A journey to the Big Horn Mountains

My wife, Celia, during her long exile to Tennessee, longed to see the Big Horn Mountains, and so this last Sunday, we got in our Suburban and went east.

It was warming rapidly in Worland when we left, and I recall that the temperature just outside the city was 88. Soon we arrived at the hill overlooking Ten Sleep, and, as always, the view of the Ten Sleep Valley as we came down into the town was inspiring. But the town was crowded, especially at the Pony Express. Vehicles were backed up to get into the store and the gas station. We wanted to get some ice cream, however, but having done that we quickly headed up the mountain.

We found lots of folks on the mountain. Along one stretch of the upper part of Ten Sleep Canyon I counted 38 cars likely driven by climbers, people attracted to the area by the opportunity to climb the rocky walls of the canyon. And then when we took some side roads above Meadowlark Lake, we found folks camped out at all sorts of odd places. We didn’t go up the West Lake road, but I’m pretty sure it was stuffed with campers.

But the mountain itself is still lush; “verdant” is a word I’d use. That will change in a few weeks, but, for now, the Big Horn Mountains remain the cool and welcoming retreat we all know and appreciate. As you drive east from Meadowlark Lake, though, the altitude rises so rapidly that you suddenly go from solid forest to alpine tundra, country much like the lands above the Arctic Circle. But I noticed one interesting anomaly. Just north of Powder River Pass (I think it’s north; at least it’s to the left as you go toward Buffalo), there’s a craggy rise, going maybe 300 or 400 feet above the pass. This is rough stuff, but just below the top of this rise there’s a little stand of timber, a tiny oasis of Hudsonian flora. It just radiates with a healthy green, but it’s all alone, surrounded by jumbles of rocks.

We turned off at the parking area at the pass and walked around a bit. It was no longer 88 degrees. It was 63 and the wind was strong, so strong that after a little while Celia retreated to the Suburban, declaring, “it’s cold.”

The traffic was heavy coming down the mountain, and we plunked along behind a pickup pulling a big trailer. That was all right; we were in no hurry. When we arrived back in the Ten Sleep area, it was clear that the wind had picked up considerably. The temperature had also fallen; it was in the 70s.

It appeared that a frontal system was coming through, I’m sure the same system that was sponsoring the wind at Powder River Pass. And when we drove from Ten Sleep to Worland, we really encountered heavy winds. A Suburban is a high profile vehicle and I slowed down, worried that the wind might be so strong as to push us off the road. Despite fighting the stiff cross-wind, we did remain on the road, however, and I noticed some very high vehicles – bus-like RVs and small trucks pulling big trailers – that were managing, albeit not very rapidly. I was glad I wasn’t pulling one of those big trailers in the wind.

We got home safely, and Celia pronounced the trip a success, a welcome and full dose of the Big Horn Mountains she had missed so much in Nashville.

John Davis was raised in Worland, graduating from W. H. S. in 1961. John began practicing law here in 1973 and is mostly retired. He is the author of several books.