The Big Belt Mountains are a section of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. state of Montana. Situated mainly in the Helena National Forest, the mountains are used for logging and recreation for the surrounding residents. Nearby is Helena, Montana, Canyon Ferry Lake, the Missouri River, Townsend, Montana, and White Sulphur Springs, Montana. The highest point in the Big Belt Range is Mount Edith at 9,504 feet (2,897 m).
The Big Belts lie primarily between the Missouri River drainage to the west and the Smith River drainage to the east. Today, they are traversed by U.S. Highway 12 going between Townsend, Montana in the Missouri drainage, and White Sulphur Springs, Montana in the upper Smith River drainage.
The gulches on the western slopes of the Big Belts were noted historically for rich gold placer strikes. The richest was the 1864 and 1865 placer gold strikes in Confederate Gulch, including Montana Bar, which was one of the most concentrated gold placer strikes ever made.
The range takes its name from the fact it is situated in a long belt-like arc. The range stretches 75 miles, making it a mid-length subrange of the Rocky Mountains. To the east are the Little Belts and to the south, somewhat continuing this arc, are the Bridger Mountains.
The Belt Supergroup series of rocks, which are primarily Precambrian mudstones, were named after this mountain range and the adjacent Little Belt Mountains. A particularly well-known example of exposed Belt Group mudstones in alternating purplish-red or pale bluish-green layers in the Big Belt Mountains is in Wolf Creek Canyon along Interstate 15 between Helena and Great Falls. While these rocks were named after these ranges of western-central Montana, and are found in them, they are more exposed and better known in northwestern Montana, northern Idaho, and southeastern British Columbia, namely around Flathead Lake, Glacier National Park.
Famous quotes containing the words big, belt and/or mountains:
“We find a delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Boss, life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and look for trouble.”
—Michael Cacoyannis (b. 1922)
“The supreme, the merciless, the destroyer of opposition, the exalted King, the shepherd, the protector of the quarters of the world, the King the word of whose mouth destroys mountains and seas, who by his lordly attack has forced mighty and merciless Kings from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same to acknowledge one supremacy.”
—Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–59 B.C.)