Rib Mountain

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Rib Mountain from downtown Wausau

Rib Mountain from Interstate 39

The highest point at Rib Mountain

Information sign at peak

Rib Mountain (also known as Rib Hill and currently Granite Peak) is a glacially-eroded monadnock in central Wisconsin, located in the Town of Rib Mountain in Marathon County. Composed of quartzite covered with a softer syenite sheath, it was intruded about 1.5 billion years ago.

Rib Mountain is at 44°55′15″N, 89°41′40″W, near Wausau on the west side of the Wisconsin River, just west of Interstate 39 and just south of Highway 29.

Although Rib Mountain is not the highest point in Wisconsin and not technically even a mountain, it is almost 4 miles long and peaks at 1924 feet above sea level and 760 feet above the local terrain, the highest difference of height from peak to surrounding terrain in the state of Wisconsin.

Rib Mountain is home to the Rib Mountain State Park and the Granite Peak Ski Area (formerly Rib Mountain Ski Area). The peak is also the site of many of the transmitters for radio and TV stations in the Wausau area, and is the namesake for Wisconsin Public Television's WHRM-TV (Channel 20).

Local legend states that the 'ribs' in Rib Mountain come from the fact that it is the burial site of Paul Bunyan. Furthermore, nearby Mosinee Hill is said to be the grave of Babe the Blue Ox.

When the ski area opened on the slopes of Rib Mountain 1937, it was one of the first ski areas in North America. Stowe in Vermont had opened a few years earlier in 1934. Sun Valley in Idaho had become the nation's first ski area in the western states in 1936.