The Absaroka Range ( or ) is a sub- range of the

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 the

United States 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 Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. The range stretches about across the

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 ...

–

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 t ...

border, and at its widest, forming the eastern boundary 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 ...

along

Paradise Valley In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in paradis ...

, and the western side of the

Bighorn Basin The Bighorn Basin is a plateau region and intermontane basin, approximately 100 miles (160 km) wide, in north-central Wyoming in the United States. It is bounded by the Absaroka Range on the west, the Pryor Mountains on the north, the Bigho ...

. The range borders the

Beartooth Mountains The Beartooth Mountains are located in south central Montana and northwest Wyoming, U.S. and are part of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, within Custer, Gallatin and Shoshone National Forests. The Beartooths are the location of Granite Peak ...

to the north and the

Wind River Range The Wind River Range (or "Winds" for short) is a mountain range of the Rocky Mountains in western Wyoming in the United States. The range runs roughly NW–SE for approximately . The Continental Divide follows the crest of the range and in ...

to the south. The northern edge of the range rests along

I-90 Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain West, Great Plains, Midwest, an ...

and

Livingston, Montana Livingston is a city and county seat of Park County, Montana, United States. It is in southwestern Montana, on the Yellowstone River, north of Yellowstone National Park. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 8,040. History T ...

. The highest peak in the range is Francs Peak, located in

at . There are 46 other peaks over .

Geography

The range is drained by the

Yellowstone River The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately long, in the Western United States. Considered the principal tributary of upper Missouri, via its own tributaries it drains an area with headwaters across the mountains a ...

and various tributaries, including the Bighorn River. Most of the range lies within protected lands including Yellowstone Park, the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, North Absaroka Wilderness, Teton Wilderness, and Washakie Wilderness, spanning the Bridger-Teton National Forest,

Custer National Forest Custer National Forest is located primarily in the south central part of the U.S. state of Montana but also has separate sections in northwestern South Dakota. With a total area of , the forest comprises over 10 separate sections. While in the wes ...

, Gallatin National Forest, 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 ...

U.S. Highway 212 U.S. Route 212 (US 212) is a spur of US 12. It runs for from Yellowstone National Park to Minnesota Highway 62 at Edina, Minnesota. It does not intersect US 12 now, but it once had an eastern terminus at US 12 in St. Paul, Minnesota ...

from

Billings, Montana Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Met ...

to Yellowstone climbs over

Beartooth Pass 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 Wyomi ...

in the neighboring

before winding through the Absarokas to the northeast gate of

. It is only open during the summer. U.S Route 14/16/20 follows the

Shoshone River The Shoshone River is a long river in northern Wyoming in the United States. Its headwaters are in the Absaroka Range in Shoshone National Forest. It ends when it runs into the Big Horn River near Lovell, Wyoming. Cities it runs near or thr ...

from

Cody Cody may refer to: People *Cody (given name) *Cody (surname) * Cody (wrestler), a ring name of Cody Runnels Places Canada *Cody, British Columbia United States * Cody, Florida * Cody (Duluth), Minnesota * Cody, Missouri * Cody, Nebraska *Cody, ...

through the range to the eastern gate of the park.

History

The range is named after the Absaroka Native People. The name is derived from the

Hidatsa The Hidatsa are a Siouan people. They are enrolled in the federally recognized Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Their language is related to that of the Crow, and they are sometimes considered a paren ...

name for 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 loc ...

; it means "children of the large-beaked bird." (In contrast, the Crow name, ''Awaxaawe Báaxxioo'', means "Pointed Mountains ike Sand Castles")

John Colter John Colter (c.1770–1775 – May 7, 1812 or November 22, 1813) was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806). Though party to one of the more famous expeditions in history, Colter is best remembered for explorations he made ...

, who may have been the first white person to visit the area, probably traveled along the foot of the Absarokas in 1807 during his reconnaissance of the Yellowstone region. Early explorers also included

Gustavus Cheyney Doane Gustavus Cheyney Doane (May 29, 1840 – May 5, 1892) was a U.S. Army Cavalry Captain, explorer, inventor and Civil War soldier who played a prominent role in the exploration of Yellowstone as a member of the Washburn–Langford–Doane Expediti ...

and

Nathaniel P. Langford Nathaniel Pitt Langford (August 9, 1832 – October 18, 1911) was an American explorer, businessman, bureaucrat, vigilante and historian from Saint Paul, Minnesota who played an important role in the early years of the Montana gold fields, terri ...

, who climbed the summit of

Colter Peak Colter Peak el. is a mountain peak in the Absaroka Range in the southeastern section of Yellowstone National Park. The peak is named for mountain man John Colter, reputedly the first white man to visit the Yellowstone region. Colter Peak was f ...

in 1870. The proposed state of Absaroka shared the same age with the mountain range. The USS ''Absaroka'' was named after this mountain range.

Geology

Geologically, the section of the range in Wyoming consists of

volcanic breccia Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of d ...

, whereas there is a transition to

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 un ...

and gneiss bedrock further north of the state line.

Absaroka Volcanic Province

Igneous rock Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma o ...

s of the Absaroka Volcanic Province cover an area of approximately in southwestern

and northwestern

, including roughly one third of

. These

extrusive Extrusive rock refers to the mode of igneous volcanic rock formation in which hot magma from inside the Earth flows out (extrudes) onto the surface as lava or explodes violently into the atmosphere to fall back as pyroclastics or tuff. In contra ...

rocks were erupted during the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', ...

Epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided ...

of the

Paleogene The Paleogene ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning o ...

Period.

Radiometric dating Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed. The method compares ...

has shown that eruptive activity lasted from about . The eroded remnants of many large

stratovolcano A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a conical volcano built up by many layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with a summit crater and peri ...

es are found in the area. The dissection of these long

extinct volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

es by

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is d ...

allows

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

s to see volcanic structures that are impossible to see in

active volcano An active volcano is a volcano which is either erupting or is likely to erupt in the future. An active volcano which is not currently erupting is known as a dormant volcano. Overview Tlocene Epoch. Most volcanoes are situated on the Pacific ...

es. Many terms now widely used in

volcanology Volcanology (also spelled vulcanology) is the study of volcanoes, lava, magma and related geological, geophysical and geochemical phenomena (volcanism). The term ''volcanology'' is derived from the Latin word '' vulcan''. Vulcan was the an ...

originated in nineteenth century field studies of these ancient volcanoes.

Gallery

File:Pilot and Index Peaks.jpg, Pilot and Index peaks in the Absaroka Mountains File:WestslopeAbsarokaRangeMontana.jpg, Western face of Absarokas from Paradise Valley (Montana) File:Livingston MT 03.jpg, Northern Absaroka range as seen from

File:NorthernAbsarokasNearLivingstonMontana2010.jpg, Northwest expanse of Absarokas as viewed from over Livingston, Montana File:Smoke over the Absarokas.jpg, The mountains on August 19, 1988, smoky due to the

Yellowstone fires of 1988 The Yellowstone fires of 1988 collectively formed the largest wildfire in the recorded history of Yellowstone National Park in the United States. Starting as many smaller individual fires, the flames quickly spread out of control due to drought ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Ranges of the Rocky Mountains Mountain ranges of Wyoming Mountain ranges of Montana Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Landforms of Park County, Montana