Devil's Slide is an unusual cliff rock formation on the side of Cinnabar Mountain located in

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 ...

Park County, Montana Park County is a county in the U.S. state of Montana. At the 2020 census, the population was 17,191. Its county seat is Livingston. A small part of Yellowstone National Park is in the southern part of the county. History The Territorial Leg ...

north 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 Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is border ...

. This distinctive formation can be viewed from Highway 89 and was created from alternate beds of

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms wh ...

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

quartzites Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tect ...

that have been tilted to lie nearly vertical and have eroded at different rates.

History

In 1871, very few white travellers had ventured this far south in 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 ...

valley. The Cook–Folsom–Peterson Expedition passed the Devil's Slide in 1869. Cook and Folsom described the slide in their diaries but did not name them In August 1870, the

Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition The Washburn Expedition of 1870 explored the region of northwestern Wyoming that two years later became Yellowstone National Park. Led by Henry D. Washburn and Nathaniel P. Langford, and with a U.S. Army escort headed by Lt. Gustavus C. Doane ...

observed the formation and named it ''The Devil's Slide''. Langford described the formation in his ''Wonders of the Yellowstone'' published in the May 1871 edition of Scribner's Monthly: File:DevilsSlideLangford1871.JPG, 1871 illustration of Devil's Slide by

Thomas Moran Thomas Moran (February 12, 1837 – August 25, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School in New York whose work often featured the Rocky Mountains. Moran and his family, wife Mary Nimmo Moran and daughter Ruth too ...

File:DevilsSlideMontana1871Jackson.jpg, First photo of Devil's Slide by

William Henry Jackson William Henry Jackson (April 4, 1843 – June 30, 1942) was an American photographer, Civil War veteran, painter, and an explorer famous for his images of the American West. He was a great-great nephew of Samuel Wilson, the progenitor of Am ...

, 1871 File:DevilsSlide1965.jpg, Devils Slide, 1965 File:DevilsSlideMontana2009.jpg, Devils Slide, 2009

Notes

{{Montana Landforms of Park County, Montana Rock formations of Montana