![]() But in exchange, cold, clear water pouring from the depths of the 70-mile-long reservoir has created one of the finest wild trout fisheries in the world. Nearly half of the islands and gravel bars that once filled the river's braided channels are gone, their riparian habitat lost to Yellowtail Dam's regulated outflows. And the "furious and formidable" plains grizzlies that terrified the Corps of Discovery are gone, their remnants driven into remote mountain ranges.Įven the Bighorn itself has changed. ![]() ![]() Crow Indians still speak the language of their ancestors, but the thundering buffalo herds that once formed the center of their "wheel of life" have vanished. ![]() Much has changed since Lewis and Clark crossed the uncharted wilderness that was to become Montana. Draining north into Montana, the river transects the Crow Indian reservation, where it is joined by the Little Bighorn, famous as the site of "Custer's Last Stand." Finally, the Bighorn merges with the Yellowstone just downstream from Pompey's Pillar, a rock formation that bears the carved initials from the 1805 Lewis and Clark expedition. Deep in the Wyoming wilderness and high above tree line, glacial cirques collect and funnel pure alpine waters from Cloud Peak's 13,000-foot summit down to the muddy torrent of the Bighorn River.
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