Mountain Ranges

Lima Peaks - Mt. Garfield

An eagle lifting off the summit of 11,125-foot Italian Peak in the Beaverhead Range (the southernmost point of Montana) will travel more than 240 miles before landing on the pinnacle of 8,873-foot Pentagon Mountain in the northern Bob Marshall Country. Its flight path will cross seven mountain ranges, all in the southwest Montana region.

Occupying an enormous swath of western Montana, including uplifts in the Bob Marshall, southwest Montana hosts 22 ranges and countless peaks - many brushing thin air at over 11,000 feet, and innumerable others are chiseled promontories on the 700 miles of Montana’s 820-mile share of the Continental Divide, the watershed of North America that gives order to every drop of moisture falling on it. Water flowing westward eventually reaches the Pacific Ocean. Water pouring off the east slopes of the Divide makes its way to the Atlantic by way of the Gulf of Mexico. Southwest Montana’s mountains play a major role in this process!