The Bear Lodge Mountains ( lkt, Mato Tipila) are a small mountain range in

Crook County, Wyoming Crook County is a county in the northeastern section of the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 7,181, making it the third-least populous county in Wyoming. Its county seat is Sundance. History Croo ...

. These mountains are protected in the

Black Hills National Forest Black Hills National Forest is located in southwestern South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming, United States. The forest has an area of over 1.25 million acres (5,066 km²) and is managed by the Forest Service. Forest headquarters are located ...

as part of its Bearlodge District.

Devils Tower National Monument Devils Tower (also known as Bear Lodge Butte) is a butte, possibly laccolithic, composed of igneous rock in the Bear Lodge Ranger District of the Black Hills, near Hulett and Sundance in Crook County, northeastern Wyoming, above the Belle F ...

was the first U.S. National Monument and draws about 400,000 visitors per year to the area. The Bear Lodge Mountains are one of three mountain ranges that comprise the Black Hills region and national forest, including the Black Hills itself and South Dakota's Elk Mountains.

Sundance, Wyoming Sundance (Lakota: ''Owíwaŋyaŋg Wačhí''; "Sun-Watching Dance") is a town in and the county seat of Crook County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 1,032 at the 2020 census. The town is named after the Sun Dance ceremony practiced b ...

is the closest major city and lies south of the Bear Lodge Mountains.

Wyoming Highway 24 Wyoming Highway 24 (WYO 24), also known as the Bear Lodge Highway, is a state highway in Crook County, Wyoming, United States. that connects U.S. Route 14 (US 14) in Carlile Junction with South Dakota Highway 34 (SD 34) at the S ...

(the ''Bear Lodge Highway'') passes through the northern part of the range.

History

The place names ''Bear Lodge'', ''Sun Dance'', and ''Rock Gatherer'' (Inyan Kara) come from the history of Lakota people in this area. Devils Tower was declared a United States National Monument in 1906. From 1907 to 1908, the area was the

Bear Lodge National Forest Bear Lodge National Forest is a discontinued entity which has been absorbed into the Black Hills National Forest. It is located in the U.S. in the state of Wyoming, in the north central part of the American mainland. It was established in the Bear ...

, then the

Sundance National Forest Sundance National Forest was established in the Bear Lodge Mountains of Wyoming by the U.S. Forest Service on July 1, 1908. It covered from part of Black Hills National Forest and all of Bear Lodge National Forest. On July 1, 1915 the entire fo ...

through 1915, before becoming a district of the Black Hills National Forest.

Geography

The Bear Lodge Mountains were formed as a byproduct of the geological processes that created the

Black Hills The Black Hills ( lkt, Ȟe Sápa; chy, Moʼȯhta-voʼhonáaeva; hid, awaxaawi shiibisha) is an isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, United States. Black Elk P ...

, and offer hikes throughout bottomlands, hills, and buttes. Unlike the Black Hills, this range is small and only a few igneous rocks are exposed. Just outside the range, however, lie the very large igneous intrusions of Devils Tower,

Inyan Kara Mountain Inyan Kara Mountain ( lkt, Íŋyaŋ Káǧa, Rock Gatherer ) is a mountain associated with the Bear Lodge Mountains of Crook County, Wyoming, (part of the Black Hills) that is considered sacred by the Lakota people, particularly for mothers in ...

, and Sundance Mountain. Bounded on the north by the

Belle Fourche River The Belle Fourche River (pronounced ''bel FOOSH''; lkt, Šahíyela Wakpá) is a tributary of the Cheyenne River, approximately long, in the U.S. states of Wyoming and South Dakota. It is part of the Mississippi River watershed via the Cheyenn ...

, the mountains have several Belle Fourche River tributaries including Redwater, Blacktail, Miller, Beaver, Lytle, Lame Jones, and Hay Creeks. There were coal mines in these river valleys.

Habitat

While ponderosa pine and mixed-grass prairie grow on the highland of this range, its ravines offer habitat to species such as wild rose, skunkbush sumac, and chokecherry. At the foot of the mountains grow bur oak. Groves of aspen frequently separate meadows with fine soil from ponderosa pine forests growing in coarse soil. Vegetation in the Bear Lodge Mountains is similar to that of the Black Hills, although the Bear Lodge Mountains have no white spruce. The mountains' growing season is long, and forest growth in this range and the Black Hills is high. This productivity has led to high levels of logging.

References

{{Mountains of Wyoming Black Hills Mountain ranges of Wyoming Landforms of Crook County, Wyoming