Dense pine forests, boulder fields, and large open parks predominate in a landscape punctuated with high barren peaks. Here, the landscape is rugged. It is young, geologically. Along valleys, gouged out by mile-thick ice at the close of the Pleistocene, moraines, sinuous ribbons of granite boulders, bear silent witness to where the glaciers finished their work. Timberline is low in the Bighorns, scarcely more than 10,000 feet to perhaps 10,500.
Alpine meadows extend for miles in places.
In July of '91, they were covered with countless forms of wildflowers in blue, red, yellow, white, and all shades in between. Paintbrush in yellow, red, and a magenta that's almost fluorescent sprout from the earth in seemingly unlikely places. Bright pink alpine laurel blossoms line the moist banks of high lakes. The Cloud Peak Wilderness has an extensive network of trails. With adequate provisions, a traveler could wander for weeks, as did Bridger, Colter, and others, seeing few if any other humans.