Loaf Mountain Overlook Observation Site · U.S. Forest Service
Loaf Mountain Overlook Observation Site sits along the Cloud Peak Skyway. Stop and read the interpretive signs and view the beautiful scenery.
Forest Mosaic
Timber management on the Bighorn National Forest is used to enhance and maintain recreation and wildlife resources, as well as to produce lumber and future healthy trees. Look at the mosaic of different timber management techniques and try to pick out the following:
Harvesting: In other areas of the Forest, timber is cut for commercial use. Older trees that are frequently diseased are removed to make room for the growth of healthy young trees. Clearcutting is a harvesting method which produces an opening in the forest, like those directly below Loaf Mountain.
Clearcuts allow sunlight to reach the ground to produce a new crop of grasses, plants, and tree seedlings. In contrast, Shelterwood harvest removes only selected trees to enable the regeneration of the forest under the shade and protection of the existing trees.
Old Growth Forest: These are groves of large, old trees that provide important habitat for some wildlife species. On some areas of the Forest, trees are allowed to mature and die with the forest regenerating itself under completely natural conditions. If you look toward Bighorn Peak, you can see some dark slopes of old growth forest.
Loaf Mountain Overlook
Since 1932 the area before you has been managed by the Forest Service as the Cloud Peak Primitive Area. In the Wyoming Wilderness Act of 1984, Congress established the cloud Peak Wilderness.
The mountain peaks before you are within the 189,039 acre Cloud Peak Wilderness. Those who venture into the wilderness by foot or on horseback find outstanding opportunities for solitude, where natural processes are preserved.
A Wilderness…”is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who doesn’t remain”. The Wilderness Act of 1964