The Shining Mountains

The panel's title is one of the oldest English names for the Rockies, and it was borrowed. French maps marked western mountains of bright stones, Jonathan Carver's map of 1778 carried the phrase into English, and his book popularized the Shining Mountains, though he did not coin it. The fur trader Gabriel Franchère heard that the first travellers had named them for rock crystals flashing in the sun. In 1977 John Snow, chief of the Nakoda First Nation, recalled that neighbouring peoples had called his own people the People of the Shining Mountains.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Virginia City — 11 mi
  A gold camp one couple began buying in 1944, and the state bought from their family in 1997.

More markers nearby

• The Bozeman Trail — 10 mi
• Virginia City — 11 mi
• Nevada City — 12 mi
• Gold in Alder Gulch — 13 mi