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Bighorn National Forest
Wyoming

Bighorn National Forest in north-central Wyoming may approximate New York's Long Island in size, but the comparisons stop right there. The names given to the forest's landforms tell you all you need to know: canyons called Devil and Crazy Woman, peaks dubbed Black Tooth and Cloud. This is a wild, high, rugged place.

Deep canyons formed by powerful thrust faults penetrate both the eastern and western edges of the forest. Jagged peaks jut to 13,000 feet and above. Forests of lodgepole and ponderosa pine mantle the lower reaches.

Tensleep Canyon on US Rt. 16 Leigh Creek campground
Tensleep Canyon on US Rt. 16 Leigh Creek campground

For such a remote location, Bighorn has seen an outsized share of American history played out within its borders. Some of America's most famous pioneers explored this mountain wilderness, including Jim Bridger, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and Buffalo Bill. It is land held sacred by the Cheyenne, Crow, Sioux, Arapaho, and Eastern Cheyenne Indians — a land of spilled blood on which Native Americans fought some of their most desperate battles against the U.S. military.


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