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 aris ...

Carbon Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...

and Big Horn counties of

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

, 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 ...

. 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 membe ...

and the Custer National Forest, and portions of them are on private land. They lie south of

Billings, Montana Billings is the most populous Lists of populated places in the United States, city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, i ...

, and north of Lovell, Wyoming. The mountains are named for

Sergeant Sergeant (Sgt) is a Military rank, rank in use by the armed forces of many countries. It is also a police rank in some police services. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and in other units that draw their heritage f ...

Nathaniel Hale Pryor, 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 gro ...

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

Crow Tribe The Crow, whose Endonym and exonym, autonym is Apsáalooke (), are Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana. Today, the Crow people have a List of federally recognized tribes in the United St ...

, 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 18 in 6 cmhigh 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 first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma a ...

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era is the Era (geology), era of Earth's Geologic time scale, geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Period (geology), Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian r ...

and

Cenozoic The Cenozoic Era ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterized by the dominance of mammals, insects, birds and angiosperms (flowering plants). It is the latest of three g ...

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock formed by the cementation (geology), cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or de ...

sGeologic Map the most prominent unit is

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

(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 ( , also spelled Archaean or Archæan), in older sources sometimes called the Archaeozoic, is the second of the four geologic eons of Earth's history of Earth, history, preceded by the Hadean Eon and followed by the Proterozoic and t ...

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 (pronounced ) 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. This rock is formed under p ...

and

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock generally derived from fine-grained sedimentary rock, like shale. It shows pronounced ''schistosity'' (named for the rock). This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a l ...

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, 80 to 70 million years ago, and ended 55 to 35 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the o ...

in the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent 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 ''cre ...

and

Paleogene The Paleogene Period ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Neogene Period Ma. It is the fir ...

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 may weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspeci ...

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, Mystery Cave (which contains some of the best

speleothem A speleothem (; ) is a geological formation made 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, depen ...

s of all the caves in the Pryors), 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 33 ft 0 mdeep), 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 that 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 hunt ...

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. Individual Indigenous cultures have their own names for their rites of passage. "Vision quest" is an English-language umbrella term, and may not always be accurate or used by ...

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 b ...

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 flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). 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 birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...

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 The Pryor Mountains Wild Horse Range is a wildlife refuge, refuge for a historically significant herd of free-roaming Mustang (horse), mustangs, the Pryor Mountain mustang, feral horses colloquially called "wild horses", located in the Pryor Mo ...

, 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 thes ...

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