Hiking the Bighorn Mountains: Firebox Park via Bud Love Wildlife Habitat Management

Just six miles northwest of our month-long home base in Buffalo, WY lies the Bud Love Wildlife Habitat Management Area. Created in 1970 to provide crucial winter habitat for big game species, it also has an excellent trail for summer hiking or horseback riding.

We hiked about three miles up a canyon alongside pretty North Sayles Creek, among striking sandstone formations of many colors, to large meadows overshadowed by massive rock formations with views further into the Bighorns. Though we turned around in the meadows, one could continue hiking well into Bighorn National Forest from here.

Sandstone ridges jut dramatically out of the meadow.

With all the rain this spring and early summer the grasses are a vibrant green and very tall...
we worried about snakes but did not encounter any.
Our trail goes right up the canyon in front of Hans.

More enormous, jagged sandstone slabs.

The trail climbed the sides of the canyon and took us up to a wonderful viewpoint.
A huge red sandstone ridge capped the opposite canyon wall.

We could also see down into the valley where we started the hike.

The trail continued on up the narrow canyon.

We crossed North Sayles Creek several times.

At one point we popped out of the trees to see giant layers of sandstone ridges overhead.

At the top of the canyon we emerged onto a meadow.

Looking back more sandstone ridges guarded the canyon opening and a view to the plains beyond.

As we rose across the meadow we could see more massive sandstone formations poking out of the hillside ahead.

Looking back into our canyon...

And looking ahead at the cows dwarfed by the exposed sandstone.

This enormous ridge of rock just grabbed our attention!

Cows hang out by giant sandstone boulders.

We decided to turn around after three miles, once we reached the high point of the meadow.

Both coming and going we had to navigate through and around many cows!

Back near the trailhead the sandstone was well lit by the end of our hike.

Hans wades through the meadow.

A view back to the canyon we hiked as we drove out.

This guy hitched a ride on our windshield!

There is not much written about this particular trail, but it is well used by the locals. If you do a search on: firebox park bud love, you will find an excerpt from the book Hiking Wyoming's Cloud Peak Wilderness. The book is fairly old but the directions offered are accurate.

Hiking the Bighorn Mountains: Long Lake

Long Lake is another beautiful subalpine lake in the Bighorn Mountains less than 20 miles West of our home base for the month in Buffalo, WY. We reached the Oliver Creek Trail head via a road that was pretty rough in spots, a high clearance vehicle is recommended.

This hike was somewhat easier than our last two hikes in these mountains; it was "only" about seven miles round trip and "only" about 1,000 feet of elevation gain...but we did have to contend with lots of cows (and their byproducts) and cow trails interfering with actual trail!

We chose to park up on the bluff overlooking our trailhead, instead of making the drop down to the creek.

Here's a picture of the actual end of road/start of trail (taken at the end of the hike).

Off we go across the meadow...

Several times we came upon cows...we got so caught up in pushing this group ahead of us that we missed our turn.
Though we may have missed the turn because the meadow and the cow trails were obliterating the actual trail.
Fortunately, once again, we had the NatGeo Cloud Peak Wilderness map to help us get back on course.

The trail took us up to a ridge and the elevation and terrain change brought all sorts of pleasant changes...
like ripe strawberries!

...and pretty flowers!

Long Lake did not disappoint.

But even more fun was following the glacial rock deposits down stream from the lake.
That's Hans rock hopping at center of photo.

Oliver Creek made an appearance through the rocks and provided a perfect spot for lunch and lounging,

The water flowing off the surface of the lake was not too cold.

And we saw several small trout darting among the rocks.

On the way back down we had pretty views over the tops of young lodgepole pine growing back from the 1988 Lost Fire.

And more delicious strawberries!

We seemed to be hiking through a Christmas tree farm!

I think this is a Hairy Woodpecker.

On this day we only saw three other people, two were camped at the trailhead, one was fishing at Long Lake. In general, we've found the Bighorn Mountains to be lightly traveled, one of the reasons we chose to spend a month in this area. Another great day on the trail!

Day Trips From Buffalo, WY: Story and Dry Creek Petrified Trees

Just 20 miles North of our month-long home base in Buffalo, WY is the small hamlet of Story. Less than 1,000 people call Story home, and there are very few businesses but the beauty of the area is worth the drive. Along the way are historical sites such as Fort Phil Kearny, the Wagon Box Fight Site and the Fetterman Battlefield, details about these sites can be found here.

Not in the mood for war history on this day, we chose to visit the Story Fish Hatchery. Unlike the DC Booth Fish Hatchery we recently visited in Spearfish, SD, the Story Hatchery is currently a brood stock hatchery.

Originally built in 1909 to serve the needs of Northern Wyoming, in 2005 a group of fish was found to have a parasite that causes whirling disease, a disease known to affect wild trout. All the Story fish had to be destroyed and since the parasite cannot be transmitted to eggs, changes were made to the facilities to turn it into a brood stock only facility.

Today five different brood stocks are raised to egg bearing age and spawned for egg collection. Four to six million eggs are collected each year, serving Wyoming's hatchery needs first, then trading with other states for fish that cannot be raised in Wyoming, such as catfish, walleye and bass.

There is a small but informative visitor center at the hatchery and you can feed the fish in the brood stock pond.

Most of the buildings are off limits so you get to read interpretive signs instead.

About half a mile from the hatchery is the Story Penrose Trailhead. In the summer it is a popular ATV trail but we lucked out and never saw or heard a single ATV during our hike up three miles of the trail. It's a beautiful hike up into the mountains above Story and is known as a wildflower hot spot.

The trail is a steady but reasonable uphill that soon provides excellent views over Story below
and out to the rolling plains beyond.

Flower strewn hillsides dotted with colorful rock formations provided distraction from the continuous uphill walk.

About two miles up we came to a gorgeous meadow watched over by impressive rock spires.

Beebalm covered meadow with a view.

One of the benefits of our short-term Buffalo YMCA membership is learning of things to do in the area from the locals. To round out or day trip to Story we made the drive a loop and visited the Ucross Foundation. The Foundation occupies the historic Powder River Basin headquarters of the Pratt & Ferris Cattle Company built in 1882, presents conferences on conservation and other topics relevant to the region and provides facilities for an artist-in-residence program.

The drive to Ucross took us out into the rolling plains that stretch to the horizon to the East, quintessential Wyoming.

The Ucross Foundation sits at the confluence of three creeks and the grounds are stunning,
truly an inspiration for the artists who get to reside here temporarily.

The big red barn houses a conference center and gallery.

Another morning we took a short drive to the Dry Creek Petrified Tree site, about 13 miles southeast of Buffalo and in the plains. About 60 million years ago this sagebrush country was jungle-like, receiving about 50 inches of rain per year. Metasequoia trees stood 100 - 200 feet tall. Over time they were buried with very wet sand and mud, soaking the wood, and minerals settled into the trunks, then crystallized and hardened, turning the wood into rock.

Most of the Metasequoia trees are preserved as stumps and branchless trunks.
As erosion over the years uncovers more stumps it is possible there are many more underground in this area.

Here we can see some of the growth rings.
Some of these stumps were 800 - 1,000 years old when they were buried.

The Bighorn Mountains peak over the sage covered hills far to our West.

On the drive back to our RV park we took another road which brought us to a BLM site called Red Horse. Although it seems to be an area for seasonal hunting it gave us an opportunity to do a little more walking among these beautiful sage hills.

Hans stands next to some scoria...the red buttes in this area once had coal beds in them. As erosion exposes the coal beds to air, they burn. Heat from the underground fires changed the soft shale in the hillsides to scoria.

Under the green grass and sage is the red earth of scoria. The rocky tops of some of the hills are scoria.

Driving any distance through the hills in this area you are very likely to see pronghorn and/or deer.
This handsome pronghorn seemed to pose just for me!

Female and young pronghorn among scoria topped hills.