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.
Find Solitude
Robert Frost never ventured here, but there are plenty of less-traveled trails for day hikers to sample. The three-mile Bucking Mule Falls Trail (#053) is just such a trail; it sees few hiking boots and is an easy to moderate hike. Take FR 14 to the end and you'll find the trailhead. Another lonesome trail is the two-mile Black Mountain Lookout Trail (#011), which delivers you to a fire lookout. Get there via FR 16, or, if you've got a 4WD jalopy, try FR 222. If you've got the time, consider hiking the 53-mile Solitude Loop (#038), which circumnavigates the Cloud Peak Wilderness. It should take you five to seven days to complete. Unlike the others, this trail sees heavy hiking traffic.
More on hiking in Bighorn National Forest
Hike into the Clouds
Most of Cloud Peak Wilderness is above timberline, so expect a rocky landscape of jagged peaks, echoing cirques, alpine lakes, and U-shaped canyons. The wilderness is home to black bear, mountain lion, elk, and mule deer. Numerous trails penetrate the wilderness and can be accessed at the Battle Creek Trailhead and the West Tensleep Lake Trailhead.
Catch Your Dinner
You can tangle with trout on the North Tongue River, where the waters host rainbow, brook, brown, and Snake River cutthroat. The South Tongue is also good fishing, but you won't hook any Snake River cutthroat. Or try the Little Bighorn River for an honest chance at landing Yellowstone cutthroat, along with the brook, brown, and rainbow. For added incentive, pack a frying pan, a small vial of cooking oil, and a few cloves of garlic.
Ski Wyoming Powder
Antelope Butte, just off U.S. Highway 14 near Dayton, offers 19 downhill runs with easy beginner runs like Mickey Mouse, Thumper, and the Enchanted Forest, along with daredevil double-black diamonds like Buffalo Jump and the Falls. The longest run rambles for a respectable one and a half miles. Snowboarders may want to head over to Bighorn Mountain Resort located off US Highway 16, where they can board on half-pipes, tabletops, rails, snowboard cliffs, and a terrain garden.
Drive the Skyway
The Cloud Peak Skyway (U.S. Highway 14) is 45 miles of nonstop, intoxicating views of the southern Bighorn's snowy crags that will delight the most jaded scenery buff. Begin in either the town of Buffalo or Tensleep—the vistas are spectacular in either direction—but whatever you do we recommend you pull over at Hospital Hill, Powder Pass, Meadow Lark Lake, and Tensleep Canyon. Other great motoring includes the 25-mile Medicine Wheel Passage (U.S. Highway 14A) from Big Horn Basin to Burgess Junction and the 45-mile Bighorn Scenic Byway (U.S. Highway 14), which links Sheridan and Greybull, Wyoming.
Visit Custer's Last Stand
History buffs finding themselves this close to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument won't be able to resist a side track. The monument marks the site of the June 25, 1876, battle between General George Custer's U.S. Army Seventh Cavalry and bands of Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors. Located in Crow Agency, Montana, the monument is about 100 miles from the forest's Burgess Junction Visitor Center in Buffalo, Wyoming.
