Upper Cliffs Trail

The Upper Cliffs Trail ascends to the precipice of one of the largest and most significant pishkun buffalo jumps in North America, a nearly mile-long sandstone cliff used by Indigenous peoples for over 1,000 years to harvest bison by driving entire herds over the edge. The Blackfeet Nation and their ancestors utilized this site with profound skill and coordination, employing runners, drive lines of stone cairns, and communal cooperation to funnel bison herds into a fatal stampede that provided enormous quantities of meat, hides, and bone tools in a single event.

From the cliff top the full geographic logic of the jump site becomes clear: the broad rolling prairie above funnels naturally toward the cliff edge, and the stone drive lines that extended the funnel are still partially visible in aerial photographs of the landscape. The cliff face itself shows bone-stained layers in exposed sections where the accumulated remains of thousands of bison compressed over centuries of use. Interpretive panels at the overlook explain the spiritual, cultural, and practical dimensions of the buffalo jump tradition, drawing on Blackfeet oral history and archaeological research. The shortgrass prairie surrounding the site supports pronghorn, prairie dogs, burrowing owls, and the full complement of northern Great Plains wildlife that made this region among the richest bison habitat on the continent.