We’ve heard for years about the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming because of two series of books about this area: Game Warden Joe Picket worked all over the state and the series was written by C.J. Boxx; and Sheriff Walt Longmire was responsible for the fictional county of Absaroka and was written by Craig Johnson. You may know that these characters have also been featured in TV series: Joe was only on for 2 two seasons, but Sheriff Longmire lasted for 10 seasons. If you like modern-day westerns with interesting characters and descriptions of the Big Horn Mountain areas where they lived and served, you may want to look for the books. Some of the locations that inspired both of the authors were in the Sheridan area, but most were south of here in the town of Buffalo at the southern end of the Big Horn Mountains that we saw in the previous post. Next time we visit this area we want to explore these places.
Since this mountain range was so significant in these books, we wanted to spend a day on the northern end of the range near Sheridan.
As we started driving we saw these beautiful clouds in the deep blue sky.
now to some geology to explain what we’re seeing
About 500 million years ago the air and land were warmer, and seas covered all of Wyoming, including the area in front of us. You would not see any animal life at that time. No land was available for animals to live.
Then around 75 million years ago, the earth’s crust began to grind together. The earth buckled, heaved, and the Big Horn Mountains were formed.
The long sharp red ridges in front of this sign are called “Hogbacks.” Other geological formations [that were new names to me] along the drive to the top are:
- Steep escarpments [SI: A steep slope or long cliff that results from erosion or faulting and separates two relatively level areas of differing elevations].
- Sheer almost vertical sides caused by the fault that runs along this side of the Big Horn Mountains.
- Synclines [SI: a geological fold that forms a trough in rock layers where the beds dip toward each other from both sides] that are downfolds in the earth’s crust that cause valleys.
- Cuestas, long gentle upslopes of alternating hard and soft rocks.
We saw these features as we kept driving up on the curvy road to the top, even though we didn’t know what we were seeing. It was a beautiful drive that changed at each turn in the road.
visitors center – outside
The following sign was so interesting to me and put into perspective what we have been seeing in the western states. The National Forest system lands are in dark green, and National Park Service lands are in the olive green. The large green area on the left is the Greater Yellowstone area, with Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park in olive green.
The next olive range to the east is Bighorn Canyon National Recreation area, and just beyond this area is Bighorn National Forest. The blue square with a question mark is the Burgess Junction Visitors Center where we are today.
I hadn’t realized that this stop would be our last time in the Rocky Mountains since the Bighorns form a northwest-trending spur from the Rocky Mountains extending approximately 200 miles northward on the Great Plains. According to Wikipedia, “The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch 3,000 miles in a straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Canada to New Mexico in the Southwestern United States.”
We passed through so many ranges on this trip that are part of the Rockies, so I looked up how many there were and found a list of 11 sub-ranges in the Rockies. If you want to click on that link, you’ll see the list. The first one was the Bitterroot Mountains that we discovered with the Louis & Clark expedition.
The Big Horn Mountains are one of the best places in the world to view the results of geological events. Layers of exposed rock strata reveal a great geological uplifting 60 million years ago, resulting in this mountain range.
Virtually every era of geological time can be viewed in exposed rock strata from the foothills to high alpine peaks.
Composed of dolomite—a very dense rock formed in ancient sea beds—these outcroppings survived millions of years of weathering by wind and water. We’ll see them in person later in this post.
visitors center – inside
Westward expansion of railroads required thousands of miles of new track. Between 1892 and 1915, at least 2 million railroad ties were hand-hewn from trees cut in the forests of the Big Horns. Hundreds of men worked here in the industry known as “tie hacking.” They built dams of logs and earth, and then long wooden flumes moved railroad ties downstream over considerable distances.
below: an original flume structure
right: existing remnants of a flume
The tie flume played a vital role in the local economy, enabling the rapid transport of timber to sawmills and contribution to the growth of the railroad industry in the region.
Tongue River is an interesting name. I wondered how it came about. The following picture gives us the answer.
From the Crow Heritage: “A Crow Indian Medicine Man held a huge Sun Dance near the headwaters of this river and required the Sacramental use of 100 tongues of the Buffalo.”
land treaties as times change
In 1825. the . . . Crow Indian chiefs entered into their first treaty, a friendship treaty, with the U.S. The purpose was to perpetuate friendship and trade between the U.S. and the Crow Indian Tribe.
By the mid-1800s, the Plains Indian tribes felt the impact of the Western expansion and the consumption of natural resources. In September 1851, the U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs arranged a huge gathering at Fort Laramie Wyoming to discuss newly assigned territories for each tribes’ village. [Fort Laramie was along the North Platte River south of the Bozeman Trail. See the following map.]
Continuous Western expansion and the discovery of gold in Montana, the Bozeman Trail was scouted as a northern short cut from the Oregon Trail and was routed through designated Indian territories. [Sounds pretty dangerous to me.]
In 1868, another Fort Laramie Treaty meeting was arranged, but this was for a new federal policy that focused on placing all Native Indian Tribes on permanent reservations. The 1868 treaty established the Great Sioux Reservation. East of the Big Horn Mountains became the Unceded Indian Territory specifically for bison hunting held by the seven bands of the Lakota (Sioux).
When gold was found in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1874, the 1868 treaty was then broken. Due to the extermination of the bison, the Unceded Indian Territory was the first to be removed form the 1868 treaty.
The Great Sioux Reservation was then divided for the seven Lakota bands into five smaller parcels of land that are the current reservations: Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Lower Brule, Rosebud, and Pine Ridge. [When we were at Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills (a future post), we saw signs for the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations.]
interpretive trail
After exploring the displays in the visitors center, we started walking around the 1/4-mile interpretive trail by the visitors center.
These buttes are remnants of dolomite rock layers that formed under shallow seas blanketing this area 500 million years ago.
Next we came to an abandoned mine shaft. The age of this mine and the type of ore mined are unknown. A nickel and copper refining company operated a mine a few miles northwest of here in the 1900s, so we assume this ore was nickel and copper.
The Fortunatis Gold Mine operated near Bald Mountain City in the late 1800s. Rich deposits of oil, coal, and natural gas adjacent to the Forest continue to shape the region’s economy.
By using a viewing post on the trail we could see the top of Black Mountain were a fire lookout was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s.
In 1919, an undetected fire in the Wolf Creek drainage burned thousands of acres. This lookout was built to cover that “blind spot.”
Today forest lands are monitored during fire season by airborne patrols.
Around the area and along this walk are various types of evergreen trees with various shades. Lodgepole pine is the most common evergreen tree found in the Big Horns. The U.S. Forest Service manages forested lands for many uses, including healthy wildlife populations, recreation, and timber production.
Native American Indians use the straight narrow tree trunks that grow in dense lodgepole pine stands to support teepees. Some of these pine cones open and release their seeds regularly, while others only do so when heated by fire. The fire-opened cones guarantee that the pine will reseed in burned-over areas.
Finally we came to some aspens that we’ve enjoyed along our trip. In spring, the new leaves are neon green and then darken through the summer. Before a storm, aspen leaves turn their silvery underside to the wind.
Our second adventure while in Sheridan was to visit the 1900s home of a much-loved Wyoming governor who became a U.S. senator.
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