Mount Everts Viewpoint

Mount Everts Viewpoint is a scenic lookout near Mammoth Hot Springs, focused on Mount Everts, a 7,846-foot peak in Yellowstone’s northern region. It makes a worthwhile short pause if you’re already exploring Mammoth; the appeal is the mountain’s unusual rock layers and the story behind its name, not a long activity.

The mountain is named for Truman C. Everts, a member of the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition of 1870. After he became separated from the party and lost his horse with its supplies, he wandered for 37 days, surviving on thistle roots and sometimes using geothermal heat to cook them. Hunters found him near starvation. His published account helped build support for protecting Yellowstone, which became a national park in 1872.

Gray sedimentary layers at Mount Everts formed along the edge of a shallow inland sea more than 65 million years ago. The light-red Huckleberry Ridge Tuff above them came from Yellowstone’s first caldera-forming eruption about 2.1 million years ago. Heat from the ash flow reddened the older rock below; thin white and black layers mark the eruption’s opening. Erosion removed more than 60 million years of intervening record, leaving a striking contact between rocks of vastly different ages. When the full face is visible, include the pale slope and reddish cliff together in a photo so the contrast reads clearly.