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This steep, spectacular horn rises tortuously above Glacier National Park’s surrounding mountains and is known as the mighty Mount Saint Nicholas. Located deep in the backcountry in a remote southwestern section of the park, it is a particularly steep, jagged, and sharply pointed pinnacle peak with a distinctive profile that is visible from many places throughout the Rocky Mountains in northwestern Montana.
Below as seen from the Middle Fork of the Flathead River, the peak shows the dramatic northwest cliff face climbing vertically for one mile in the relatively short distance of 1.5 miles horizontally. It is a giant amongst giants in the Lewis Range of the Montana Rocky Mountains.
With a total elevation of 9,381 ft, (2,859 m) it has a prominence of 2456 ft, (749 m). On the left side of the image above is Double Mountain while the Theodore Rosevelt Pass and John F. Stevens Canyon are below to the right. This photo was taken before sunrise during early winter.
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On the left in the image above Mount Saint Nicholas overlooks Church Butte on the left and to the right along that precipitous ridge is the jagged Battlement Mountain with the craggy Vigil Peak sitting in the foreground in front. In the background, distance lay Nyack Mountain, Mount Penrose, and the Great Bear Mountain, all part of
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In the image above, lensed while flying above Fusillade Mountain, Jackson Mountain is in the immediate foreground on the right with Jackson Glacier hanging to the steep cliffsides. Along the ridgeline lays Blackfoot Glacier and then Blackfoot Mountain. In the distance across the jagged mountains of the Lewis Range, the silhouette of Mount Saint Nicholas rises in the afternoon haze.
As dusk envelopes the Rocky Mountains across Elk Mountain on the Swan Range in the foreground and Rampage Mountain on the Flathead Range in the middle of the Valley, Mount Saint Nicholas steeply juts skyward, reaching for the clouds.
Mount Saint Nicholas is a dizzyingly sheer pinnacle horn. Rugged, harsh, and ragged, it stands tall, inspiring awe at the wonders of nature and the power of wilderness. It has such a distinctive vertical profile, it is easy to spot across huge distances as in the image above from the Canadian border above the North Fork of the Flathead River. Positioned in the middle left side of the mountains on the distant horizon, the Lewis Range is to the left while the Flathead Range, Swan Range, Apgar Mountains, Smoky Range, and Whitefish Range surround the vast North Fork Valley. The Flathead River flowing south out of Canada is on the lower right side and the clearing along the river is Polebridge.
In the image below Mount Saint Nicholas is in the center of the mountainous skyline surrounded by mountains from the Lewis Range on its left and the Flathead Range on the right. In the lower right side of this image lies the Flathead River where it leaves the North Fork Valley to flow around the western side of the Apgar Mountains seen here on the lower right side of the photo. The large low-lying valley area in the foreground of this image is the Western Entrance to Glacier National Park.
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Mount Saint Nicholas is a spectacular horn that towers above the surrounding mountains and dominates the skyline view from many places in Glacier National Park.
