The Pryor Mountains are a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

Carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon mak ...

and Big Horn counties of

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

, and

Big Horn County, Wyoming Big Horn County is a county in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 11,521. The county seat is Basin. Its north boundary abuts the south boundary of Montana. History Big Horn County was created by ...

. They are located on the

Crow Indian Reservation The Crow Indian Reservation is the homeland of the Crow Tribe. Established 1868, the reservation is located in parts of Big Horn, Yellowstone, and Treasure counties in southern Montana in the United States. The Crow Tribe has an enrolled member ...

and the

Custer National Forest Custer National Forest is located primarily in the south central part of the U.S. state of Montana but also has separate sections in northwestern South Dakota. With a total area of , the forest comprises over 10 separate sections. While in the wes ...

, and portions of them are on private land. They lie south of

Billings, Montana Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Met ...

, and north of

Lovell, Wyoming Lovell is the largest town in Big Horn County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 2,360 at the 2010 census. History Lovell was named for Henry Lovell, a local rancher. Built in 1925, the EJZ Bridge over Shoshone River is listed on th ...

. The mountains are named for Sergeant

Nathaniel Hale Pryor Nathaniel Hale Pryor (1772–1831) served as Sergeant in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Early life and family Nathaniel Pryor was born in Amherst County, Virginia and was a cousin of fellow expedition member Charles Floyd (explorer), Charles Fl ...

, a member of the

Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gr ...

who vainly pursued horses stolen from the expedition in the area. The

Crow Nation The Crow, whose autonym is Apsáalooke (), also spelled Absaroka, are Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana. Today, the Crow people have a federally recognized tribe, the Crow Tribe of Montana, with an Indian reservation loca ...

, a Native American tribe which lived nearby, called the mountains Baahpuuo Isawaxaawuua ("Hitting Rock Mountains") because of the abundance of flint there (which was chipped into arrowheads). According to

folklore, Little People (a race of high dwarf-like people with spiritual powers) lived in these mountains.

Geology

The Pryor Mountains are a region of Montana and Wyoming.Cruise and Griffiths, p. 185. The Pryor Mountains consists of

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretace ...

and Cenozoic

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

sGeologic Map the most prominent unit is

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

(known as the Madison Group limestone) laid down about 300 million years ago.McRae and Jewell, p. 317.Gordon and Krumm, p. 2. The limestone and older sediments rest on

Archean The Archean Eon ( , also spelled Archaean or Archæan) is the second of four geologic eons of Earth's history, representing the time from . The Archean was preceded by the Hadean Eon and followed by the Proterozoic. The Earth during the Arc ...

metamorphic rock Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock ( protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, caus ...

consisting of

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures a ...

and

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes ...

s. The gneiss is exposed along the northeast escarpment of East Pryor Mountain. During the

Laramide orogeny The Laramide orogeny was a time period of mountain building in western North America, which started in the Late Cretaceous, 70 to 80 million years ago, and ended 35 to 55 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the ...

in the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...

and Paleogene Period (about 70 to 60 million years ago), the limestone was faulted and uplifted. The thick limestone blocks were tilted and uplifted as large blocks with the northeastern corner of the blocks forming the

Bighorn The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspec ...

and the Pryor Mountains. Caves, carved by groundwater, can be found in the limestone throughout the Pryors.Aarstad, et al., p. 214. Among the better known are Big Ice Cave on the eastern edge of Pryor Mountain, and Mystery Cave (which contains some of the best

speleothem A speleothem (; ) is a geological formation by mineral deposits that accumulate over time in natural caves. Speleothems most commonly form in calcareous caves due to carbonate dissolution reactions. They can take a variety of forms, depending ...

s of all the caves in the Pryors). Among the more notable are False Cougar Cave on East Pryor Mountain (which was used by Native Americans at times in the past), Shield Trap Cave (which features a vertical shaft about deep), Little Ice Cave, and Bell Trap Cave (which is similar to Shield Trap). Other popular features of the Pryors include Froggs Fault, a huge fissure in the earth, and a

buffalo jump A buffalo jump, or sometimes bison jump, is a cliff formation which Indigenous peoples of North America historically used to hunt and kill plains bison in mass quantities. The broader term game jump refers to a man-made jump or cliff used for hu ...

near Dry Head Lookout.Pospisil, Allan. "Where the Wild Mustangs Play." ''New York Times.'' May 2, 1971. Just below Dry Head Lookout is a small pocket in the cliff face surrounded by a low man-made fence of rock. This is a place used by several Native American tribes for

vision quest A vision quest is a rite of passage in some Native American cultures. It is usually only undertaken by young males entering adulthood. Individual Indigenous cultures have their own names for their rites of passage. "Vision quest" is an English ...

s, and as of 1971 was perhaps the last undisturbed such place in the United States. Pryors Billings

The tallest peak in the Pryor Mountains is East Pryor Mountain (elevation ). The

Bighorn River The Bighorn River is a tributary of the Yellowstone, approximately long, in the states of Wyoming and Montana in the western United States. The river was named in 1805 by fur trader François Larocque for the bighorn sheep he saw along its ba ...

flows north from Wyoming and through the plateau between the Bighorn and Pryor mountains. The river flows between the two mountain ranges, and has cut the Bighorn Canyon deep into the limestone. Crooked Creek, one of the few perennial streams in the area, divides the Pryors in two and is one of the few places where Yellowstone cutthroat trout may be found.French, Brett. "Wild Horse Range Pressured By Overgrazing." ''Billings Gazette.'' July 12, 2009.
Accessed 2011-06-07. The Pryors contain the most diverse

bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most ...

habitat in Montana as well, with 10 species found there. Feral stallions fighting- Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range - Montana

Wild horse refuge

The Pryor Mountains are also home to the Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range, a protected area that is home to a herd of free-roaming

feral horse A feral horse is a free-roaming horse of domesticated stock. As such, a feral horse is not a wild animal in the sense of an animal without domesticated ancestors. However, some populations of feral horses are managed as wildlife, and these ...

s."Wild Horses." Billings Field Office. Bureau of Land Management. United States Department of the Interior. May 2, 2011.
Accessed 2011-05-18. This herd was the subject of the 1995 documentary film ''Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies'' and its sequel, the 2003 documentary film ''Cloud's Legacy: The Wild Stallion Returns''.

References

Bibliography

*Aarstad, Rich; Arguimbau, Ellen; Baumler, Ellen; Prosild, Charlene L.; and Shovers, Brian. ''Montana Place Names From Alzada to Zortman.'' Helena, Mont.: Montana Historical Society Press, 2009. *Clawson, Roger and Shandera, Katherine A. ''Billings: The City and the People.'' Billings, Mont.: Billings Gazette, 1993. *Committee on Ungulate Management in Yellowstone National Park, National Research Council. ''Ecological Dynamics on Yellowstone's Northern Range.'' Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2002. *Cruise, David and Griffiths, Alison. ''Wild Horse Annie and the Last of the Mustangs: The Life of Velma Johnston.'' New York:Scribner, 2010. *Frey, Rodney. ''The World of the Crow Indians: As Driftwood Lodges.'' Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993. *Gordon, Paul and Krumm, Bob. ''Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area.'' Tucson, Ariz.: Southwest Parks and Monuments Association, 1999. *Hill, Cherry. ''Cherry Hill's Horsekeeping Almanac: The Essential Month-by-Month Guide for Everyone Who Keeps or Cares for Horses.'' North Adams, Mass.: Storey Publishing, 2007. *Hodges, Montana and Feldman, Robert. ''Rockhounding Montana.'' Guiford, Conn.: Globe Pequot Press, 2006. *Holt, John. ''Kicking Up Trouble: Upland Bird Hunting in the West.'' Bozeman, Mont.: Wilderness Adventures Press, 1994. *Holt, Johnny and Diers, Ginny. ''Coyote Nowhere: In Search of America's Last Frontier.'' Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2004.
Lopez, David A., ''Geologic Map of the Bridger 30' x 60' Quadrangle, Montana,''
Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, Geologic Map Series No. 58, 2000 with the U.S. Geological Survey *Massingham, Rhonda. ''Among Wild Horses: A Portrait of the Pryor Mountain Mustangs.'' North Adams, Mass.: Storey Publishing, 2006. *McRae, W.C. and Jewell, Judy. ''Montana.'' Berkeley, Calif.: Avalon Travel, 2009. *Montgomery, M.R. ''Many Rivers to Cross: Of Good Running Water, Native Trout, and the Remains of Wilderness.'' New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. *Rowles, Genevieve. ''Adventure Guide to Montana.'' Edison, N.J.: Hunter Publishing, 2000. *Saindon, Robert A. ''Explorations Into the World of Lewis and Clark.'' Great Falls, Mont.: Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, 2003. *Voight, Barry and Voight, Mary Anne. ''Rock Mechanics, the American Northwest.'' University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University, 1974. {{Authority control Ranges of the Rocky Mountains Mountain ranges of Montana Mountain ranges of Wyoming Landforms of Carbon County, Montana Landforms of Big Horn County, Montana

Geology

Wild horse refuge

See also

References

Bibliography