The Wonderful Absaroka Front

This is an area I’d been to several times before.  A trail runs along the Absaroka front, and maintained trails around the Absarokas are unusual to find in general, let alone ones that are marked with cairns.  I was surprised at the height of the cairns, considering this is Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. [...]

The Cave

Everyday spring flirts with the valley.  The last two days it snowed during the night, then melted off by noon.  Today was a glorious day with a bite in the air.  I awoke early to finish planting the 60 pine and fir liners (Thank God!  I’ve planted thousands of plants in my lifetime, but none [...]

East of Yellowstone lies the Absarokas–Crow Country

East of Yellowstone lies the Absarokas, the Big Horn Basin, and the Big Horns.  To the southeast lie the Wind Rivers.  These were the original lands of the Crow peoples.  This is where I live. Below is a wonderful quote from a Crow Indian chief about 200 years ago.  If you stay here, you are [...]

The Past and the Present

You might say that I’m living a life many of my friends would call simple and rustic.  My cabin is small, I’m surrounded by rugged mountains, I hike and live around grizzlies and wolves.  The dangers I have to stay aware of are not car break-ins or being mugged on a dark street, but being [...]

Wikiups, cattle and a few hundred years

This is not going to look like much, but there’s a story here. This summer I contacted the Forest Service archaeologist.  The forest service is planning on doing logging and burning in the valley for beetle damage.  Since our stream is on forest service land, and is a sensitive area, I didn’t want logging done [...]

The Totem

I know or have heard of many people declaring that their totem animal is one of the strong, impressive mammals–the wolf, the bear, the cougar, the lynx.  Why are so many of the small animals ignored as a totem?  For instance, Plenty Coups, the last chief of the Crow Indians, had a vision in which [...]

The babies and Medicine Lodge Park

Here are the baby bluebirds several days ago.  Now here they are today.  Boy do they grow fast. Last week I took a trip to Medicine Lodge State park near Hyattville.  A well-tended State Park, the spot is an oasis in the Big Horn Basin.  This site was excavated in the 70′s by George Frison.  [...]

Chief Plenty Coups and his vision quest

This January I had a mind stopping moment.  I’d picked up a copy of the autobiography of Chief Plenty Coups by Frank Linderman.  The Chief of the Crow Indians was over 80 years old when he relayed, by sign and through an interpreter, the story of his life to Linderman, a white man whom he [...]

Mystery of the Sacred

I’d been wanting to see a series of pictographs in the desert nearby.  So the other day my friend took me out to see them.  The hike is about 6 miles round trip.  The trip out there is through flat sagebrush country.  For a long ways it doesn’t seem like there’s anything of interest.  Then [...]

Tipi Rings

I thought I’d do a short post on a few teepee rings I’ve seen.  The other day I was in Cody with some time to kill.  I’d heard there were tipi rings on the north side of the Shoshone river by Trail Creek.  A friend told me the historical wisdom-lore was that many tribes gathered [...]