Posted: July 20, 2018
My life as a resident with the Bella Vita 55+ Community leaves time for adventures such as hiking. Heart Mountain, located between Powell and Cody, Wyoming, draws hikers year round but today twenty hikers including my daughter, granddaughter, her husband and myself decided to reach its 8,123-foot summit early on a calm Saturday morning.
Early settlers – particularly the Crow Indian Tribe – named Heart Mountain as such claiming it looks like a Buffalo Heart; however, during the WWII era, a Japanese Internment Camp housed nearly 14,000 detainees in the area whose view of Heart Mountain was through barb-wire fences leaving little sentiment in their hearts. Through the years many returned to hike the mountain and leave plaques to commemorate their trek.
By Charlotte Myers