Rocks ring in canyon between Butte, Whitehall
By EVE BYRON Helena Independent Record
BUTTE – The smile spreads like wildfire across 4-year-old Sheppard Denton’s face as he whacks a rock and is rewarded with a bell-like chime.
“You’re like Quasimodo; it sounds like the bells of Notre Dame,” says his mom, Erin Denton.
The rock concert is a well-known local secret tucked away on Bureau of Land Management property between Butte and Whitehall. Known as the Ringing Rocks, it’s a geologic wonder that’s present in the United States only around this 160-acre site and in eastern Pennsylvania.
Exactly why the rocks ring when whacked is a mystery, according to Rick Hotaling, Bureau of Land Management field manager in Butte.
“People have all sorts of theories – some think it’s the way the rocks weathered and were joined together,” Hotaling said. “We get geologists up here and one says one thing while another says something else.
“The short answer is that I don’t think anybody really knows.”
The rocks here are igneous, meaning they were formed when molten rock cooled, and have an iron component. They’re about the size of small cars, piled helter-skelter in a mound about 30 feet high. Their surfaces are rough like a pumice stone, with their brown color disrupted by off-white lichen.
Denton’s cousin, 7-year-old Cory Byron, jumps from rock to rock, swinging his hammer at everything in sight. One chime’s tone is low, another’s is high-pitched. He sings “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” as he bangs away.
“Holy cow – did you hear that?” he calls out in delight.
Marilyn Krause, a BLM public information officer, points to the many boulders around the fringe of the pile. One key to the mystery, she says, is that these rocks on the ground don’t chime when hit, meaning the mound may have something to do with the sound.
Another clue is that the rocks don’t chime when they’re removed from the area.
Hotaling laughs as he recounts the telephone calls he gets from people, wondering why the rocks they’ve removed from here don’t make the same noise. It’s almost poetic justice, since taking the stones is illegal.
“They think that if they get a big enough chunk it will ring, but it doesn’t,” Hotaling said. “It’s kind of sad, because people have drilled into it and whacked off chunks. They do it all the time. But they’ll only ring here.”
The BLM currently is putting together a resource management plan for its property scattered around 7 million acres in southwestern Montana, including the Ringing Rocks. The federal agency wants the 160 acres around the ringing rock pile to be designated an “Area of Critical Environmental Concern” – or ACEC – which would limit some of the multiple uses normally allowed on public lands.
“Obviously, we wouldn’t allow a mineral sale here, because we don’t want to adversely affect the rocks,” Krause said. “We would like to do a little more interpretation, because this is unique. And obviously, we wouldn’t allow people to collect rocks.”
Added Hotaling: “Our biggest challenge is trying to maintain this area and keep it from being ruined.”
At this point, the gravel road leading to the Ringing Rocks dead-ends a short distance past the pile. Hotaling wants to change that to create a small parking area about 200 feet before the mound, since this section of the road is steep and rocky.
“The cost to make that stretch nice is pretty high,” Hotaling said. “That might also help discourage people from taking rocks and vandalizing this place.”
Multimedia online
To see video and hear the ringing rocks chime, go to the multimedia link at www.HelenaIR.com and click on “Local Movie Gallery.”
Reporter Eve Byron can be reached at (406) 447-4076 or eve.byron@helenair.com.
