Flattop Mountain (12,324') often confuses people who first visit Bear Lake and hike to Emerald Lake, for from this perspective, it has anything but a flat top. What they see are the Crags of Flattop, several jagged spires on the southern edge of the mountain overlooking Emerald Lake in Tyndall Gorge.
There are great views of these in our Virtual Hike to Emerald Lake, including close-ups from Emerald Lake. A fairly easy trail leaves Bear Lake and follows Flattop Ridge to the top. It will be easy there to see why this mountain was once named Tabletop Mountain.
In 1887, W. Hallett led an expedition over this mountain and said in trip notes that it was called Tabletop mountain. This feature (the flatness) is a very interesting geological phenomenon. If one looks at the features near here along the Continental Divide (especially visible on the Kistler raised relief topography map), they all have rather smooth (but tilted) surfaces from the Continental Divide West. This was once part of a large plain, called by the geologists, the flattop peneplain. The plain was formed by ancient mountains, before the present Rockies, that were worn down to nothing. The plain was later uplifted here to form the precursor to the current rugged mountains.
The erosion that created Forest Canyon, Glacier Basin, and all the rugged features that we see, was absent. The forces of wind, rivers, and glaciers formed from snow collecting on the protected side of the large mounds here created all the beauty that we admire today.#
