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Bad Pass Trail

Native American Route Dating Back Millennia

Historic Route in Bighorn Canyon NRA, Rocky Mountains, Crow Reservation in Fort Smith in MT, WY

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Length

54mi

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On Official Website

The Bad Pass Trail runs for miles along the western side of the rugged Bighorn Canyon, in southern Montana and northern Wyoming, through Bighorn Canyon NRA. Bad Pass Trail has been traversed probably since the earliest human habitation of the continent. It brought people from the Bighorn Basin onto the plains of Montana, perhaps in seasonal rounds that took them to abundant bison herds beyond the mountains. "It's been used for 10 to 12,000 years," said Chris Finley, NPS archeologist at Bighorn Canyon.

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On Wikipedia

The Bad Pass Trail, also known as the Sioux Trail, was established by Native Americans on the border of present-day Montana and Wyoming as a means of access from the Bighorn Basin in Wyoming to Bison-hunting grounds in the Grapevine Creek area of Montana. Marked by stone cairns, the trail led across Bad Pass and was established in pre-Columbian times. After Europeans arrived in the area it was frequented by fur trappers and mountain men, beginning in 1824. Trappers assembled pack trains at the junction of the Shoshone River and the Bighorn River, using the Bad Pass Trail to avoid Bighorn Canyon. The trail ended at the mouth of Grapevine Creek on the Bighorn, from which the pack train could float down the Bighorn on rafts to the Yellowstone River and then to the Missouri and on to St.…