We stayed in Red Lodge, Montana, just for this reason, a hike in the area known as the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. Not a half-mile south of our hotel is West Fork Road, which dead-ends in the Custer Gallatin National Forest. Yeah, lots of names.
A relatively short part of the road was paved and a seemingly larger part of it is gravel, but Rock Creek that runs next to the road is nearly ever-present.
Somewhere out there is the end of the road and the beginning of some trail options.
A small wooden bridge took us over this view of the West Fork of Rock Creek.
Not far from the trailhead, we were greeted by this beautiful little marmot. Considering the burned log, Mr. Marmot is perched upon, you might be wondering if maybe fire has been through here recently. Well, we’ve been seeing the scars on the landscape, though there’s lots of regrowth in the area. Back in the summer of 2008, the Cascade Fire burned through about 10,000 acres southwest of Red Lodge.
We had planned to hike the Basin Lake Trail but decided to at least see what was at the end of the road and then decide if we might want to hike a mile or two in that area before tackling our 5-mile hike at the lake. We didn’t have a lot of water with us nor a backpack to carry it in, hence the consideration of a manageable 5-miler.
The trails out here are about 12 miles and up, so with only 2 liters of water, we knew that we’d have to keep things brief. In addition to being dumb enough not to have bought more water in town, we took off down the trail without so much as a tiny snack.
No matter, though, as we’re not going far, and when we return up the road to Basin Lake, we’ll remember to take a couple of energy bars from the car with us.
Though all around us is evidence of the fire, the regrowth is drawing us in to see what’s just up ahead.
Are these berries a type of bear food, or are we the tastier morsels? Without bear spray, I’m feeling a tiny bit vulnerable. Also, while we were out here, we failed to recognize these as elderberries, so we didn’t stop to enjoy a few.
That didn’t stop us from gobbling up as many raspberries as we could. These would come in especially useful about 5 hours later.
We passed a guy loaded with camera gear that told us of a nearby waterfall. That was enough to pull us deeper into the mountains to at least see that sight with our own eyes. He thought we were relatively close at this point.
We were wondering whether we might have missed the falls the guy told us about, as this cascade didn’t look like the image he showed us on his phone. No matter, this is pretty enough, and maybe the falls are just up ahead.
No, we want waterfalls, not rockfalls.
Okay, a lake is nice and well appreciated, so we’ll take that as motivation to look just a little further up the trail. We also seem to be moving away from the burn area as we are seeing more trees that escaped destruction.
Things are becoming enchanting with this giant boulder that apparently arrived from high above as who doesn’t love swirly granite?
Although we’d been super conservative with our limited water, we were aware that we should turn around soon if we were going to make our 5-mile hike back to Basin Lake.
Just a little further, and that would be it, but first, we needed to luxuriate in the shade of the forest that was getting thicker with every step forward.
Well, I learned that this is a tachinid fly, which was first identified by Carl Linnaeus back in 1761, and that Carl is known as the “Father of modern taxonomy,” but other than that, all I can share is that this is a fly.
Indian Paintbrush is beautiful no matter where one may see it. While I could be wrong about where I first saw it, my memory of when I learned its name goes back to our 2012 trip on the Alsek River.
I’ve just spent the better part of the last 20 minutes trying to determine what type of butterfly this is. Google, with its image search function, is great, but I keep getting pointed to this being a dark green fritillary. The problem is that this butterfly is not found to be in North America. Then there’s the silver-bordered fritillary that is a species found over on this side of the earth so I guess I’ll go with that.
As we walk along the trail, the scenery is forever changing, with perspectives offering views that are never the same twice. At best, we can only glance over, take an impression, and keep going; such is the nature of limited amounts of time and resources. The original inhabitants and explorers of these lands would have been able to crawl over the environment to their heart’s content; I, on the other hand am not offered this luxury.
Ooh, the trail is fully green now, so we should be smart about this and turn around.
Have I ever shared with you that my middle name is Moss-Garden?
Come to think of it, maybe I should have named my daughter Cascade instead of Jessica.
I believe the 60% of me that is water senses when molecules of its kind are flowing nearby, signaling me to bring them closer to where their cousins are free to travel where they will as opposed to being my prisoners. Sorry water, but in order for me to walk the land, I have to carry my personal ocean with me.
But look at how seductive this appears. Your cells will dry out one day anyway, so why not set them free to spill back into the flow? Water nourishes all, and if you think about it for a second, why not ask yourself what exactly you are doing to benefit life as you sequester those 16 gallons of water so selfishly?
Mountain ranges often act as vapor dams where clouds bunch up to drop their moisture on one side of the range. Down their slopes, the water is carried by gravity past trees and plants to feed them while also filling depressions and pockets, which supports the various lives that are scattered across this environment that is too hostile for humans to live in. What isn’t captured for these purposes might join a stream below, carrying it to other locations where water works to sustain all living things on this planet.
These craggy mountains are not the most inviting when it comes to the idea of taking a hike up their slopes unless walking on scree is your idea of a good time. Maybe if I were closer to that side of the range we are walking in, I’d have a different opinion, but from my vantage point, that looks hairy.
Damn, these photos suck compared to my memories of how extravagantly beautiful this place is.
Have you guessed yet that we have not yet turned around? We have no food with us, and while there’s a ton of water flowing nearby, neither Jessica nor I am willing to risk a Giardia Party in our pants on the way back to the trailhead. You would be correct in your summation that we are being idiots out here trying to limit how much we are drinking compared to the length of our hike.
Going into the mountains short on the essentials is feeling like my predicament right now as I try to write a coherent blog post about our hike; I’ve included too many photos, and I’m short on words to describe all of this.
Tufts of thick green grasses reflected in the water made for a beautiful sight while I stood on the opposite side of the river in admiration. I took the photo as I knew I wanted the reminder to share with Caroline after our return that this trail is significant for us and that we should endeavor to come back. Of course, my enthusiasm should be enough to share with my wife the impact this area has made on me, but on the other hand, I’d like for her to see a tiny fraction of what I was able to see.
My daughter Jessica is shooting an excess of photos too, but for her husband, my son-in-law, Caleb, who couldn’t be here with us.
If I think about it, I might have to admit to a small fetish with drying bleached fallen tree trunks and limbs. There’s something about the grain, twists, and jagged edges that my eyes find particularly appealing.
Fetish number 2, lichen. I should just continue with admitting that moss has a place in my heart, dried leaves too, and while I’ve taken time to inspect a scat or two trying to identify the fur or berries in it, I can’t really say I’d stop for every pile of poo I pass. Lichen, moss, driftwood, fallen leaves, plants reflecting in the water, yeah, all those things I’ll never get enough of.
Speaking of reflections.
Meadows are yummies for the eyes in my world.
I’d go out and frolic, but we don’t have bear spray, and by this time we’d seen probably three other groups out hiking and a family or two, and they all had bear spray on their hip …jeezus, we were unprepared. Well, not totally unprepared as we are armed with cameras and various lenses with plenty of storage capacity that, if we had to, we could probably photograph a bear to death.
Walking through this rockfall, I’m the kind of guy who listens closely for the boulder heading down from the cliffs above at ballistic speeds, as I imagine that I might be right here at the wrong time, ready to dodge such a deadly projectile.
This is not a forest pancake; it was a crawling fungus triggering PTSD memories from that late 1950s sci-fi horror film titled “The Mutoid Space Creature With Two Radioactive Mushroom Pancake Heads.”
It’s been over 4 hours since we started down this trail, and our Fitbits are saying we are already nearly 6 miles into the mountains.
We are looking for something that suggests that this is the definitive turn-around point; I’m certain that something along the way will let us know that this is it.
But we just keep on going.
Okay, this is it. The path forks, and we certainly won’t be making the hike up a strenuous trail to get to Lake Mary, though it’s only a mile. We are both getting hungry, and we are thirsty which was to be expected after this many miles with an equal number yet ahead of us. The other side of the fork goes to Quinnebaugh Meadows, though a part of me wonders if we have already reached that point. On that other fork, enough water is flowing over the trail that we know that this is where we turn around.
How’d we miss this on our way up the trail?
Ooh, and how did we miss this?
Did we see these flowers earlier, or were we looking the wrong way?
The hike back is mostly downhill, so we are making great time on our retreat, but some nice cold water sounds perfect right about now.
Along the trail, after being in the thick of the forest, we will be back among the raspberries that sustain my growing hunger pangs. My eyes, on the other hand, are well-fed.
Thirsty and hungry I still can’t help myself taking photos.
I first spotted a small snake crossing our path, but neither Jessica nor I were quick enough to grab a photo. Not 15 minutes later, she spotted this specimen curled up and warming on a stone. It didn’t move a scale the entire time we snapped off a dozen photos.
I took more than a few photos of butterflies, but this one was my very favorite.
Seven hours and twelve and a half miles later, we were done with our hike into the wilderness in a state of total unpreparedness. It was great to sit down in the car only to discover there was an extra bottle of water on the floor behind Jessica. Food was also at hand as we’ve been traveling with an ice-chest stocked with what we’d need to avoid restaurants as often as we’d want to. The hard part here was only having a small snack, so we’d be prepared for what comes next.
Dinner was again at the Piccola Cucina Ox Pasture Italian restaurant, except this evening, we indulged in our first dessert of the trip with a tableside “deconstructed” tiramisu. The espressos turned out to be a big mistake, as sleep was difficult to find after getting back to our motel. All around, it was just a perfect day, and was terrific to be out of the car for so long exercising the legs. Just an all-around sense of “wow!”
