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McCullough Peaks

Wilderness Association leads a peaks peek June 13, 2006

Written in collaboration with Chuck Neal
(010‑335)

Location and Access
The McCullough Peaks are located 10 miles northeast of Cody, with the northern boundary about 2 miles from Ralston in Park County. The area is accessed from US Hwy 14A turning west onto State Hwy 295 to the northern boundary.

Highlights
This WSA embodies pink badlands on the slopes of the solitary McCullough Peaks. The vein-like drainage patterns of the deeply eroded gullies and extreme terrain variation within the area provide the visitor with a natural maze to explore. There are five separate drainages that branch into small, winding badland canyons of exceptional beauty with outstanding views. The citizens' western addition consists of spectacular breaks which drop sharply to the Shoshone River. Elevations vary from 6400 feet atop McCullough Peaks to 4000 feet along Roan Wash.
 

Wilderness Qualities
The National Park Service has identified this area as a potential National Natural Landmark, where visitors find exceptional scenery, such as winding badlands canyons, vividly colored ridges, and panoramas of dendritic drainages and distant mountain ranges. This area offers outstanding opportunity for solitude.

The area contains many important archaeologic sites (Berry and Goldbach 1990). Outcrops of Willwood formation, along with those in a handful of other WSAs in the Bighorn Basin, provide the most comprehensive vertebrate fossils of any rock in the world (Bown and Kraus 1983). These sites are outside of BLM's recommended Wilderness area.

Three to four hundred deer‑‑both trophy mule deer and white‑tailed deer‑‑winter in the area; while sage grouse, golden eagles, merlin, prairie falcons, and many other raptors nest and forage here (BLM 1990a). Pronghorn antelope, wild horses, mountain lion, coyotes, foxes and jackrabbits can also be seen in the area. Merriam's shrews (a state Priority Species in Need of Special Management) may inhabit the area's grasslands and barren areas (Luce 1991). Just south of McCullough Peaks, a very rare, verified occurrence of the endangered whooping crane was noted. (WNDD, 1993). The common loon has been observed many times on the Shoshone River as well as nesting colonies of Franklin's gull, both State Priority species due to their rarity in the State. The Yellowstone cutthroat trout has been verified in the Shoshone River, a rare species (State Priority status) (WNDD, 1993).