Absaroka-Beartooths - 2002
The Lakes District
Wednesday, August 28 – Becker Lake, 3.5 miles
This was our ‘take it easy’ day, the one we should have started with
on Sunday. We went to the grocery to buy food for the next stretch,
then to breakfast, then to an office supply store that sells maps
and guidebooks (added one more map), then back to the grocery.
Finally we packed up all our loot and left around 10:00. It was
cloudy as we headed up the Beartooth Highway, a spectacular road
that winds (and winds and winds) up into the high country. We
played tourist, stopping at all the overlooks and taking lots of
pictures. The road climbs to 10,900’ – open treeless plateau, with
just rocks and alpine plants, reddish right now that autumn has
arrived. We looked over at the plateau where we hiked yesterday,
but it was still hidden in cloud, and over at the Hell Roaring
Plateau next to it and down to the Beartooth Plateau where we’ll be
hiking this week. The road twists and turns and climbs up and up
before descending to the lake country on the other side.
We stopped at noon at the “Top of the World” store, a little one
with sodas and muffins and lots of tourist goodies, but not much
else. We sat out on the porch in the sun and ate muffins for lunch,
then headed for the nearby trailhead at Island Lake where we
repacked our gear and took off about 1:15. The trail begins at a
large fishing lake and passes several more. A storm was brewing, so
we decided to camp above beautiful Becker Lake, only three miles up
the trail, in a sheltered spot among the rocks. We are starting an
off-trail route from here, for the next day or so, and expect low
miles and rough country. I am really bad on rocks, very slow and
careful, so I don’t expect to go far, but I like to challenge
myself, so we’ll play in the rocks and wander from lake to lake in
the backcountry. I don’t know why I get so scared, but it is really
hard for me in places where I have to trust my balance or the
stability of rocks (which aren’t at all stable.)
The rock here is gray and pink with green and black lichen. We are
camped just below treeline, and will be climbing above treeline
tomorrow. My breathing is labored, but our headaches are gone,
fortunately. There is thunder in the distance and a steady cold
rain is falling. I’m glad we decided on a short day!
Jim: The drive down the Beartooth Highway is one that I highly recommend
– the road switchbacks up to nearly 11,000’ and we could see much of
the Silver Run Plateau where we’d been the day before (yeah, the
weather cleared) and a lot of other beautiful high plateau country.
We went on to the Island Lake trailhead (in Wyoming) and got a late
start into a loop through the lakes of the Beartooth Plateau. The
first night was a short walk in past/around several of the high
country lakes to Becker Lake where we made camp just before the
rains hit (again).
Thursday , August 29 – 6 or 7 miles to Martin Lake
It rained off and on all evening yesterday. We cooked dinner early
during a dry spell, then ducked into the tent at 6:00. It was a
long night, though Jim and I got silly and managed to have a lot of
fun before we tried to sleep.
We woke to sunshine, so spent an hour or so drying out our tent and
sleeping bags before we started hiking. They were damp from the
condensation inside the tent, not from rain. The first mile along
Becker Lake was easy up and down on good trail. The next lake,
Albino, was grey and stark. There were no trees, up there. The
clouds rolled in, cooling the air. Faint trail led to Jasper and
Golden Lakes and the walking was still pretty easy, not quite
bushwhacking. It seems that a lot of people read the guidebook
description that says that it is possible, though “animal”(as
opposed to human or semi-human) to go to these off-trail lakes.
Then we hit the rocks. For the next hour or so, down to Triskele
Lake and over to the Cloverleaf Lakes, we were constantly on talus,
big rocks and little ones, steep ones and shallow ones. The sun
came out for a while, cheering us all, but I still had a hard time
hopping from boulder to boulder. I had a few panic attacks, but
they passed quickly. Still, we decided to cut our off-trail
wandering short. I’m just too slow. I enjoy the challenge of
finding our own route, and having the lake basins to ourselves, but
it is hard hiking, especially for me. I just don’t trust my balance
enough, or the rock’s stability, to be happy rock-hopping. I get
too cautious. A couple of falls in the past reinforced my caution,
and I overthink things when I get nervous, which slows me down even
more. I can’t just trust momentum to get me over the rocking rocks,
though I know that that is the best technique.
We managed to eat lunch in the sun, then the clouds came back. We
continued to crawl over the rocks and up over the ridges. Just as
we reached our highest point, an open granite ridge, a thunderstorm
hit. Jim said to me, “We really do have to hurry now.” Right!
“I’m trying!”, I responded, with a few curses under my breath.
Trouble was, by that point I was really tired, my knees hurt, my
legs were like limp noodles, I couldn’t breathe and my nerve was
totally shot. Hurrying was out of the question. We descended from
the Cloverleaf Basin past Lake Rachel to Martin Lake and ‘real
trail’ again. The descent was hellish, straight down the streambed,
over loose rocks. Once we hit trees again, we began looking for a
campsite. We found a nice little meadow above the lake. We can’t
see the water, just rugged cliffs and black clouds, but it’s nice.
We’re all exhausted. We didn’t make many miles, but it took all day
and totally wore us out.
Jim: The next day we started off with several miles
of “unofficial” trail, which then degenerated to an unmitigated
bushwhack across scree and talus slopes. For those who’ve
forgotten, the definition of “bushwhack” is “a method of expending
twice the time and four times the energy to cover half the
distance.” In any case, it was a short day mileage-wise as we worked
our way past a string of remote, high-country trail-less lakes that
are reportedly teeming with fish (we didn’t bring fishing equipment
– this time). Eventually and, of course, at the point we were most
vulnerable (on a high pass), the usual afternoon thunderstorm showed
up and dumped on us. After that we got to work our way down a
talus-choked ravine that led to our campsite for the night near
Martin Lake.
Friday, August 30 – 9.5 miles to Marianne Lake
So far, today has been a comedy of errors. We woke to a
wet frozen tent, so we waited for the sun to appear to dry it out,
so didn’t manage to leave camp until 9:00. We passed some people
camped at the far end of Martin Lake, but saw no one on the trail
all morning. Then we discovered I had left the cap loose on our
fuel bottle after Jim spilled half the alcohol. That will affect
meals for the next week. We may not get dinner on Sunday, certainly
no hot chocolate after dinner this week. Grrr!
We wandered from Martin Lake to Wright Lake to Green Lake to Elaine.
That one had a rocky stretch of talus along one end that took some
time to cross. We tried a cross country shortcut to Jorden Lake,
but cut left a bit too soon and ended up back at Farley, not quite
where we intended. It was very cold and windy, but the sun was
shining, so we enjoyed our lunch by the lake. The lakes are pretty
and some of the views are gorgeous, so we took lots of pictures,
which will probably all end up looking alike. By the end of lunch,
the clouds started building again. Bye bye blue skies.
We are all a little testy, still tired from yesterday’s exertions, I
think. The travel is partly on official trail and partly on
unofficial trail. There are lots of short steep ups and downs. The
horses have really chewed up the trail. With all the rain, it is a
muddy quagmire near the stream crossings. In the dry meadows, the
horse tracks help us find our way sometimes.
LATER: We didn’t manage to go quite as far as we planned, but we
did find a nice spot in the sun in a small open spot below Mariane
Lake. It will do. We would have liked to be nearer the lake, but
there were no sheltered spots, so we kept on descending into the
trees. As cold as the wind has been today, protection from it
seemed best.
The afternoon hike went better than the morning, it was strenuous
but we had no more mishaps. We went from Farley Lake to Jordan to
Shrimp to Picket to Otter to Mariane Lake. Lots of lakes, and a
couple of nice waterfalls – too far to photograph, unfortunately.
We ran into one guy camped by Otter Lake, but otherwise we had the
trails to ourselves. The trail around Otter and Mariane Lakes was
rough. It wasn’t official trail, but it gets use, so navigation
wasn’t a problem, and technically it wasn’t difficult, just very
strenuous as it climbed rocks and crossed talus. The guidebook
calls it ‘moderate’ – right. I did better today, no real panic
attacks crossing the rocks, but I still went slowly. Flat rocks are
okay, tilted rocks, not okay.
Cleaning up at the end of the day in a shallow tarn was a real high
point, then I sat and baked in the sun for a while. I hurt and am
tired, but overall, I’m content.
Jim: Today was mostly on trail, although some of it hardly
qualified for the designation and much of it was, again,
“unofficial” (if it’s too steep and rough for horses, it can’t be
official, but it does get use). We continued our westward
migration, passing a dozen lakes, some large, some small, all of
them beautiful in their own way. One ill-advised bushwhack (on my
part) got us to lunch at what I call the “unplanned lake” which we
then had to back out of in order to get back to where we wanted to
be. That day ended at Marianne Lake with all of us (including
Skeeter) being VERY happy to end the day. The campsite was right at
treeline – this is the first time we’ve been below treeline since we
started at the trailhead.
Saturday, August 31 –12 miles to ledge above Little Copeland Lake
It sprinkled a bit early in the night, but we woke to blue skies and
sunshine. Our descent from Mariane Lake to Russell Lake was a bit
rough, steep with lots of blowdowns and two fords, one knee deep.
It wasn’t official trail, and wasn’t nearly as straight as it shows
on the map. We followed a cascading stream with several nice
waterfalls. Then we joined ‘the Beaten Path,’ a well used very
popular trail that crosses the Wilderness Area. We followed a river
gently downhill, past cascading waterfalls and had a couple of nice
views of Index and Pilot Peaks, which are very distinctive landmarks
around here. They are beautiful. We met lots of people – 19 – just
on that 4 mile stretch, but then it’s Saturday and Labor Day weekend
at that. Then we turned off on the Crazy Lakes Trail and had the
woods to ourselves again, for a while. The walking was easy through
dense forest, nothing like the high country we were in before.
There were occasional meadows and lakes. The trail is smooth and
not too steep, though there were a lot of downed trees to slow us
down a bit.
Just as we were eating lunch, it started to rain. When we reached
our ford of Big Moose Lake, a wide river outlet, the thunder and
lightning arrived, right on top of us. It began to hail, large
chunks, as we waited under a tree for the lightning to move off.
Crossing the knee-deep wide open river-lake in those kind of
conditions didn’t seem like a good idea, so we waited ten minutes or
so for things to quiet down before crossing and heading through the
woods to Copeland Lake, our destination for the day. The trail
junction was unmarked, as most out here have been, and in the middle
of a big beautiful meadow that reminded me of a lot of the meadows
we crossed on the CDT. We could have been in Mt. Zirkel, the San
Juans or San Pedro Parks, instead of Montana. A couple of hikers
missed their trail there, as it was just a faint track heading
across the meadow. We met them on the way up to Copeland, trying to
figure out where they were. They had the wrong map, and borrowed
ours to see the area. They all wore bear bells and carried bear
spray in their hands. We didn’t tell them that in seven days we
have seen the print of only one bear. Today we saw what looked like
a mountain lion track though. We got sprinkled on again when we
arrived at Copeland Lake and started looking for a place to set up.
The campsite by the lake was too small and too close to the water.
There was a big outfitters camp and they were letting their horses
roam, hobbled, so we decided to keep going. Evidently moose season
started today. We checked on the Internet for deer and elk seasons,
but didn’t think about moose season. The hunters passed us on the
trail – 5 people, ten horses. Another group of hunters on horseback
is camped back in the woods a bit, only two hunters from Billings.
We kept going past Lake Copeland to swampy Little Copeland. We
didn’t see any good campsites there either, so we picked up water
and kept climbing. It was a good move. We ended up on a ridge
above the lake, with a fantastic view of the mountains to the south
– some with glaciers, some rocky buttes. The sun finally reappeared
about 5:00, though it’s cool. Jim slipped crossing a stream and
twisted his knee. He’s sore. We’re all tired, though most of the
day wasn’t that hard. We were climbing all afternoon, but short
climbs. The best parts of today were the meadows, the waterfalls,
and cooking dinner in the sun at the end of the day.
Jim: Tomorrow's Sept 1. Yeah, we know it is cause it's the first day of a
special moose season that didn’t show up on the Montana Fish and
Wildlife website (which I checked before we left). It was also a
long, wet and beautiful day down to Russell Lake, following ‘The
Beaten Path’ (the most popular backpacking trail in the Beartooths,
a 27 mile linear trail transecting the Wilderness) down the Russell
Creek drainage for several miles and then cutting back east to the
ford at Widewater Lake where you actually ford a narrow part of the
lake itself. Of course, the afternoon thunderstorm hit just as we
got to the ford so we got to wait in the rain and hail (although the
spruce forest provided some shelter) for it to let up before
crossing. After that it seemed like a long haul to Copeland Lake
where we planned on camping for the night. Unfortunately, the best
campsites there had been preempted by a couple of hunting groups, so
we kept on truckin’ and camped on an overlook at Little Copeland
Lake a mile or so later. But it was a beautiful view from the top.
We kept looking for moose in the water below, but with the hunters
in the woods, I think they’d all gone south.
Sunday, September 1, 2002 – 10 miles to unnamed lake
We really enjoyed our rocky aerie last night. We spent a couple of
hours sitting up on the rocks, looking down on the pond (Little
Copeland) and out over several faint blue ridges. A hunter stopped
by to chat for a few minutes. He was quite proud of his GPS and its
ability to get him back to his campsite. Hope it worked as well as
he thought.
This morning involved a lot of short steep climbs as we rounded
Granite Lake and searched for an unofficial side trail that was
supposed to go to Thiel Lake. Granite is a big one, over two miles
long with some nice campsites at the north end that we saw as we
passed by. All were, surprisingly, empty. I would have thought
that they’d all be full on Labor Day weekend. We saw no hikers this
morning, though a few times I thought I heard voices. In the
afternoon we passed two couples out on dayhikes. One couple had
fishing rods and the other had a couple of dogs. The morning was
slightly overcast and cool. We passed several small lily-pad
covered ponds and grassy meadows. We finally found our trail
junction right after lunch and climbed to Thiel Lake and the
Beartooth High Lakes Trail. It is well named. We passed several
small lakes, named and unnamed. The afternoon was sunny and very
windy. The trail was a steep roller coaster. I fought the trail
all afternoon – each climb seemed difficult and I couldn’t breathe,
so finally I suggested shortening the hike today. The guys agreed
easily. As Mark said, “This is supposed to be a vacation. Sure,
let’s take it easy.” We stopped by a pretty unnamed lake, ringed by
steep cliffs. The water is very cold. There is someone camped at
the far end of the lake, but we can’t seen them from our campsite
and they can’t see us, so it is as if we have the place to
ourselves. We had planned to go on to Native Lake, but I figured
that since it is a recommended guidebook destination only 4 or 7
miles from the trailhead (depending on which one you use) it is
likely to be crowded with weekenders. As tired as I am, that just
wasn’t a risk I wanted to take. Here we have an open sunny spot, a
little sheltered from the incessant wind. We can dry our wet boots
and socks and rest a bit, then have a full day’s hike tomorrow. I
feel a bit wimpish, stopping early, but I was so tired it was hard
to enjoy the scenery. And it is truly splendid. Beartooth Butte is
nearby, a huge and very distinctive mass of rock. There were
glimpses of snowy mountains to the north and lots of blue green
lakes.
Jim: We wandered out of camp late, worked our way around Granite Lake,
took another “unofficial” trail from Teardrop Lake across to Thiel
Lake and worked our way south to an early campsite at Mule Lake
where we all managed to get somewhat clean. For the first time on
this loop, there was no afternoon thunderstorm, but the night was
spent listening to a lot of really strong winds trying to destroy
our tent.
Monday, September 2 – 3 miles – West Yellowstone
An interesting, altogether different day. We had a very windy
night, but it stayed clear and relatively warm. We had planned a
seven mile hike out to our car at Island Lake, but missed a turn and
ended up, three miles later, at the Clay Butte Trailhead. The hike
was gorgeous, high on the side of the Butte with lovely views south
and west and lots of open meadows. We passed a very fresh pile of
bear scat and soon after saw fresh bear tracks in the mud of a side
creek – mama and cub probably. We had heard that there was one seen
near Beartooth Lake a week or two ago. They were going the other
direction, unfortunately, They probably heard us coming and ran
off.
We met two girls returning from their weekend hike who gave us a
ride back to our car. We were consulting our map, trying to figure
out where we were, when they walked up and said, “Oh yes, we missed
that junction yesterday.” We were happy to get a ride in the back
of their truck, as it would have been a long walk out to the highway
and back to our trailhead. It felt really good to change into clean
clothes, when we did reach the car.
We drove into Cooke City, a tiny tourist town, and had hamburgers
for lunch. That was nice, though the town wasn’t very impressive.
Then we drove on to Yellowstone, where we played tourist. We didn’t
have a lot of time, but we visited various waterfalls, saw the Grand
Canyon of Yellowstone, lots of interesting rocks and cliffs, the
Norris Geyser Basin, and eventually some animals. The volcanic
rocks and cliffs were fascinating, and the sagebrush meadows
reminded me so much of our past travels in Wyoming. Despite the
hordes of tourists, I had fun. We saw several buffalo, including
one who walked across the middle of an intersection, oblivious to
the cars waiting for him, and many herds of elk, including one
‘family’ that crossed a stream as we drove by. I thought it
interesting that the male waited until all the females were across
before he decided it was safe to cross. All the tourists were
waiting for him so they could get his picture, and he was nervous.
Earlier we watched one guy stalk a herd of buffalo to get a photo.
They were nervous and kept moving father and farther away. Our
picture will be of little black dots far out on the meadow. Two
eagles flying over the ‘Grand Canyon’ were also a treat. I couldn’t
tell whether they were golden eagles or osprey, but they were
beautiful. After a while we got a bit blasé as we passed more elk
and more buffalo without even stopping the car. We arrived in West
Yellowstone about 7:00 pm and were very happy to see lots of vacancy
signs at the many motels. After six days on the trail, a hot shower
was heaven!
I love the beauty in this area. Montana is still one of my favorite
places to visit, as is Wyoming. Our trails have been in both
states. Tomorrow we’ll shop and clean up before driving to our next
trailhead for another week in the backcountry. Yesterday I wasn’t
sure I was ready for more hiking; by Wednesday, I will be.
Jim: The next morning we found ourselves on the wrong trail headed off
toward the wrong trailhead, although we didn’t realize we’d missed a
turn until we reached the next junction. Along the way we found
fresh grizzly tracks and still-warm scat, which made the mistake
more bearable, plus the fact that the views we got were stupendous.
We got lucky and managed to get a ride the 10 miles back to the car
from a couple of young ladies we met coming out. The “mistake”
shortened the day by about 5 miles, but also gave us some extra time
to do some sightseeing as we drove through Yellowstone.
That, of course, is where we saw the majority of the wildlife that
we saw on the entire trip. There were deer, elk, buffalo and moose
at various points and we stopped at the Grand Canyon of the
Yellowstone as well as some of the thermal areas. We took lots of
pictures, including one of a buffalo crossing the road. That night
we went into West Yellowstone for food, shower, laundry --- and a
new camera (the old one died – again).
