Talk:Beartooth Mountains

Largest area in continental US over 10,000 feet? Not!
From an email on the county highpointing mailing list: "This statement is a huge stretch, not even close to accurate. I have checked maps and come up with about 135 square miles in the area dominated by Castle Mountain. The spine of the Rockies in Colorado has an area about 8,600 square miles in one glob over 10,000 feet. Other large high areas that easily beat the Beartooth area are the High Sierra and the Uinta Mountains, each with over 1,000 square miles."

If no one provides a source for this assertion in a few days, it's out. Daniel Case (talk) 21:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I propose to insert some discussion of contiguous area over 10,000 feet along the lines of the following: It has been said that the Beartooth Mountains contain the largest contiguous area above 10,000 feet in the United States. Clearly, the Beartooth Mountains are the roof of Montana. But the elevation map of the Middle and Southern Rocky Mountains shown here generated from GTOPO30 [5] digital elevation model reveals that several ranges in other states have larger such areas.

In fact, the Uinta Mountains in Utah have more square miles of land above timberline than any other mountain range in the 48 contiguous states. [3] (Timberline in the Uintas is about 11,000 feet, compared to the Beartooth timberline around 9500 feet.) [4] Farther south, the San Juan Mountains contain more land above 10,000 feet than any other mountain range in North America. [1] San Juan, Hinsdale, and Mineral Counties in Colorado together have almost 1800 square miles above 10,000 feet. [2] The highest peaks of the Beartooth Mountains are clustered in three groups, topped by Granite Peak, Mount Wood, and Castle Mountain. The cluster containing Mount Wood is named the Granite Range. [6] The largest contiguous area above 10,000 feet of the three is the one dominated by 12,612-foot Castle Mountain. A portion of this 135 square mile area extends into Wyoming.

[1] Colorado’s San Juan Mountains by Grant Collier

[2] http://www.cohp.org/records/mean_elevation/mean_elevations.html

[3] http://www.utahtrails.com/Backcountry%20pages/KingsPeak.html

[4] Yellowstone; a Visitor’s Companion by George Wuerthner; Stackpole Books 1992

[5] http://edc.usgs.gov/products/elevation/gtopo30/gtopo30.html

[6] Montana Mountain Ranges by Rick Reese; Montana Geographic Series published by Montana Magazine; Number 1, Rev. Ed. 1985 ISBN 0-938314-17-3. p. 91 Kestrelpattern (talk) 23:56, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

This is meant to display a color elevation map of much of the Rocky Mountains (You can find it from the Commons main page. Go to Content by Location COUNTRIES--COUNTRIES OF NORTH AMERICA--UNITED STATES--GEOGRAPHY OF THE UNITED STATES--MOUNTAIN RANGES OF THE UNITED STATES--ROCKY MOUNTAINS.)Kestrelpattern (talk) 15:47, 14 December 2008 (UTC)



Hear, hear! It's harder to get away with telling tall tales about your mountains in the age of Digital Elevation Models.128.187.112.7 (talk) 18:16, 1 October 2019 (UTC)