The history of the American West is full of accounts of explorers and travelers – trekkers, if you will – who were looking for the easiest and quickest routes from point A to point B, very often not an easy task in the rugged mountain and canyon lands of the Rocky Mountains.
From the earliest days, travelers looked for routes through the mountains offering relative ease of travel, routes able to be traversed on foot and, later, on horseback, routes with water and game.
There was a network of trails throughout the northern Rockies, and one of the most prominent was the Bad Pass Trail, which ran along the western edge of the Big Horn Canyon and was used for thousands of years, first by Paleo-Indians, later by Plains Indian tribes and finally by mountain men looking to move beaver pelts from the wilds of what would later become Wyoming to St. Louis.
Native people used the Bad Pass for more than 11,000 years, said Chris Finley, an archaeologist and historian at the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. The trail was part of a larger network of interconnecting trails in the region but was certainly one of the more prominent trails because it was well marked with rock cairns.
Some of those ancient cairns can still be seen in the national recreation area to this day.
“We’re finding cultural remains of groups identified as being over 11,000 years old,” Finley said. “The oldest intact or insitu (in place) evidence is from the early Archaic Period (5,000 to 8,000 years before present).
“We’re finding a lot of stuff 11,000 years old. I’m assuming the area was utilized and that people were using that trail as a corridor and possibly for winter campsites. They were staying here for extended periods during the winter and we’ve found evidence of big game procurement strategies like animal traps, buffalo jumps and drive lines.”
Early in the 18th century, fur trappers began using the Bad Pass Trail and many other trails and water routes as they developed the fur trade of the American West, but it is difficult to ascertain who used the trail and when because most of the mountain men didn’t keep journals and many of them couldn’t write.
According to information available at the Bighorn Canyon NRA Cal S. Taggart Visitor Center near Lovell, the first documented description of the mouth of Big Horn Canyon was written on Aug. 31, 1805, by Francois Antoine Larocque, who was working for the Northwest Company at the time.
In his journal, Larocque wrote: “The river is broad, deep and clear water, strong courrant (sic), bed stone and gravel.” About a half mile above his camp, Larocque wrote that the Big Horn River passed between two huge rocks and lost “2/3 of its breadth but gains proportionally in depth. Larocque climbed the east wall of the canyon and wrote later that, “it is aweful (sic) to behold and makes one giddy to look down upon the river. From his vantage point, he wrote, the river appeared to be “quite narrow” and flowed with “great rapidity immediately under our feet, so that I did not dare to look down (until) I could find a stone behind which I could keep and, looking over it, see the foaming water without danger of falling in.”
Larocque apparently did not venture into the canyon because of the sheer rock walls. Also, perhaps relevant to legends that have persisted to modern times, the Crow Indians told Larocque, according to National Park Service historian Edwin C. Bearss’ history of Big Horn Canyon, that about 30 to 40 miles upstream in Big Horn Canyon there could be found a waterfall where a Manitou (spirit) lived. This Manitou took the form of a werewolf, Larocque reported, “dwelling in the falls and raising out of it to devour any man or beast that approached,” Bearss wrote. “As the werewolf was invulnerable to bullets, it could not be slain.”
Then in 1807, two members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition – the Corps of Discovery – joined up with the Manuel Lisa expedition to establish trade with the tribes along the Yellowstone River. Departing from Fort Raymond, also called Manuel’s Fort, at the mouth of the Big Horn River, John Colter and George Drouillard were sent by Lisa in the fall of 1807 to make contact with tribes in the region. Colter made his well-known journey through the Big Horn Basin and into the Teton and Yellowstone country in 1807-08, while Drouillard also explored the Big Horn Basin during that time, making two trips into the Basin.
On Drouillard’s first trip in 1807, according to the history written by Bearss, Drouillard visited a Crow village at the confluence of the Shoshone River and the Big Horn and another village opposite the mouth of Sage Creek just north of Lovell. Drouillard estimated the population of the two villages at 280 lodges, or around 2,240 individuals – about the population of present day Lovell.
Some documented accounts of the Lisa expedition note that Drouillard may have used the Bad Pass. But Finley believes that Colter, also, may well have used the Bad Pass Trail – the most direct and well-established trail into the Big Horn Basin – rather than going through Pryor Gap, as many accounts have stated.
Many other mountain men used the Bad Pass Trail over the years, among them Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith, Andrew Henry, Thomas Fitzpatrick and Bill Sublette, according to the Park Service.

Today, power boats zoom up and down the Big Horn Lake pulling water skiers and seeing sights in Big Horn Canyon and many side canyons that few people had seen as recently as 50 years ago. Indeed, the Big Horn Canyon was truly one of the last frontiers of the lower 48 states, rarely penetrated until well into the 20th century.
Finley has become interested in the first trips through the Big Horn Canyon itself, not just the many journeys on the Bad Pass Trail above, and he and the Park Service staff have provided many articles about the various expeditions.
Although some written histories of the canyon state that some tribes feared and avoided the canyon, believing it to be possessed by evil spirits such as the Manitou told to Larocque, Finley said the Native Americans certainly ventured down into the canyon, and he said there is evidence of habitation in the canyon.
The first mountain man documented to have actually run the length of Big Horn Canyon, Finley said, was Jim Bridger, who in 1825 was with William Ashley’s party as they moved beaver pelts to St. Louis. After the 1825 Rendezvous on Henry’s Fork of the Green River in what would become southwest Wyoming, more than 2,000 pelts had to be transported to St. Louis. William Ashley transported the pelts to the Yellowstone River and the Missouri via the Bad Pass Trail, but Bridger, a member of the Ashley party, decided to navigate Big Horn Canyon on the water.
According to the book “Jim Bridger” by J. Cecil Alter, Bridger built a raft of driftwood and “ventured a pilot voyage” through Big Horn Canyon in late July or early August. “He succeeded, unwittingly performing a feat never equaled in western travel annals except by General Ashley’s descent of the Green,” Alter wrote.
An account by Capt. W.F. Raynolds in 1859 described what Bridger saw during his trip of 34 years earlier, according to Alter: “His descriptions of the grandeur of the scenery along its banks are glowing and remarkable. He portrays a series of rugged canyons, the river foaming among jagged rocks, between lofty overhanging precipices, whose threatening arches shut out all sunlight; interspersed with narrow valleys, teeming with luxuriant verdure, through whose pleasant banks the stream flows as placidly as in its broad valley below.”
Bridger warned others in the Ashley party to not attempt the canyon voyage he had just accomplished, such was the harrowing nature of the journey.
Although the Bad Pass Trail continued to be used by fur traders over the next 15 years, a decline in the fur industry led to a steep decline in traffic on the Bad Pass, which faded in importance. Accordingly, no other brave souls are known to have attempted to float the Big Horn through the canyon until more than 65 years later.

It may seem hard to believe, since Big Horn Canyon had been known for decades to be practically impassable, but in the late 19th century the canyon was considered for a railroad route by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, and a party of surveyors was sent into the canyon in March of 1891 to ascertain the feasibility of such a venture.
A man associated with that surveying crew, Edward Gillette, took the opportunity of the surveying expedition to conduct his own exploration of the canyon, traveling the length of the canyon north from the Crooked Creek area on foot since much of the river was frozen during that part of the winter.
Gillette well knew the reputation of the rugged canyon. In his own detailed written account of the trip, Gillette wrote (always spelling “canyon” as “canon”): “This canon was probably the last one in the United States to be explored throughout its entire length, the main reason for this being that the walls at the head and foot of the canon were practically impassable, and that the walls on either side of the river formed a true box canon for the greater part of its distance.”
As he made his way through the Crow Indian Reservation, Gillette obtained from the Crows as much information as he could about the canyon, and the report was as follows, he later wrote: “That it was a box canon with numerous falls and rapids; that no one had ever been through it; and that the few who had ventured to make the trip had perished in the attempt.”
Gillette camped on Crooked Creek and met legendary character Frank Sykes, who had recently moved to the area. He also met N.S. Sharpe, a prospector he had known in the Black Hills. Both offered to make the trip with Gillette, but he chose Sharpe, since he knew him, but he asked Sykes to “look us up if we did not return in about 10 days.”
The men fashioned a sled of cottonwood poles bearing blankets for bedding, provisions for six or seven days, rifles and surveying instruments. Although it was still the late winter, Gillette and Sharpe found open water from time to time, and Gillette worried about suddenly warmer weather causing snow to melt and flood the canyon.
“As we journeyed down the canon, keeping a sharp lookout for air holes in the ice and glancing at the vertical walls of limestone on either side, we began to realize that we were in the box canyon of the Big Horn River, the terrors of which had been so often repeated us to the measure that ‘no one had ever gone through the canon alive.’
“The talus being washed away at the entrance, as well as at the mouth of the canon, ‘no admittance’ stares the pedestrian in the face, no matter from which end he may approach the gorge; and should he succeed in passing these gateways it would only be to come to grief at some vertical wall extending to the bottom of the river, while the stream is making good time down a rapid. This probably is the reason that the canon has not been explored up to this time.”
Having passed under some overhanging cliffs, Gillette wrote: “We seemed to be in an immense shed with the roof extending over us and hundreds of feet above.”
At the state line, Gillette and Sharpe came upon the survey party “engaged in running a preliminary line in the canon, to determine its practicability for a railroad.” As the men struggled to perform their survey work, Gillette noted their predicament, noting, “The men were apparently but a short distance above the river; however, when we had climbed up to them and looked down, we realized that a tumble might result disastrously.
“The transit was set up on the side of the cliff, with one leg of the tripod nearly parallel to the plumb line, while the transit man was barely able to maintain his position on the narrow shelving rocks; a misstep of an inch would have precipitated him to the hard boulders, seventy feet below. The chainmen made their way around almost vertical cliffs, hanging on with fingers and toes, and as we gazed at them we thought, there is no room here for the fellow who usually ‘coons’ a dangerous place.”
The canyon walls were about 600 feet high at that point, rising to 1,000 feet at the mouth of Devil’s Canyon, Gillette wrote. Devil’s Canyon, he wrote, “carries quite a stream of water from the gold camp at Bald Mountain, and this stream, as if competing with the main canon, has formed a grand canon of its own.”
Gillette wrote about the Sentinel, a tall pillar of limestone, as well as many side streams “forming formidable canons of their own,” “innumerable” waterfalls 500 feet or more in height, a food ford and game trail out of the canyon at what would later be called Barry’s Landing, gold “in paying quantities” at the mouths of streams from both the east and west, a point of rocks he named the Towers, “knife edge” side canyons, portages around rapids, Dry Head Canyon, Bull Elk Creek, towers and pinnacles “on a grander scale than Yellowstone Canon forming a castellated structure of surpassing grandeur and beauty,” a band of bighorn sheep and Black Canyon, just below which Gillette and Sharpe found the steepest rapids of the river.
“Where Black Canon empties its stream into the river a whirlpool was formed and large cakes of ice were being drawn into the vortex and disappeared from view,” Gillette wrote.
After finally making their way out of the canyon on the north end, Gillette and Sharpe returned to the south by way of the Bad Pass and met Sykes along the way. He had been looking for them on horseback.
Gillette was thrilled by his expedition and rendered as grand a description of Big Horn Canyon as any tourist publication could offer up:
“The Grand Canon of the Colorado is an immense chasm, so broad as to remind one of a wide valley. The Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River is magnificent for a short distance only, and the stream is small, while the Yellowstone Canon is awe-inspiring and gorgeously colored for a comparatively brief space.
“Big Horn Canon, however, combines all these features with that of a true box canon and such features as the overhanging cliffs are not to be found elsewhere, to my knowledge. As a canon it is the most satisfactory of any I have visited in this country or Alaska.”

Once the word got out that there were no waterfalls on the Big Horn River itself in the canyon, other parties made their way through the canyon by boat. Writing his article a few years later, Gillette noted T.E. Calvert and M.W. Ensign of “the Burlington (railroad)” and a little later W.G. Griffen, James P. and Thomas Robinson and J.W. Newell of Sheridan in 1893, followed by Garret and Alexander Forbes of Boston in 1903.
That Sheridan expedition of Griffen, Newell and the Robinsons was made in August of 1893 and was described in intricate detail in a series of four articles written by J.W. Newell, in collaboration with W.G. (Wellen George) Griffen, and printed in the Sheridan Post on Dec. 17, 24 and 31, 1922, and Jan. 7, 1923.
That series of four articles, as well as other writings about the trip by Newell, can be found on Ancestry.com at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wyoming/ar-bhcanyon1.htm.
The series starts with the headline “Sheridan men win gamble with death in canyon trip” along with the sub-head “Four pioneers in small boat accomplish feat equaled but once since in a 30-year period; W.G. Griffen, James P. and Thomas Robinson and J.W. Newell braved hazards of man-trap, where many had died in vain effort; story of adventure reads like fiction; trip filled with thrilling experiences and narrow escapes.”
At the time of the trip, tales of unsuccessful attempts at traveling through the canyon were legendary, according to Newell, who wrote sensationally: “There had been many stories told and printed to the effect that such a feat was impossible, that several parties of adventurers had started down the river with the avowed purpose of going through or perishing in the attempt, and that not one of them had ever been heard of; that others had been wrecked and stranded on an island where they had remained many weeks, subsisting on such game and fish as they could shoot and catch.
“Still others, according to the stories we heard, had become discouraged by insurmountable obstacles which they had encountered, and returned on foot along the banks and over the tops of the mountains which extended to the water’s edge and terminate in perpendicular stone walls.
“There were even accounts of great falls in the walled portions of the canyon which it was impossible for even a wild animal to pass; of giant whirlpools where every floating object was sucked down, never again coming to the surface. The theory was advanced that there was a sub-aqueous outlet through which everything that came downstream was drawn into the bowels of the earth and deposited in some vast subterranean cavity, the water finding its way out and eventually back into the river through seepage and springs. It was with all these reports in mind, and a determination to ascertain their truth or falsity, that the Sheridan men outfitted and started on what they suppose was a perilous undertaking.”
Using similar, spectacular language, Newell chronicled the trip in four parts. Part I included an account of a bull elk stomping a mountain lion to death in defense of a cow elk before the boat even hit the water, and Part II described the party’s investigation of a sulfur cave just before they reached the canyon.
In Part III, Newell described how the foursome shot the rapids prior to reaching Devil’s Canyon, paralyzed by fear to inaction at first before “a realization of imminent danger brought about a violent reaction.”
“Every man arose to his feet and prepared to make the best fight he could for his life,” Newell wrote. “Then the bow of the boat tipped downward, we could see ahead, and appeared to be entering a dark tunnel at the end of a turbulent rapid. The boat bobbed, jumped, bucked and ‘sunfished’ like an unbroken cow pony. Seizing the long poles, each one exerted his whole strength in guiding the boat and avoiding the many boulders and jagged rocks whose ugly heads appeared above the surface. By almost superhuman efforts we succeeded in avoiding the most dangerous places in the rapid, and the boat soon shot over the last shoal into smooth water.
“The suspense was over, but perspiration streamed down every man’s face. Figuratively speaking, we had ‘sweat blood’ during the past few moments.”
In Part IV, the Newell describes a violent storm howling and screaming through the canyon, and he recalled how Alexander Forbes of Boston, writing after his trip down the canyon in July of 1903, described a strange noise in the canyon.
“As I was walking down one of the sandy beaches on the river’s edge, I heard a howl, beginning at a high pitch and sweeping down into a bass clef. I stopped short and looked around; I could hear nothing but the roar of the river. I took a step backwards and the howl reversed itself, starting low and rising to a high pitch. I then moved back and forth over the same ground and found the noise to be no more than the roar of the river, rising and falling like a siren. It seems the rocks around me formed a sort of sounding board, treating the sound as a prism treats sunlight, placing the tones according to their pitch, the high in one place and the low in another.”
By the turn of the century, plans were already under way to dam the Big Horn River, changing Big Horn Canyon forever, but not before other intrepid souls made the trip down the river.
The Sept. 30, 1916 edition of the Railway Review tells of a project to build a dam at the north end of Big Horn Canyon to produce hydroelectric power. The article describes the various facets of the idea, engineering for the project and the beauty of the canyon.
In discussing the difficulty of surveying the canyon, a project that had been under way for two years at that time, the article notes the inaccessible nature of the canyon, explaining: “Not many years ago it was regarded as next to impossible for one to pass through this canyon alive. No one had been known to accomplish the feat, and several had been drowned in the attempt.
“At a number of points the water in swift, rocky rapids is so rough that only the greatest skill or luck in steering can save a boat from being filled with water or smashed on the rocks. In some instances where logs were observed to pass through certain of these rapids they were carried along in a tumbling motion, end over end.”
The canyon’s reputation was fully intact in 1916.
The railroad article states that the first person to traverse the canyon was said to be a soldier from Fort C.F. Smith in 1868 or before who, to escape pursuing Indians, made the passage on a log. The first to pass through the canyon by boat, the article stated, were T.E. Calvert and William M. Ensign of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, who went down the canyon in a small boat in July of 1891, making portage around some of the worst rapids, on an exploration trip to determine the practicability of extending the railroad through the canyon, much as Edward Gillette had done five months earlier, as noted in the article.
The 1916 article goes on to describe the possible future dam, reservoir, power plant, a possible electrified railroad in the region, a plant to extract nitrogen from the atmosphere, irrigation potential and a railroad line from the dam north to Hardin and on to a point near Custer on the Northern Pacific Railroad.

Around the turn of the century, Dr. G.W. Barry came to the Dry Head Country to try his hand at gold prospecting, homesteading near Trail Creek adjacent to the canyon at what would become known as Barry’s Landing. He eventually established a dredging operation, and although he did recover gold from the operation, it wasn’t enough to keep it running and Barry eventually turned to dude ranching.
Barry established the Cedarvale Dude Ranch at Hillsboro, Mont., and in an effort to promote the new venture, which included boat rides on the Big Horn River, Barry, Claude St. John and Delbert Smith took a trip down Big Horn Canyon on the 18-foot powerboat The Edith, launching from Horseshoe Bend on May 28, 1913.
According to Bearss’ history of the Bighorn Canyon NRA, citing an article from the Red Lodge Picket newspaper on March 10, 1916, the Edith made it through the canyon, the article noting that the boat survived Bull Elk Rapids even though the boat “reeled in her path like a drunken sailor” and made it past Allen’s Rock, named for Dr. Will Allen, who led an expedition through the canyon around the turn of the century that saw the party’s boat shattered, requiring them to finish the journey on foot.
The Picket article also noted that the Edith successfully passed by the Homburg Whirlpool near the mouth of Black Canyon, named for two German boys who had lost their lives trying to pass by the dangerous stretch. The Edith eventually made it all the way to New Orleans six weeks later, and over the years Barry took many guests up and down the river in his motor launches.
Writing in 1916, according to Bearss, Barry stated, “The opinion of all who have made these canyon trips is that it is as fine a trip as one can take anywhere; that ascending the river is sublime and coming down positively thrilling.”
Other treks
One well-known expedition down the canyon took place in August of 1928 in a wooden keelboat featuring Judge Percy W. Metz of Basin, photographer Charles Belden and Carl Dunrud of the Pitchfork Ranch near Meeteetse and Alton Wickwire, who had apparently successfully “dared” the canyon in 1912.
An article in the April 1985 edition of the Western Boatman describes the trip in detail, again making note of those who had died attempting to float the canyon and the belief that Native American tribes avoided the area “because they believed evil spirits inhabited the place.”
“Eerie noises sometimes issued from the place,” the article stated.
The article mentions Bridger’s trip in 1825 and Gillette’s walk in 1891. The article also states that Colter used the Bad Pass during his trip of 1907-08, backing up Finley’s belief.
“Here was a place of mystery, unknown and largely unexplored – the land, they said, that time forgot,” the article stated, adding that Belden, a well-known photographer, was eager to capture the canyon on film.
The four men launched The Spirit of the Pitchfork on Aug. 8 at Basin, stopped at Kane on the second day and then continued into the canyon. The article goes on to describe the 10-day trip.
Judge Metz would scout ahead of the larger boat in a rubber boat he called The Helldiver, shoot the rapids, make his way to the shore and signal directions to the navigators on the Spirit.
“There were close calls, but the keelboat was a stout-hearted craft and met each battle with aplomb,” the article stated.
The party was greeted by Native Americans when they camped at Black Canyon, and the Indians were apparently alarmed with told the men planned to shoot the most dangerous rapids of the river below Black Canyon. They declared that “no one had ever done that and lived” and even tried to hang onto the Spirit to keep it from entering the stream.
With Helldiver going first, followed by the Spirit, both boats survived the plunge down the rapids, where they were greeted by “cheers and a great clamor from the Indians,” the article stated, adding, “Those white men had dared the evil spirits of the canyon and the perils of the wild river and had won.”

Another well-publicized trip down the canyon took place in August of 1949, when five men departed from Greybull in two boats on an expedition to run the rapids and film the trip with a color motion picture camera.
On the trip were Don Weaver and William Roberts of Frannie and Ward King Jr., Thornton Cougill and photographer Bill Greene, all of Greybull. Cougill and Greene had previous experience on the river and had successfully navigated the canyon in 1938, when they reportedly saw a three-foot lizard in the canyon.
Pre-trip publicity once again proclaimed the treacherous nature of the “practically inaccessible” canyon that was known as “Wyoming’s Lost Country.”
“But for all its beauty, it has remained a land of mystery to all but a handful of explorers who have dared to penetrate its depths,” proclaimed the Northern Wyoming Daily News.
In post-trip reports, Greene wrote about the “extremely arduous” trip and how the boats were hung up in huge rocks that line the river bottom.
“At Suicide Rapids,” Greene wrote, “the larger boat was forced into the canyon wall, causing severe damage, and one motor was damaged beyond repair. In the Bull Elk rapids, both boats broke oars and tragedy was narrowly averted. One oarsman suffered an arm injury and first aid was required.”
The expedition photographed Chain Canyon, with links of the chain still hanging, and at one point, while exploring a side canyon, the men found the remains of a badly disintegrated human skeleton, along with the skeleton of a grizzly, “where they had died in their last mortal combat,” according to the Hardin Herald. At the scene, they found a flintlock rifle, dated 1825, according to the Herald article.
A detailed account of the trip was written by Margaret Simpson of Greybull and printed in February of 1950.
The famous color film was shown in Hardin in December of 1949, in Worland at the Wyoming Press Association annual meeting in February of 1950, at the Deaver High School Gym on Jan. 28, 1950, at the Big Horn Theatre in Greybull on Feb. 7, 1950, and at the Wigwam Theatre in Basin two days later on Feb. 9.
Posters about the film entitled “Montana and Wyoming’s Lost Country” filmed “by men you know” urged people to attend and see “The Big Horn Canyon in all it’s glory and view “death-defying rapids, overhanging walls, tragedies of the past, snakes, flowers, wild fruit of every description, the canyon of faces, fossils of another age and breathtaking thrills and spills,” among various descriptions.
In 1966, Yellowtail Dam was completed, and with the formation of Big Horn Lake, the once mysterious and formidable depths of Big Horn Canyon were opened to all who could run a boat. Now visitors can explore the canyon and view the wonders previously only seen by hardy explorers brave enough to take a boat down the treacherous rapids.
From the first people to walk the Bad Pass Trail to mountain man Jim Bridger to the modern boat driver or hiker, Big Horn Canyon has been and shall always be a special place to explore.