Wyoming author revises Greater Yellowstone peaks book

BILLINGS – After climbing 107 peaks in the vast Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, skiing down a majority of them, Thomas Turiano thought he would reach a “plateau of understanding.”

“But that’s not true,” he said . “I just have more and more questions.”

Turiano is the author of “Select Peaks of Greater Yellowstone,” first published in 2003. In November, he will release an updated second edition of the book, detailing historic explorations of the region, the geology of the ranges, as well as routes to reach the 107 peaks.

Depending on who does the measuring, the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem – or GYE – encompasses anywhere from 12 million to 22 million acres. That’s 18,750 to 34,375 square miles. That includes state lands, five national forests, three national wildlife refuges, Bureau of Land Management acreage, tribal and private lands. At the core are Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

Correction

Soon after he self-published the first edition, Turiano was confronted by critics pointing out what errors he had made.

“Having a book out there that you know is wrong was hard for me in many ways,” he said. “But it drove me to, ‘Like, I gotta redo this. I can’t let this sit out there as the final word.’ ”

So he spent the past six years researching and rewriting the book.

“When I started the project, I really hoped to go through it quickly and fix the errors, make it more legible and flow better,” he said. “But as I went along I realized – especially the history – needed to be redone.”

Turiano’s books are filled with details regarding the first Euro-American explorers of the GYE. Although he acknowledges archaeological studies in the high mountains in the past 20 years have rightfully placed Native Americans as the true first explorers of the region, he chose not to delve more into their history.

“I realized no matter what I could do, it wouldn’t do it justice,” he said.

Absaroka

One of the changes in Turiano’s new book is to abandon his assertion that the Absaroka Mountains, which line the eastern side of Montana’s Paradise Valley, should be called the Western Beartooth Mountains. Instead, he’s adopted North Absaroka as the appropriate name.

“This edition, I’m contradicting my first edition,” he said.

Both books Turiano wrote noted that as early as the 1860s, Euro-American trappers referred to the mountains as the Yellowstone Range. In 1871, famed Yellowstone explorer Ferdinand Hayden called them the Snowy Mountains, as was the local custom.

Absaroka was one of the last monikers attached to the high-rising peaks.

In 1873, Capt. William Jones of the Corps of Engineers was seeking a wagon route from Fort Bridger, in what is now southwestern Wyoming, to Yellowstone National Park.

“The right to name them is clearly mine,” Jones wrote.

He chose to call them the Sierra Shoshone Mountains, extending the range from the Washakie Needles west of Owl Creek, Wyoming, to north of Pilot Peak near Cooke City, Turiano found.

Final say

John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Civil War veteran who made his reputation exploring the Grand Canyon, stepped into the fray as the second director of the U.S. Geological Survey. He didn’t like the name Sierra Shoshone, Turiano wrote, arguing the Crow Tribe visited the mountains more than the Shoshone. It was Powell who recommended the name Absaroka in the 1890s, one of several translations of the Crow people’s name for their tribe.

Powell’s decision did not settle the disagreement, which continued to draw dissension in geological circles.

In 1901, the chairman of the U.S. Board of Geographic Names wrote in a report explicitly listing the mountains as the Absaroka Range. Yet into the 1920s geological papers persisted in referring to them using the term Snowy, while dividing them into northern and southern blocks based on their geology.

“There was a lot of effort a long time ago to sort it out, but it never got sorted out, which is really interesting,” Turiano said.

“I still think it should be called the Beartooths, all the way up to Livingston,” he said.

Bear’s Eyeteeth

Similar problems extended to the Beartooth Mountains, southwest of Billings, which were variously named the Granite Range and simply the Granites by early prospectors.

Turiano’s research credits Gen. Philip Sheridan with first referring to them as the Beartooth Mountains in 1882.

“According to Crow elders, the name Awaxaawe Daxpitcheeihté, which translates literally as ‘Mountain Bear’s Eyeteeth,’ originated from the many small canine-like pinnacles flanking the Beartooth Mountains when viewed from the Clarks Fork valley,” Turiano wrote. Eyeteeth refers to an animal’s sharp canine teeth.

The USGS wouldn’t use the name “Beartooth Mountains” until the Beartooth National Forest was founded in 1909, Turiano discovered. “The range’s name and boundaries would not be officially adopted until 1966!”

In addition to correcting his record, Turiano is most excited about the section of his second edition that deals with Pilot Peak, the 11,699-foot tall landmark outside Cooke City. He also wrote a whole new section on early Beartooth Mountain explorers that is more specific and includes information on Billings-based explorer Fred Inabnit. A Switzerland native, Inabnit climbed “some 50 peaks in the Beartooths between 1907 and 1926,” Turiano wrote.

Transition

Between the publishing of his first “Select Peaks” book and now, 20 years later, Turiano has transitioned from a 37-year-old explorer, skier, guide and mountaineer to a 56-year-old who hopes his back will remain healthy enough for him to continue to pursue the adventures he loves.

“I’ve done some soul searching in the last month or so, about what makes me the happiest, and that is just going up and being in the mountains and hiking up peaks,” he said.

He also enjoys researching history, and yet is humble enough to note that even his corrected book on the Greater Yellowstone’s peaks may not be the final word on the subject.

The second edition can be preordered online at thomasturiano.com. The cost is $95, with early orders saving $15. The 630-page book is more than 100 pages longer than the first edition and includes maps, historic and modern photos. Sample pages can be viewed on the website.

The book will also be available at select climbing stores around the region.

Although Turiano is based in Wilson, Wyoming, just outside Jackson Hole, his book has been more popular in Montana.

“Jackson people are not as clued in to the idea of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem,” he said. “If it doesn’t say Tetons on the title, they gloss over.”