Hiking the Tongue River Canyon in the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming

We spent a few days poring over Forest Service maps for the Bighorn National Forest, and consulting with rangers at the District Office and at the Shell Creek Interpretive Center, before making a final decision on the one hike we wanted to do in the Bighorn Mountains.  We finally decided to take a chance on the Tongue River Canyon.  Interestingly enough, none of the rangers raved about it; each of them more strongly recommended other hikes.  However, the Tongue River Canyon hike had several things going for it:  it would be a hike along a stream through a canyon; the trailhead wasn't too far down a gravel road for big old Great White; and it wouldn't be too far a drive from our RV park.  Furthermore, it came with a recommendation from Trails.com, as well as some local tourist publications.

Little did we know how spectacular the hike would be.  We started it late in the day, so we only had two hours for it.  We could have hiked much further, and our written trail guide suggested that, had we done so, we would have climbed to some unbelievable alpine meadows.  But we work with what time we have, and we were very happy with what we got.

We drove up the gravelled County Road 92 from Dayton, Wyoming, into the Tongue River Canyon campground.  As we got out of our truck, we were treated to an impromptu concert from a fellow playing an alpenhorn, of all things.  We weren't sure what this bode for the hike, but it certainly was novel.

We barely set foot on the trail before we decided this was going to be something very special.  Here is our first view of the trail:

Every turn of the trail revealed new canyon vistas:

About half a mile up the trail, we came to a bridge across Tongue River:

Kathy spotted a bronze plaque embedded in the bridge support, testifying that the bridge had originally been constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps ("CCC") in the 1930's.  Note the "CCC" logo on the plaque:

From the bridge we had entrancing views both upstream --

-- and downstream:

Had we crossed the bridge, we could have hiked up to Tongue River Cave, which is noted for its unusual features and is very well known among locals.  In fact, two teenage girls crossed the bridge as they returned from the cave when we were standing on the bridge.  However, our plan was to continue up the canyon as far as we had time to hike.

We continued to encounter gorgeous stream scenes as we hiked:

Here is another view of the river further up the canyon:

The trail slowly rose above the river, putting us in a drier, hotter environment, but where we had closer access to the geology of the canyon:

The views of the river from above were also fetching:

The unusual rock formations in the canyon caught our attention:

This view looks back down the canyon toward our trailhead:

Like I said, every view was more spectacular than the previous:

It felt as if we had walked into an Albert Bierstadt painting:

It was almost as if the very trees, rocks and water themselves leaned in to give us the most photogenic picture they could:

The hike was all too short.  We agreed that this was one of the most beautiful hikes we have ever taken.  We hope to come back and spend a full day in order to get up to the top of the canyon.