The Pryor Mountains and Raptor Country

The caves this panel explains are still being counted. An inventory from 2017 to 2023 brought the documented total on Forest Service and BLM land in the Pryors past 300, and 13 of Montana's 15 bat species are thought to live in the range. White-nose syndrome reached Mystery Cave, one of the state's larger caves, and the BLM closed it to all visitors in 2023; a 2025 plan proposed a few guided trips a month outside hibernation season. The Apsáalooke hold caves to be homes of the Little People, to be treated with care.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Smith Mine — 18 mi
  Rusting buildings beside the highway, all that is left of the mine where Montana's worst coal disaster emptied a valley.
• Chief Plenty Coups State Park — 19 mi
  The log house of the last traditional chief of the Apsáalooke, given in 1928 as a park for Crow and white people together.

More markers nearby

• The Pryor Mountains — steps away
• Jim Bridger, Mountain Man — 3.2 mi
• A Monument to Carbon County: The Fromberg Bridge — 3.8 mi
• A Trail Woefully Hard to Travel: The Bridger Cut-Off — 4.1 mi