Hike up Cottonwood Canyon at the base of the Bighorns

What a lovely hike that I highly recommend.  Cottonwood Creek is one of several canyons on the western side of the Bighorns.  The turnoff is just past the bridge over the reservoir on U.S. Highway 14 Alt.  This is the Little Mountain Travel Management area on BLM lands.  A newish looking campground, equipped with nice [...]

An afternoon hike in April

The snows are melting, early, and we don’t seem to be getting our usual spring wet dump of moisture.  These spring snows are what the eastern side of the Absarokas depend upon for their real moisture.  The winter snows are dry, while these spring snows put a lot of moisture into the ground.  But the [...]

Frank revisited

I’m going to revisit an old post about Frank Hammitt.  In my previous post I told the story of how old Frank really died.  Frank Hammitt worked for the Forest Service even before there were rangers around here.  There’s a nice stone memorial with a plaque by Antelope butte.  Stories abound.  He was in a [...]

Frank Hammitt Memorial 1869-1903

I’m here to set the record straight.  And although a page on the Shoshone Forest Service website has it correct, I’ve heard a lot of tall tales since I’ve been here about what exactly happened to Frank Hammitt, one of the first forest rangers in Sunlight. If you see Antelope butte from Dead Indian pass, its [...]

Hike into the bowels of the Clark’s Fork Canyon

    We are going to hike into that canyon in the photo below.  From this photo you can see the mighty Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone, the only wild and scenic river in Wyoming, unrunnable.  To the left you can make out Sunlight falls, where Sunlight creek meets the great river.  What you can’t [...]

Windy Mountain

The hike to Windy is not long, but an uphill climb.  You can drive the 4 wheel dirt road to a parking area, which cuts out a few miles.  But for some reason I hadn’t yet hiked to the top…either there was still snow, or it was too hot, or the bears were using it [...]

More BLM thoughts and Jack Turner’s new book

I just love Jack Turner’s writing.  He hasn’t written much, but the stuff he does write is great.  His easy style of writing weaves a lot of good facts, ecological outrage, and story detail.  I’ve just finished his new book “Travels in the Greater Yellowstone”.  Each chapter explores a different area of the ecosystem, either [...]

An Open Letter to the BLM

I decided to publish my letter to the Bureau of Land Management regarding its draft resource management plan.  This is the plan that will determine use for the next 20 YEARS!  Twenty years these days is a very long time, and so many changes will happen that are unforseeable. The Basin is huge, extending from [...]

15 Mile Basin and the BLM Plan

There is a struggle going on over our federal lands in the Bighorn Basin.  The Bureau of Land Management is taking public comments on their new draft-plan.  This plan will set the guidelines for the next 20 years of land use.  And the struggle, as I see it, is between immediate short-term gratification and greed, [...]

Goodbye to a long Winter

The snows are melting and although Sunlight creek is still not in the spring run-off phase, you can feel the weather breaking. Last night it snowed lightly, but today its raining.  It’s a slow warm-up, but it’s coming.  My old neighbor who grew up in this valley tells me this was a normal winter in [...]