The Rocky Mountains were once called the Stony Mountains.

Pikes Peak in the Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains have had many names since humans first came into contact with them, some more fanciful than others. Their current moniker comes from the Plains Cree term ᐊᓯᓃᐘᒋᐩ, usually transcribed as asinîwaciy and literally meaning “rocky mountain” or “alp.” The first European to describe the pride of Colorado was explorer Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, who gave them their current name when he called the mountains “montagnes de Roche” in a 1752 journal entry. Four decades later, the John Reid Company published a map in which they were called the Stony Mountains.

Another journal, this one belonging to fur trader Gabriel Franchere and written between 1811 and 1814, claimed “the first travellers called them the ‘Glittering Mountains,’ on account of the infinite number of immense rock crystals, which, they say, cover their surface, and … reflect to an immense distance the rays of sun.” The Rockies have also been called the Mountains of Bright Stones and the Shining Mountains, each name a testament to how striking they are.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

The Andes are the longest mountain range in the world.

The Rockies are massive, passing through six U.S. states (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico) in addition to two Canadian provinces (Alberta and British Columbia), but they aren’t the longest above-water mountain range in the world. That would be the Andes, which are 5,500 miles long — 2,500 miles longer than the Rockies. (The longest mountain range of any kind is the mid-ocean ridge.) The Andes extend across the entire western edge of South America, passing through Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela on their way to the Caribbean. Aconcagua, a mountain in Argentina, is the range’s peak at an elevation of 22,831 feet. The world’s highest volcanoes are also in the Andes, including the 22,615-foot-tall (and, thankfully, dormant) Ojos del Salado.