Cave Drawings

Back in the early 70's I had buddies who lived up near Yellowtail Dam. They were familiar with many obscure places up in the Big Horn Canyon. We boated in on Yellowtail Reservoir once and then hiked up the canyon to a hidden group of caves up the canyon wall. There is a series of caves up a narrow drainage. A very long treacherous climb was necessary to get to the caves. The last 30 feet was nearly vertical and one slip would see a person falling 500 feet or more down. Upon entering the caves you are confronted with a group of drawings. If you look very closely at the lower part of the top photo you will see a group of drawings.

Drawings in this photo didn't show up well but there are markings here as well. The series of caves are all connected by very narrow crawls. They go down to a number of levels. The last cavern in one series has the walls & ceilings covered in crystal . A few stalagmites and stalactites are also present. Someone had broken a lot of them off as souvenirs.

This exit hole is quite small. I took the photo as the light was striking coming out of the darkness. Not til I developed the photos did I see the eagle head outline. Another exit hole comes right out on the canyon wall with a sheer drop down and straight up looking above. The hole was just big enough to squeeze through. This cave area is now restricted to non-tribal members. It is very hard to find unless you know right where it is. Not visible until you are right to the entrance.

On another 5 day expedition we snuck up onto reservation lands and hiked way up Big Bull Elk Canyon. Spent a number of days fishing and exploring. Found Elk antlers just laying around where they were shed. This photo shows a 450 million year old Crinoid fossil I spotted in a large house size boulder which had fallen from the canyon wall eons ago. I sent this photo to a university professor to get it ID'd and dated. It looked like a piece of vertebrae. I leaned a piece of dead fall wood up to hide the specimen so some one wouldn't destroy it. Wonderful pristine country up there. Only trails were game trails. We saw a number of bears on the trip. We risked getting arrested sneaking up there. One of my buddies was 1/4 Crow Indian but not an enrolled tribal member. Very much untouched country with no signs of man. I'm too darn old and rickety to backpack back up there again. Glad I was able to do it in my younger years.