Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness, Day 6, 26 Sep 14

This morning, I woke with no condensation in my quilt or tarp.  The prior condensation was from my breath!  I packed up quickly, but as usual was last to the eating area.  For some reason, my granola this morning turned out to be muesli.  I didn’t even notice till I was eating it.  Cold muesli is pretty chewy and not that appetizing!

The bushwhack descent from the plateau was supposed to be difficult.  I had hoped it was wooded areas that would just be difficult to get down.  Turned out the few wooded areas were mostly impenetrable.  When we got near the stream going down, the blowdown was tremendous.  When we were further away, it was almost continuous boulder and talus fields.  

This was the closest I’ve ever had to a nightmare during hiking.  Most of the boulder fields had gigantic deep gaps between the boulders, sometimes over water, that made it dangerous to cross.  Seldom were there any flat rocks, at least within stepping distance of each other.  In some cases, the boulders were small and nearly all were unsteady because of the steepness of the descent.  In one case, it was so steep I watched N3 stand a hundred yards below me and it looked like he was standing at the top of a cliff.  R1 told me it wasn’t that steep, but I think he was trying to make me feel better.

While R1, M2, and N3 were able to walk across most of the boulder fields, I had to frequently get down on all fours and scoot across the fields.  This slowed the team down, and the others got some good rest waiting on me.  What surprised me was that my hybrid cuben backpack survived the contact with the rocks.  I cannot say the same for the skin on my fingers that peeled off over the next couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, I was not willing to pull my camera out during the boulder fields and risk losing it.  I was trying to think of a description of the fields that would do them justice.  Maybe they were a display of chaotic majesty and mindless menace.  On the other hand, I think the other guys saw them as an outdoor amusement park!  Maybe with some balance training, I can come back and handle them more confidently.

Once we got through the boulder fields and back near the small river, we ended up bushwhacking through some really difficult wooded areas.  At the start of that area, we encountered a waterfall that was maybe 10 meters high.  R1 went to the bottom and asked M2 to pose for a picture at the top.  M2 got a little enthusiastic and got too close to the pool right at the top.  He slipped on the rock he was standing on and went in face first.  The pool was only a couple of feet deep, but he completely submerged.  N3 was afraid he would slide over the drop and immediately used his trekking poles to get M2 out.  Unfortunately, M2 broke one of his own trekking poles, and he lost his bear spray canister!  Luckily, he was just wet and not hurt.

When we got down to the bottom of the waterfall, N3 saw a glint in the water, and we were able to recover the bear spray.

As we crossed the wooded area, we were trying to get to the small river and across to the original trail which would be about four miles short of the trail head.  As we bushwhacked, R1 kept checking his GPS and indicating we were only 500’ from the trail.  Funny how it went from 500’ to a few thousand.  An hour and a half later, we actually got back to the trail we were looking for.  I ended up with scratches all over my arms and legs from that bushwhack.

The trail back to the trail head was only about three miles long where we found it.  The walk back was brisk and relaxing.

We got back on the road, and stopped at a small tavern/restaurant for a great burger dinner.  We stopped at the lodge to pick up our extra bags and drop off the bear spray canisters, and made it to the hotel by about 9:00 pm.

Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness, Day 5, 25 Sep 14

This morning, I woke to condensation in the shoulder area of the quilt and quite a bit inside the bivy in that area.  The tarp was bone dry both on top and underneath.  That clinched my conclusion, it was my breath causing the condensation during the night.

The plan for today was to bushwhack across the plateau, starting with a climb up to a peak at about 11,500 feet.  This first part of the climb was on a wide ridge with deep valleys on either side.  The path to the peak was pretty mild, but continually crossed outcroppings of rock and boulders that made the hiking somewhat difficult.  My breathing slowed me a bit, but R1 showed me a way to take longer, deeper breaths that made it a lot easier.  I didn’t have any symptoms of altitude sickness, just the inability to get as much oxygen as I was used to during the uphill climbs.

On the last approach to the peak, the boulders fields became nearly continuous and more difficult.  The peak and its approaches gave some really impressive views. 

 

Heading down from the peak to the ridge and across the plateau, the boulder fields became larger and more challenging.  During this period I had a few mishaps.  On one jump down from a particularly tall boulder, I landed poorly on my left foot, and I think I hurt one of my toes.  At the time, I thought I had broken it.  On another crossing, I tripped and had to skip across a couple of boulders.  Another time, a large boulder I was crossing shifted abruptly and threw off my balance.  I skipped a couple of boulders till my trekking pole caught; and I had to go down to prevent breaking it.  Luckily I didn’t seem to hurt anything.  After those fields, I was careful to put my left foot down flatly to avoid further damage to the toe.

When we got near the edge of the plateau, we came upon some wooded areas.  We wanted to descend to a lake a few hundred feet down, but had difficulty finding a way down.  The woods were difficult to get through and were mixed in with more boulder fields.  We finally began a deep descent through heavy brush and woods.  At some places we had to ‘walk’ across bushes on a steep slope.  It was kind of like post-holing through deep snow; you didn’t know what your feet would find or where they would stop.  I couldn’t see the ground under the bushes.

When we got near the lake, it became one continuous boulder field.  The others seemed able to cross it with relative ease, but I had a difficult time.  We stopped for water in the boulder field next to the lake.  It had only been about five miles since the last water, but I don’t think we made more than a little over a mile per hour during that stretch.  That’s where I saw R1 use his Sawyer water bladder for the first and only time.

After we got water, we went on around the lake and up the wooded hill to a set of pretty nice camp sites.  It had been windy the last two days, and the wind seemed to get worse as the evening came on.  You could hear it roaring through the trees.

I commented to R1 that the fallback plan of going back down the nice 14 mile trail to the trail head the next day didn’t seem to be very feasible.  He agreed that it was too late to make that change once we got to the peak earlier in the day.  We had a camp fire again in a really nice fire ring.  We thought this area was pretty inaccessible, but it must have been used occasionally by hunters or backpackers.

I set up my tarp with a particularly high pitch for good entry but a very low end towards the wind.  It was my best pitch yet.  I also decided to not use the bivy, despite the night’s wind.  I would also keep my head out from under the quilt.  This way, I could confirm my theory about exhaling the moisture that was causing my quilt and bivy condensation.

Fortunately, the night was very warm, and the breeze actually felt pretty good.  The roaring wind made it pretty hard to sleep, but the strong winds didn’t seem to make it down under my tarp.

Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness, Day 4, 24 Sep 14

Today, we planned to use the trail system to take a loop through a bunch of lakes at an altitude just below the 9,600 foot plateau.  The expectation was up and down on a nice trail.  And that’s what we found.  The scenery was beautiful.  But the weather was cooler and pretty windy.

They told me that R1 had caught a decent sized trout the night before.  I didn’t get to see pictures till after the trip was over.  But it was nice sized.  R1 was also trying some unusual configurations for his tarp.  Here's one near the lake we camped at.

We got to one really nice lake about mid-morning and we all decided to fish.  N3 of course had no pole and just hiked around the lake and up the hill behind it.  I actually waded this morning near R1 and we went about a ¼ around the like, with no luck!  The wind was making it hard to get the fly out on the lake, and nothing was hitting.  After a snack, we all moved on.

R1 fished a lake or two without me and M2 after that.  After one particularly long lake, we got to some scenic pools in the stream just before the next lake.  I actually saw some trout in one pool and pulled out my rod.  I got hits each time I put the fly on the surface of the pool.  But the only one I pulled in was only a few inches long.

M2 went down to the next pool.  They told me he landed one much larger than mine.  But when I saw the picture later it was actually even smaller than mine!

After that, we hiked for most of the rest of the day without fishing.  We passed a number of small lakes, going up and down over hills.

We finally got back to a decent sized lake near the start of the plateau and found some good camp sites.  Unfortunately, the great one I found had a good fire ring next to it.  The group decided to use it as our eating and cooking spot, and I had to look for another.  I was determined to get a site well protected from condensation, so I found a good site with trees over it at the top of a hill next to the lake.  The flat sleeping spot was small, but I thought it was big enough to use.

After eating and hanging our food, I hit the tent to sleep.  Unfortunately, I found the area of my pad and quilt was still on a slight slope.  I tried to stick it out till about an hour after dark, but I kept sliding further towards the edge of the tarp.  I finally gave up and dragged the bivy with pad and quilt out to an open, flat area.  I cowboy camped, without the tarp, the rest of the night.  Luckily, there was no rain during the night.