The Crazy Mountains, often called the Crazies, is a mountain range in the Central Montana Alkalic Province in the U.S. state of

Montana Montana () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West List of regions of the United States#Census Bureau-designated regions and divisions, division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North ...

. They are a part of the northern

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

Geography

Spanning a distance of 40 miles (64 km), the Crazy Mountains are located between the Musselshell and Yellowstone rivers. The highest peak is

Crazy Peak Crazy Peak, elevation , is the highest peak in the Crazy Mountains, an isolated range of the Montana Rockies, in the United States. Crazy Peak dominates the surroundings, rising over above the Yellowstone River Valley, and is the highest peak i ...

at . Rising over above the Great plains to the east, the Crazies dominate their surroundings and are plainly visible just north of Interstate 90. The Crazy Mountains form an isolated island range east of the

Continental Divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, no ...

. Other isolated ranges in Montana include the Castle Mountains,

Little Belt Mountains The Little Belt Mountains are a section of the Rocky Mountains in the 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 cons ...

, Big Snowy Mountains,

Little Snowy Mountains The Little Snowy Mountains are a small mountain range in central Montana about southeast of Lewistown. The range lies mostly in Fergus County, but the southern part of the range extends into Golden Valley and Musselshell counties.''Big Snowy ...

, Bears Paw Mountains, Judith Mountains, North and South Moccasin Mountains, Highwood Mountains, Little Rocky Mountains, Sweet Grass Hills, Bull Mountains and, in the southeastern corner of the state near Ekalaka, the

Long Pines The Long Pines, elevation , is a small mountain range southeast of Ekalaka, Montana, in Carter County. This range is closely affiliated with three other small ranges in the area: the Ekalaka Hills, which are also located in Carter County, th ...

Geology

The Big Timber

Stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

, a large igneous intrusion, forms the bedrock in the Crazy Mountains. The stock is of

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non- avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

age, and consists of

diorite Diorite ( ) is an intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock) that has a moderate content of silica and a relatively low content of alkali metals. It is intermediate in composition between low-sil ...

and

gabbro Gabbro () is a phaneritic (coarse-grained), mafic intrusive igneous rock formed from the slow cooling of magnesium-rich and iron-rich magma into a holocrystalline mass deep beneath the Earth's surface. Slow-cooling, coarse-grained gabbro is ...

with zones of Quartz Monzodiorite, and which has been intruded by many dikes and sills. Geological features of the Crazy Mountains include: *

Shields River The Shields River is a tributary of the Yellowstone River, long, in Meagher and Park Counties Montana in the United States. It rises in the Gallatin National Forest in the Crazy Mountains in northern Park County. It flows west, then south ...

* South Fork Musselshell River * Sweet Grass Creek *

Adjacent Counties

* Meagher County, Montana - north * Sweet Grass County, Montana - east * Park County, Montana - west, south

Wildlife

Due to the eastern location, these mountains are drier and less densely forested than other mountain ranges in Montana. There are at least 40 alpine lakes in the range, 15 of which are named. The Crazy Mountains sit in both

Gallatin National Forest The Gallatin National Forest (now known as the Custer-Gallatin National Forest) is a United States National Forest located in South-West Montana. Most of the Custer-Gallatin goes along the state's southern border, with some of it a part of Nort ...

and Lewis and Clark National Forest. The Crazies support a healthy herd of mountain goats and the occasional elusive wolverine.

History

In 1916, the Crazy Mountains were proposed as a location for a national park, but Congress failed to pass the legislation.

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government within the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of ...

officials considered the area again in 1935, but reported that a national park would not be feasible because "half of the land, every alternate section, is owned by the Northern Pacific Railroad or is in private hands."

Access

The Crazies are almost completely surrounded by private lands making access into the mountains somewhat difficult, especially in the southern section where the highest peaks are located.

Name origin

The name Crazy Mountains is said to be a shortened form of the name "Crazy Woman Mountains" given them, in complement to their original

Crow A crow is a bird of the genus ''Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term " raven" is not pinned scientifica ...

name, after a woman who went insane and lived in them after her family was killed in the westward settlement movement. The

Crow people 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 loca ...

called the mountains ''Awaxaawapìa Pìa'', roughly translated as "Ominous Mountains", or even more roughly, "Crazy Mountains". They were famous to the Crow people for having metaphysical powers and being unpredictable—a place used for

vision quest A vision quest is a rite of passage in some Native American cultures. It is usually only undertaken by young males entering adulthood. Individual Indigenous cultures have their own names for their rites of passage. "Vision quest" is an English- ...

South Face of Crazy Mountains from Livingston January 2015

East Face of Crazy Mountains January 2015

Notes

External links

Crazy Mountains: Backdrop to Big Timber
SweetgrassCounty.Com

BigSkyFishing.Com * {{Authority control Mountain ranges of Montana Ranges of the Rocky Mountains Landforms of Sweet Grass County, Montana Landforms of Park County, Montana Gallatin National Forest Lewis and Clark National Forest