A Wyoming Memoir Chapter 2: The mountain remembers

My father tried to teach me to fly fish on the North Tongue River. He made it look effortless. His bamboo rod came alive in his hands, casting with grace and precision. In mine, it seemed stubborn and uncooperative. He filled the creel with brook trout while I gave up learning how to fly fish and turned to skipping rocks and swatting mountain flies and mosquitoes.

On our way back to Lovell recently, as we passed the Porcupine Campground I had visions of the camping trips, fishing days and scaling granite rock cliffs. There is a small pond at the ranger station located near Porcupine where I took my young grandchildren to fish. While the mosquitoes are horrendous the fishing is easy, a place where kids can actually catch a fish. 

A short distance west is the famous Medicine Wheel. When I was a boy there was no fence around the Medicine Wheel. We climbed among the stones without realizing we were walking through one of North America’s oldest sacred sites. To us it was simply another stop on the mountain. Only years later did I understand what it meant to the tribes who had come there for centuries.

As I passed the Medicine Wheel and began the slow drive down the mountain it is impossible to not think of the many trips up and down those beautiful mountains. As the highway dropped toward the basin, the view opened until Yellowstone country, the Beartooths, the Pryors, and the distant Wind River Range seemed to surround the valley like old friends. The turnouts are spectacular; it’s a breathtaking sight to take in.

Approaching the foothills, an old timer can still make out the old Five Springs bridge. One family picnic there in the early 1950s is etched in my mind. My father led me up one of the hills where, as a boy, he had herded his father’s sheep into the summer meadows. Along the way he caught a horned toad and placed it in my hands. I was probably 8 years old and more frightened than fascinated. That afternoon, surrounded by parents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, most of them now gone, I unknowingly lived one of the days that would remain with me.

A short distance down the road is another more memorable old campground named Two Trees. Once, there were actually two trees that marked the spot and inspired the name. Lightning killed one of the trees when I was in high school, and maybe the other received the same treatment at a later date. One prominent landmark is the big black hill that casts a shadow where the campground used to be. That hill was no doubt more popular to the kids than the picnic grounds. Composed of bentonite it is 6-7 hundred feet high with a large embedded stone jutting out near the top. It was quite the steep climb, and there are no handholds, nothing but loose dirt. As kids we felt compelled to climb this hill every visit. I know it took much longer to climb than to come down. We shot straight down with our shoes tucked under us as they acted like miniature skis. From top to bottom in less than a minute. 

Five Springs Creek, having its headwaters at some falls midway up the mountain, makes its way along the bases of these bentonite hills. The water used to be clear and even a drinking water source. Families would keep gallon jugs in the car specifically to stop and fill them at Five Springs. For many people, that water tasted better than anything that came from a faucet. Today, giardia or bacteria can make people quite sick. Just another tradition that has been curtailed by an ever-changing world.

A few miles west of those campgrounds, the Big Horn River feeds the Yellowtail Reservoir (Big Horn Lake). As I drove across that river, I recalled how the area looked in the 1950s. The river seemed smaller, not nearly as rowdy as it used to be. There were times when small speed boats would compete where the bridge crossed. There were farms and ranches where acres of water now make up the lake. Many of my friends and classmates lived and farmed where the lake resides. If you stood on the bridge before Yellowtail Dam, you could look north and know that in just a few miles the river disappeared into one of the deepest canyons in the Rockies. Today, that entire reach, from the bridge site into the canyon, is beneath the southern end of Big Horn Lake.

My dad and several other men floated the canyon before Yellowtail Dam backed up the river. They camped overnight along the way and finished the trip the following day. To my knowledge, no photographs or journals remain. The story survives only because they told it.

Not to be compared to the Grand Canyon, the Big Horn Canyon was still majestic, and even today, peering off one of the lookouts one can easily see that it once was a very deep, steep canyon.

On the northeast side of the river bridge and stretching further north was thought to be an Indian campground. Whether it was or not it’s undeniable that a successful hunt would turn up artifacts and arrowheads. I remember seeing tepee rings in that exact area. A rocky, difficult road slashed its way from the river and to the mouth of Cottonwood Canyon. The Bishoff Cabin sitting at the canyon’s mouth holds untold memories for many of the 1950s and 1960s youth. Built by the famous Bishoff ranching family, that cabin served most of the community at one time or another. Everything from hunting trips to scout camps and more occurred at that cabin. It’s more than just a point of interest.

Richard Stevens is a 1961 graduate of Lovell High School. He and his wife, Susan, live in Granville, Ohio.