YELLOWSTONE COUNTY, MONTANA

Yellowstone County – Your Ancestral Past Trail Series

Out in the Boonies #8

By Dave Dodge

This trek will take about six hours from Billings, driving on Hwy 310. A 4-wheel vehicle is not required.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Although this unusual rock cairn is located just south of the Montana border in Wyoming, it is part of the Pryor Mountains locale that leads northward into Petroglyph Canyon. The builder of the cairn has not been identified. It sits on the edge of a small hill that marks locations for numerous mining rights markers, long since abandoned, and it also is stationed at the southern entrance to Petroglyph Canyon. It sits about ¼-mile to the northwest of the road leading to the draw, and about 1 mile north of the Cowley airport’s entrance. Cowley is on Hwy 310.

You take Hwy 212 south out of Laurel, and turn onto Hwy 310 at Rockvale. Continue to follow this road south through Edgar, Fromberg, Bridger, Warren, (Cross into Wyoming) Frannie, Deaver, and finally Cowley. At Cowley turn north on the access road leading to Cowley Airport, located about two miles distant. [Use BLM Map # 36 for reference.] From the turnoff at Cowley continue for about five miles on the County Road leading to Petroglyph Canyon and the Bentonite Haul & Crooked Creek Roads.