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The elevation of Going to the Sun Mountain is 9642 feet. It is the tallest mountain in the Saint Mary valley but several peaks in the park stand taller. The famous Going to the Sun road through Glacier National Park was named after the mountain.

There are several stories associated with how the mountain got its intriguing name. The Blackfeet story of creation recalls that Napi, the Blackfoot Old Man, left his home in the sun to help the Blackfeet. Once he had finished his work on earth, he returned home via this mountain. The Blackfeet story of creation can be read in its entirety at the official Blackfeet Nation Web site.

Here are a couple of versions of the legend of Going to the Sun mountain: ¹

     Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, Point, Road: This, the most unforgettable name in Glacier National Park, turns out to be something of a disappointment. James Willard Schultz bluntly told Dr. Ruhle in 1929: "I myself named Going-to-the-Sun Mountain... There is no Indian legend in connection with its name." That should settle it for good, but nevertheless there is more to the story. The Blackfeet version of the name is Natosi-aitapo: to the sun he goes. Willard says that in 1887 Schultz and  Tail-Feathers-Coming-In-Sight-Over-the-Hill were butchering a ram on Red Eagle Mountain, when, over a smoke, Tail-Feathers remarked that the peak across the lake would be ideal for a vision quest.  So the two agreed on the name, which, in that case, must suggest the vision quest.

     Schultz tells a similar story but with the date 1885 and the place of the hunt the foot of Sun Mountain. He adds that the original name was Natai-Ispi-Istuki or Lone High Mountain. So, the legend associated with the peak may be a fake, but it runs like this: Napi, or Old Man comes to save the Indian people in time of trouble and, when his work is accomplished, goes back to the sun, leaving his portrait on the peak. 

     Ella E. Clark recorded this version from the lips of Chewing Black Bones: Napi has angered some of his people and is fleeing to the mountains. He passes St. Mary Lakes and scales the highest peak (Going-to-the-Sun), where he ducks into a lofty ravine with just his face peering out. He turns into a rock and is up there still, looking for his people, errant as they may be, turning his face this way and that. The profile on the mountain top, however is clearer as a snowfield than as a rock, and because of it the peak has also been called Face Mountain, and its spur is Matahpi Peak (Matahpi means person.)

1. Holterman, Jack; "Place Names of Glacier/Waterton National Parks"; Glacier Natural History Association, West Glacier, MT; 1985

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