80 tribes still pray at this ancient stone circle high in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains

It’s Been Here for Centuries

High on an exposed limestone ridge in Wyoming’s Bighorn National Forest, a circle of white stones has held its ground for hundreds of years.

The Medicine Wheel sits at about 9,640 feet on Medicine Mountain, one of the largest and best-preserved stone structures of its kind on the Northern Plains.

It earned National Historic Landmark status in 1970, but this is no museum piece. Native American ceremonies still happen here, and the story of how it got here goes back further than you might expect.

28 Spokes Radiate From a 12-Foot Cairn

The Wheel measures roughly 80 feet across. Twenty-eight stone spokes fan out from a central cairn about 12 feet wide, and six smaller cairns sit around or near the outer rim.

Every stone is local white limestone, laid directly on bedrock of the same material. No tribe has publicly claimed to have built it.

Oral histories from several nations describe the builders as “ancient ancestors” or “people without iron.”

Researchers put construction somewhere between 300 and 800 years ago, but people visited this mountain for nearly 7,000 years before that.

Prayer Cloths Hang on the Fence Year After Year

Members of more than 80 tribes still travel to the Medicine Wheel for traditional ceremonies.

Crow, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Blackfeet, Lakota Sioux, and others come here for prayer, vision quests, healing, and plant gathering.

Native American accounts call the Wheel the “altar” for the larger Medicine Mountain complex. Some traditional practitioners prepare for more than a year before making the journey.

This is not a relic. It is a place of active spiritual practice that connects directly from pre-contact times to today.

Cairns Line Up With the Solstice Sunrise

In the 1970s, astronomer Jack Eddy discovered that certain cairn alignments mark the summer solstice sunrise and sunset.

He also found that other pairs point to the rising positions of three bright stars: Aldebaran, Rigel and Sirius.

Later, researcher Jack Robinson identified a cairn pair aligned to Fomalhaut, a star that would have risen about 28 days before the summer solstice.

The 28 spokes may track these lunar-month intervals between star risings. The alignments would have been most accurate between about 1200 and 1700 AD.

The Whole Mountain Is the Sacred Site

Look past the Wheel itself and you find a connected landscape. Researchers and tribal elders have noted that the layout resembles a Plains Sun Dance Lodge.

The surrounding terrain holds ceremonial staging areas, sweat lodge sites, altars, offering places and vision quest enclosures. For many Native Americans, the Wheel represents harmony, connection and the cycles of life.

The entire mountain functions as one sacred space. People of all backgrounds who visit often report being deeply moved by what they feel here.

Graffiti and Stolen Rocks Sparked a Fight

Ethnologist S.C. Simms of the Chicago Field Museum first described the Wheel in scientific literature in 1903. Over the decades that followed, some visitors removed rocks and left graffiti behind.

By the early 1990s, tribal coalitions and government agencies stepped in to protect the site.

More than 20 years of talks between agencies and elders from 16 tribes produced a Historic Preservation Plan, signed in 1996. That plan gave the Wheel the formal protection it needed to survive.

The Protected Area Grew From 110 to 4,080 Acres

In 2011, the Landmark boundaries expanded from 110 acres to 4,080. The move recognized that the sacred landscape reaches well beyond the Wheel.

The larger area covers archaeological sites, traditional use areas, natural formations and trails.

A logging company challenged the preservation plan in court, but the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case in 2004.

Today the Bighorn National Forest manages the site in partnership with tribal consulting parties who help guide decisions about the land.

Walk 1.5 Miles on Gravel to Reach the Wheel

You reach the Wheel by walking 1.5 miles each way on a gravel road from the parking area, a 3-mile round trip.

Interpretive signs along the path tell the Native history of the Bighorn Mountains, and rangers are often on hand to lead tours.

At nearly 10,000 feet, the air is thin and the weather shifts fast, so bring water, sunscreen and layers. If you have mobility challenges, you can arrange to drive closer to the site.

Walk Clockwise and Don’t Touch the Offerings

Follow the sun’s path and walk clockwise around the Wheel, in keeping with Native American tradition. You can take photographs, but leave every stone, cairn and offering exactly where it sits.

Prayer cloths and bundles tied to the fence are personal and sacred. The site may close for 45 to 60 minutes at a time for private ceremonies.

Drones are forbidden under all circumstances, and dogs are not allowed on the trail surrounding the Wheel.

The Scenic Byway Climbs 27 Miles to Get You There

The Medicine Wheel Passage Scenic Byway follows US Highway 14A for 27 miles through the Bighorn National Forest. You start in the sagebrush of the Big Horn Basin and climb into high-elevation forests and alpine meadows.

At one point, you can look thousands of feet down into the basin with the Absaroka Mountains on the horizon. The turnoff sits about 32 miles east of Lovell on US-14A, then 1.5 miles north on Forest Road 12.

The road is steep and winding with a 10-percent grade.

Snow Can Fall in July at This Elevation

The site opens around mid-June and closes by mid-September, though the access road sometimes stays shut until July 1. Foot access may start by late June if the weather cooperates.

There is no admission fee. Restrooms sit at both the parking area and near the Wheel.

At nearly 10,000 feet, sleet, rain and even snow can hit you in the middle of summer. Lovell, Wyoming, is about 25 miles west.

Sheridan is about 46 miles east.

The First Medicine Wheel Studied by Science

About 150 medicine wheels dot the landscape across Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The oldest, the Majorville Cairn in Alberta, dates back roughly 5,500 years.

The Bighorn Medicine Wheel was the first to appear in popular literature and the first to draw professional scientists.

It remains one of the very few historic sites in the country where the ancient past and the living present connect in plain sight. This land has been known, used and honored for thousands of years.

Hit the Trails at Bighorn National Forest

You can build a full trip around the Medicine Wheel by basing yourself in the Bighorn National Forest.

The forest covers more than one million acres and holds more than 1,500 miles of trails, 32 campgrounds and fishing lakes. Elk, mule deer, moose, black bears and mountain lions live here.

Two of Wyoming’s top scenic drives run through the forest: the Big Horn Scenic Byway on US-16 and the Medicine Wheel Passage on US-14A.

Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area and the town of Cody, near Yellowstone’s eastern entrance, are both close by.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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