After being closed for the past couple of years, the Tongue River Cave has again reopened for recreational use. Due to vandalism and other concerns, getting into the cave requires registering and obtaining the lock passcode, which will change frequently. Registration can be done through the Bighorn National Forest website by selecting recreation then cave registration in the quick links at www.fs.usda.gov/bighorn. 

An updated management order was released by the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region that requires mandatory registration for all caves in the region (which includes Colorado and parts of Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Kansas). The new order also changed the annual seasonal closure for Tongue River and Cliff Dwellers Caves to April 15 through Aug. 31; other significant caves in the Bighorn National Forest will be closed Oct. 15 through April 15.

The reasoning behind the change of the seasonal closure comes from the last few seasons of monitoring and learning how bats use caves, Bighorn National Forest officials said; scientists found that few bats were using the Tongue River and Cliff Dwellers caves for hibernating.

The Tongue River Cave had been temporarily closed in 2019 after a maternity roost of Townsend’s big-eared bats was discovered.

“Maternity roosts are areas essential for female bats with pups to live protected from predators and disturbances that can hinder their babies’ growth and development,” forest officials said in a release. “Just like any animal, every generation is essential for the survival of the species into the future, especially relatively long-lived species with low reproductive rates, like bats.”

Forest officials added that, in addition to monitoring bat use, surveillance of the area turned up vandalism and damage to the sensitive cave ecosystem. For instance, vandalism to the cave closure and a break-in occurred in early July, resulting in expensive repairs to federal property and suspected mineral theft.

“This not only impacted tax-payer funds to fix what was damaged, it also removed part of the cave that took millennia to build and is not replaceable, thus forever altering the experience of future visitors,” forest officials said in a news release.

Anyone with questions can contact the Forest Supervisor’s Office and Tongue Ranger District at 307-674-2600. For tips on how to recreate responsibly, visit Tread Lightly! at treadlightly.org/, Leave No Trace lnt.org/, or the National Speleological Society, caves.org/committee/education/.