Just up the road here in our fire district, we have a bunch of very high-end homes on the east slope of the Big Horns. They're well outside the reach of the area water system, so they have to:

- drill wells
- catch rainwater
- divert a (usually ephemeral) stream.
- haul water

The only places around Sheridan where you can drill a reliable well are down "on the flat," west of I-90, but down off the slope of the mountains.

Once you get east of I-90, you can drill a well, but odds are you run into coal formations, and your water stinks of sulphides and hydrocarbons - and you get only a couple of gallons per minute.

Up on the mountain, it's a complete hit-or-miss scenario. Some houses I know up there get 10 GPM from a well only a couple hundred feet deep. I know of other properties with water wells 1,000 to 2500' deep, pumping only 1 GPM - and not nice water at that.

In places like Nevada, anywhere you were down on the valley floors, you could punch a well and get good water in good quantity at modest depths. Up on the sides of the mountains there, if you paid attention to where you were drilling you could get excellent water.

Some of the Rockies have very tortured geology, which is folded over and over, like taking a loose carpet on the floor, and pushing in from each side. The carpet pushes up, then folds over, and then folds over again. Some local geologists call the Big Horns some of the most tortured geology in the state.

Where water is concerned in the Big Horns, it is best to find a natural spring in the mountains, fence it off to keep animals out of it, and then divert it to your point of use.