Scotts Bluff National Monument

For wagon trains grinding up the Platte, Scotts Bluff and nearby Chimney Rock were the great markers of progress, visible for a day or more before travelers reached them and long after they passed. The bluff signaled that the easy prairie miles were ending and the harder climb toward South Pass and the mountains lay ahead. Emigrants filled their diaries with descriptions of it, comparing its ramparts and towers to castles and cathedrals.

Most trains crossed through Mitchell Pass, a gap that cut between the bluff and its neighbor, and the constant grind of iron-rimmed wheels wore ruts into the ground that are still visible today. Before the emigrants, this was fur-trade country, and the bluff took its name from a trader named Hiram Scott who died near it in the 1820s, his story passed down in several conflicting versions.

Long before the wagon trains, the North Platte Valley was home and hunting ground to Plains peoples, among them the Lakota, the Cheyenne, and the Arapaho, who moved through this country following the bison. The bluffs and the river were part of a landscape they knew intimately, and the flood of emigrants and the forts that grew up to protect them pressed hard on those nations and on the herds they depended on.

The overland migration that made Scotts Bluff famous was, for the tribes of the plains, the beginning of a wrenching change. Treaties, forts, and railroads followed the trail, and within a few decades the open bison country was gone. Standing beneath the bluff, it is worth remembering that the same landmark that meant hope to the emigrants marked a hard turning point for the people who were already here.

A road, blasted through the rock with tunnels in the 1930s, climbs to the top of the bluff, where overlooks give a sweeping view of the North Platte Valley, the winding river, Chimney Rock in the distance, and the badlands beyond. A trail also leads to the summit for those who would rather walk up, and shorter paths run along the base past the trail ruts.

The visitor center holds one of the finest collections anywhere of the work of William Henry Jackson, the pioneer photographer and painter who first crossed here as a young man driving oxen and later returned to picture the trail in vivid detail. His images of wagon trains, forts, and landmarks shaped how generations of Americans have imagined the overland journey.

Spring greens the valley and brings mild days ideal for climbing to the summit, though wind is a near-constant on the high plains. Wildflowers dot the bluff's slopes.

Summer is hot, bright, and busy, so early mornings are best for the summit road and the trails. Fall brings crisp air, golden cottonwoods along the river, and thinner crowds, and winter is cold and quiet, the bluff often dusted with snow and the valley wide and still under a big sky.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.