
First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park, Ulm, MT - west of Great Falls. This bison jump, possibly the largest in North America, was used for a least one-thousand years prior to Lewis and Clark visiting the site.
Decision Point
Decision Point where the Corps of Discovery had to determine which fork was the Missouri River. The Marias River is entering on the left.
Cottonwoods Along the Bitterroot
Cottonwoods along the Bitterroot River (photo Rick and Susie Graetz)
Cottonwoods hug the river bottoms with bright yellow leaves making a vivid contrast with the clear blue skies of fall. These trees earn their name from early June to mid-July as the female trees release clouds of cottony white...
National Bison Range
National Bison Range, Dixon, MT. Bison sun themselves in the spring sunshine that has yet to melt the snow on the high peaks of the nearby Mission Mountains.
Bird Woman Falls
Bird Woman Falls in Glacier National Park. This dramatic waterfall owes its unique topography to the work of two alpine glaciers - the large main glacier that created the rounded slopes of the U-shaped valley, and a smaller glacier that did not erode as much material as the larger glacier and...
Bannack
When Montana became a territory on May 26, 1864, Bannack, now a state park, became the first territorial capital. (photo by Rick Graetz)
University of Montana | Department of Geography
Aspen Trees
The stunning yellow leaves of aspen rustling in the wind add a soft, pleasant sound to the autumn landscape. Rightfully named the quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) – this deciduous tree has the widest natural range of any in North America, stretching from the foothills to the subalpine zone,...
Virginia City
View from Boot Hill, Virginia City. The town of Virginia City served as the territorial capital of Montana from 1865 until 1875 when Helena became the capital. Most of the community is designated a National Historical Landmark and operates as an open air museum where visitors can walk...
Mount Reynolds
9,125 foot Mt. Reynolds rises above a foreground of bear grass. Mt. Reynolds is an example of a glacial horn - similar to an arête, but pyramidal in shape due to the erosion caused by more than two cirques. (Photo by Rick Graetz)
University of Montana | Department of...
Mountaineer Peak: Another Mission Mountain Glacier Gone
Mountaineer Peak in Mission Mountains (Photo by Rick Graetz)
This photo shows Mountaineer Peak and the remains of what was an extensive glacier (center of photo) - if you were to hike there today you would note glacial striations (elongated gouges in the soft sedimentary rocks) in the now exposed...
Younts Peak and the Beginnings of the Yellowstone River
Photo courtesy of the National Park System
In 1887, Arnold Haig, an explorer, traveled to the source of the Yellowstone River in 1887 and reported that its birthplace was "in a long snow-bank lying in a large amphitheater on the north side of the peak”.
Younts Peak, 12.156’ rises in the Absaroka...
Major Mountain Barrier - Cabinet Mountains
The Cabinet Mountains from the Libby side (photo by Rick and Susie Graetz)
The Cabinet Mountains, just to the west of Libby, are the dominate range of northwestern Montana. They extend about 80 miles along a northwest-southeast axis and are bordered by the Idaho state line on the west, the Clark...
Snow Ghosts
Snow Ghosts from Whitefish Mountain looking out towards Glacier National Park (Photo by Rick and Susie Graetz)
One might think these trees have been taken over by encrusted snow, while others erroneously call the coating hoar frost. The truth is that the cover is heavy accumulations of...
Pryor Mountains
Pryor Mountains and Big Horn Canyon (photo by Rick and Susie Graetz)
The Pryor Mountains, home to red desert, ice caves and wild horses, is one of the most unique pieces of Montana’s mountain country. From the Yellowstone River Valley and the big-little town of Billings, these Pryors appear as...
Little Rockies
Little Rockies (photo by Rick and Susie Graetz)
Indians migrating through this territory north of the Missouri River called them “the island mountains.” From a distance, they resemble atolls rising from the prairie sea of north central Montana. Although not very lofty (the highest point is...
Glacier Peak
(Top) Glacier Peak from Lake of the Clouds (1972) Dick Behan
(Bottom) Glacier Peak from the air (2015) Rick Graetz
Glaciers of the Mission and Swan Mountains: Last week pilot Ric Hauer and I found the clear stable air we needed to examine what was left of the moving ice of these ranges. We found...
Fort Peck
Carved river breaks, rugged and sculptured badlands, an ocean of water and a landscape as unchanged as when nomadic Plains Indians followed the rhythm of the seasons and the patterns of the great bison herds, best describes this region of northeast Montana.
The stretch of Missouri River Country...
Flathead Lake
Flathead Lake from the west side looking across Wild Horse Island to the Missions
Glaciers scoured the Flathead Valley during the last ice age that ended about 12,000 years ago. As the glaciers retreated, the Polson terminal moraine, the high rise of land that slopes upwards from the lake to the...
Crow Country
Crow Indians at Crow Fair (photo by Rick and Susie Graetz)
The Crow country is a good country. The Great Spirit has put it exactly in the right place; while you are in it you fare well; whenever you go out of it, whichever way you travel, you fare worse. If you go to the south, you have to wander...
Bowman Lake
Bowman Lake is a textbook glacial lake perched within a valley cradled by lateral moraines and blocked by a terminal moraine. Its calm crystal clear waters often mirror the big sky and snowcapped mountains making for scenery twice as captivating.
Bowman Lake is located in the Flathead River’s...
Powder River
The Powder River meanders through prairie and rugged badlands in eastern Montana. (Photo by Rick and Susie Graetz)
“A mile wide, an inch deep, too thin to plow and too thick to drink” is as appropriate a portrayal today as it was when the first inhabitants described southeast Montana’s Powder...