The Bighorn Mountains

The Bighorn Mountains rise directly west of Sheridan with a sharpness that still surprises people who have been driving across flat Wyoming for hours. The range runs roughly north to south for about two hundred miles, rising from the plains at around four thousand feet to Cloud Peak, the highest point, at thirteen thousand one hundred seventy-one feet. The eastern face, which Sheridan faces, is among the steepest escarpments in the Rocky Mountain system.

The mountains take their name from the bighorn sheep, Ovis canadensis, which were abundant on the high rocky terrain when Euro-American explorers first crossed the range in the early eighteen hundreds. John Colter, the explorer and trapper who had been part of the Lewis and Clark expedition, likely crossed through the Bighorns in eighteen oh seven or eighteen oh eight during his solo traverse of what would become Wyoming. His account described geothermal features that no one believed until other explorers confirmed them decades later.

The Bighorn National Forest, established in nineteen oh two, covers approximately one point one million acres of the range. The Cloud Peak Wilderness, designated in nineteen eighty-four, protects the highest terrain, including dozens of alpine lakes carved by Pleistocene glaciers that finished their work here roughly twelve thousand years ago. The lakes drain into Tongue River and the headwaters of the Bighorn River, which flow east and north respectively, watering the basin below.

The Medicine Wheel, a circular stone structure atop Medicine Mountain in the Bighorns, is one of the most significant Native sacred sites in North America. Its twenty-eight spokes and outer ring of stones are estimated to be at least five hundred years old. Several alignments in the structure correspond to solar and astronomical events. At least five tribes consider it sacred and maintain active ceremonial relationships with the site today. It is co-managed by the Forest Service and tribal representatives.