Sunday, 26 – Friday 31 July 2015

Camping the Southern End of Big Horn Mountains

After spending several great days in Cheyenne and Casper, we continued our trek north. Our destination was Ft. Smith, MT and the Big Horn Canyon National Recreational Area where we plan to do some serious fly fishing. However, on our way we passed through the southern end of the Big Horn Mountains (following US Hwy 16 from west to east). Since we had some spare time before we were due in Ft. Smith, we decided to camp a few days in these mountains. We were most pleased we did!

Temperatures up in the mountains were in the mid-70s during the day and mid-to-low 40s at night. Our hearts really went out to you folks back in Texas! We spent 6 days and 7 nights in the mountains, camping in several different areas.

Editor’s Note: While in the mountains we had no Internet or Cell service. This is why there were the gaps between our various postings for Cheyenne and Casper.

While we can’t share all of our special moments with you, here are a few.

Our first camping area was called West Ten Sleep. We camped by a beautiful meadow and creek (pronounced Krek by the locals). We got our first bit of fishing here, catching some small, but very feisty rainbow trout. Walking up to the creek, we had an encounter with a yearling moose no more than 50 feet away. She didn’t bother us and we stayed clear of her. As we were fishing, a good sized mule deer ambles across the stream about 20 feet from us, obviously not concerned by us 2 leggers. When we drive out of this area we spotted a really good sized bull moose off the road a pace or two (this is the one in the photograph.)

Our next stop was Sheep Mountain Firetower. We did not camp here, but drove up a pretty rough road until prudence dictated we should stop. We parked the truck and hiked the rest of the 2 ½ miles to the firetower. There were some really neat views from the tower. We also discovered the forestry rents out the firetower! Peering inside, we saw beds, a stove, gas lights and plenty of wood. Even a pair of binocular! Talk about remote camping.

We then drove Crazy Woman Creek road. We had been told there was some pretty good fishing here. The drive down a very steep and rocky road (Meriam kept asking me “Are you sure we can get back out of here!” ) and came across one of the most pleasant and peaceful campsites we have ever encountered. We camped several nights here, enjoying complete solitude, no noise (except for the creek running right next to us). We again caught some small rainbow and brown trout. We really did not want to leave this place!

As mentioned previously, we then departed for “big game” trout fishing in the Big Horn Canyon River.

Harold and Meriam