Dead Indian Pass

Dead Indian Pass
The view from the top of Dead Indian Pass on the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway
Elevation	8,071 ft (2,460 m)
Traversed by	Wyoming Highway 296
Location	Park County, Wyoming, United States
Range	Rocky Mountains
Coordinates	44°44′37″N 109°23′06″W / 44.74361°N 109.38500°W / 44.74361; -109.38500
Topo map	USGS Dead Indian Meadows

Dead Indian Pass (8,071 feet (2,460 m)) is a mountain pass on Wyoming Highway 296. The pass is located on Chief Joseph Scenic Byway and crosses the Absaroka Range.

Dead Indian Creek runs at the base of the pass. Near the pass are also Dead Indian Gulch, Dead Indian Mountain, and Dead Indian Mesa

Dead Indian Pass is associated with the flight of the Nez Perce Indians during the Nez Perce War in 1877.

Pursued by several hundred soldiers led by General O.O. Howard, Chief Joseph led 700 Nez Perce men, women, and children and 2,000 horses through Yellowstone Park eastward and into the Absaroka Mountains. From the Absarokas the Indians looked for a route to the Great Plains. However, the U.S. army had anticipated that the Nez Perce would attempt to break out of the mountains onto the Plains and had stationed General Samuel D. Sturgis and 600 cavalry near the base of the mountains to intercept the Indians. Sturgis's forces were strategically placed where he could move quickly south or north toward known trails along Clarks Fork or the Shoshone River.

Sturgis discounted the Clark’s Fork exit from the mountains, “finding that no trail could possibly lead through it.” The lower several miles of Clark’s Fork passed through a narrow canyon with vertical walls.

On September 8, 1877, the Nez Perce reached Dead Indian Pass, about six miles from Sturgis’s force on the Plains below. Their advance scouts observed the soldiers far below awaiting their appearance. If the Indians took the open and easy route to reach the Plains, they would be easily visible. Instead they attempted a difficult maneuver to mislead the soldiers. They feinted going south toward the Shoshone River by milling their horses in a big circle to kick up visible dust and sell Sturgis on the idea that they were heading south. Then, invisible to army scouts, they sneaked back north, concealed by heavy timber, and traversed Dead Indian Gulch down to the Clark’s Fork River. Dead Indian Gulch was a narrow, steep-sided slit in the rock, dropping almost vertically for 1,000 feet and barely wide enough for two horses to go side-by-side. “In a cleanly executed maneuver,” said a military historian, “the Nez Perce had countered an extremely serious threat and won a brilliant, though temporary respite.”