Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Electric Peak got its name from a strange experience reported by members of the 1872
Hayden expedition. While attempting to climb this peak, the men heard crackling sounds,
felt electric shocks, and found their hair standing on end. This experience has not recurred
as far as is known, but electric storms are indeed common during the late afternoon.
The mountain to the southwest is Sepulcher Mountain (9,652 t / 2,942 m). he name
probably came from a tomblike formation in the rocks near its summit. Both Electric and
Sepulcher are made of sedimentary rocks about 100 million years old.
Slumping down toward the road from Sepulcher's northeast side is an obvious area of
hummocks left behind by major landslides. Geologists theorize that the underlying layer
of shale on Sepulcher became water-saturated, allowing the volcanic rocks on top to slowly
slide down.
To the southeast is a gradual slope to the top of 7,841-foot (2,390 m) Mount Everts.
The mountain is named for Truman Everts, assessor of internal revenue of Montana Ter-
ritory. But that's not why he's famous. In 1870, before there was a national park here, Everts
was accidentally separated from the Washburn-Langford exploration party and lost for a
total of 37 days during inclement autumn weather. Without food for much of that time,
he somehow made his way from south of Yellowstone Lake to near Crescent Hill, about 12
miles (19 km) east of Mammoth. There, mountaineers Jack Baronett and George Pritchett
found him unable to walk and barely alive. When the friend who had offered a $600 reward
demanded that Everts pay it, he refused, saying he would have found his way out without
help! He recovered from his ordeal and survived to father a child when he was almost 75.
1.2/4.1 Rescue Creek Trailhead and interpretive sign about migrating animals. This
8-mile-long (13 km) trail was part of the primitive nineteenth century “Turkey Pen Road”
that miners used to reach Cooke City from Gardiner in the 1880s. Today's trail climbs about
1,200 feet (365 m) along the back of Mount Everts and then descends to rejoin the Grand
Loop Road at Blacktail Deer Creek east of Mammoth.
Rescue Creek's name is the result of a misunderstanding from long ago. Ferdinand Hay-
den, leader of three 1870s expeditions through the park, thought that the mountain now
called Mount Everts was where the lost Truman Everts had been found.
The field northeast of the footbridge had several uses in the early 1900s. Alfalfa and then
wheat were planted on the flats near Gardiner. Part of the large field was used as a 1,000-yard
(914 m) target range for the U.S. Cavalry in the years when they patrolled the park (1886 to
1918); the butts or trench in which the target crew operated still remains at the north end.
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