Nature
Mahtotopa Mountain is an 8,677-foot peak in Glacier National Park’s Lewis Range, rising south of Saint Mary Lake and visible from the Going-to-the-Sun Road near Rising Sun. George Bird Grinnell named it Four Bears Mountain in 1885, but in 1932 it was renamed Mahtotopa, an incorrect spelling derived from Mato-tope, the Mandan chief known as Four Bears and grandfather of Grinnell’s hunting companion Joe Kipp. The mountain consists of sedimentary rock formed from the Precambrian to the Jurassic, within a landscape shaped by the Lewis Overthrust fault about 170 million years ago. It remains a prominent landmark in Glacier’s dramatic alpine scenery.
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Montana · United States
