NORTHERN SECTION - Yellowstone Treasures - page 319

the other official name for this place, Silver Gate, is more appropriate for this slope of Terrace
Mountain, since the gray-white rocks did not erode in place. These huge, strangely shaped
rocks are lying in an immense jumble that has slid from the slopes of Terrace Mountain to
the west. The rock is predominantly travertine, like that at Mammoth Hot Springs but much
older. Notice that the trees growing among the rocks are not very large, which suggests the
landslide probably occurred in a recent century. (Also see pages 158-59 about hoodoos.)
The Pillar of Hercules at Golden Gate, by F. J. Haynes.
4.4/16.6 Golden Gate at Kingman Pass (7,250 ft / 2,210 m). When you reach Kingman Pass,
you've climbed more than 1,000 feet (300 m) in the short distance from Mammoth. The name
Golden Gate was used as early as the 1880s and stems from the sense you get here of passing
through a gateway to the park.
The Golden Gate [GEO.7] is a canyon cut by Glen Creek through a large deposit of the
Huckleberry Ridge tuff. This 2-million-year-old volcanic rock has been stained reddish yellow
by iron oxide.
At the outer edge of the road is a column of rock known as the Pillar of Hercules, named
by 1880s tour guide George Henderson, possibly after the Pillars of Hercules that guard the
Strait of Gibraltar in Europe. It has been moved three times, once in 1889 to make room for
the steamboat Zillah to pass on a horse-drawn truck on its way to Yellowstone Lake.
Near the top of the north slope of Bunsen Peak across the canyon is Cathedral Rock,
named for its majestic spires at the time this road was built.