A canyon reservoir of the Bighorn River on the Wyoming-Montana border, defined by Yellowtail Dam and Bighorn Lake.
Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area
Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area is a large federal recreation area along the Bighorn River where the border between Wyoming and Montana cuts through arid canyon country. The recreation area surrounds Bighorn Lake, the reservoir created by Yellowtail Dam, and extends more than 100,000 acres across the Bighorn Basin and the Pryor Mountains. Managed by the U.S. National Park Service, it is one of over 420 units in the national park system and is administered alongside Little Bighorn Battlefield, Fort Laramie, and Devils Tower as part of the Powder River group of parks.
The landscape ranges from deep canyon walls and a long reservoir to high-desert plains in the South District around Lovell, Wyoming, and semi-arid uplands in the North District near Fort Smith, Montana. Near the Wyoming-Montana border the Pryor Mountains rise above the lake, and the herd area of the Pryor Mountains wild horses overlaps with park land. About one third of the recreation area sits on the Crow Indian Reservation, and the broader region has long been a homeland of the Apsaalooke or Crow people.
The recreation area protects an unusual combination of cultural, natural, and recreational resources, including archaeological sites along the old Bad Pass Trail, four historic ranches, canyon-cave systems, and habitat for bighorn sheep, black bear, mule deer, and more than 200 species of birds. Its defining identity is the long, narrow reservoir winding through arid canyon terrain, paired with the cultural importance of the Bighorn Canyon country to the Crow Nation.
