Exploding Trees And Frozen Cattle: Montana’s Brutal Winter Of 1886

Winters in Montana are no joke. Sure, we’ve all bragged about surviving a cold snap where your eyelashes freeze together or your truck won’t even think about starting. But none of us, thankfully, had to live through the monster winter of 1886–1887. That one wasn’t just cold, it was downright brutal.  We’re talking exploding trees, freezing cattle, blizzards that buried the plains, and cowboys frozen stiff in their saddles.

The summer before had been bone-dry, with wildfires scorching the range and grass disappearing before fall even arrived. By November, the winds turned mean. The Cree had a name for it—kissin-ey-oo-way’o—“it blows cold.” And blow it did. Snow came in with glass-sharp flakes that cut through hides and piled into drifts taller than a horse. According to Joseph Kinsey Howard in his book "Montana High, Wide and Handsome," Arctic white owls fled south, which cowboys had never seen before.

By January, temperatures were so low they earned the month’s grim nickname: “The Moon of Cold-Exploding Trees.” Ranch thermometers plunged past 60 below, and cattle froze standing where they stood. Cowboys layered on everything they owned, blackened their faces to avoid snow blindness, and rode out in conditions that would make today’s winter storm warnings look like a spa day.

The devastation was massive. Ranchers lost anywhere from half to nearly all their herds. Starving cattle even staggered into towns like Great Falls, eating whatever they could find, including garbage. Artist Charles M. Russell summed it up with his famous watercolor postcard Last of Five Thousand, showing a lone steer sinking into a drift surrounded by coyotes.

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“Sadly, the stockmen went home for the May roundup. They were in no great hurry to learn the truth; most of them, in short rides near their homes, had seen thousands of rotting carcasses on the plains. There were coulees and sheltered valleys which they could not enter because of the stench of decomposing beef." - Montana High, Wide and Handsome

While we still get our fair share of subzero temps, nothing has ever topped the winter of 1886-1887.