Packin' the Beartooths! The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, 8.15.21 - 8.26.21, Part 3 of 6
Sunday morning the first thing I did was to check the latest forecast for where we planned to hike. It called for a slight chance of rain and snow before 8AM, patchy smoke, mostly cloudy then gradually becoming sunny with a high near 52, windy with gusts up to 37 mph. Not exactly ideal but we were done waiting. I met Mike and Sandy at Beartooth Lake. It was still pretty cold but at least it wasn’t raining. We had our warmest clothes. I had long johns, a wool shirt, a polar fleece jacket, a down puffy and my rain jacket as a wind shell along with gloves and a wool hat. We left their vehicle there at the Beartooth Lake Trailhead and piled into Mr. Green Jeens. A short drive to the west led us to the road up to Clay Butte Lookout. We found the Clay Butte Trailhead at the last switchback below the top and did our final gear checks and adjustments.
At the late hour of 10:15AM we finally set foot on a trail in the Beartooths. It had rained for a week and the trail was a mess of thick mud that clung to our boots in giant globs. We had to be very careful with each step not to slip and it was slow going. Almost immediately we began to see grizzly bear tracks in the mud on the trail. Lots of tracks. It looked like it was probably a mother and cub as we saw big and little tracks. It was an extremely exciting way to start our adventure. We wanted to see bears but preferably at a comfortable distance so we were on ultra high alert and made noise in the areas where there was tree cover.
The trail contoured around the west side of Beartooth Butte and entered big open meadows. We were constantly looking in all directions hoping to spot a bear from a distance. We did see several elk and at one point a mama grouse and her chick waddled right in front of us on the trail.
Bear track!
Mother Grouse
In less than a half mile we realized it was warming up and the skies were beginning to clear. We stopped and shed some layers before continuing. Sandy was in the lead at this point and spotted a big bull moose up above us on a hill. He was just standing there staring at us. He was definitely close enough that of he chose to charge us we would have had nowhere to go. I snapped a couple of quick photos and then we moved on so as not to agitate him.
Bull moose
By now we were completely out in the open meadows and the patches of blue sky increased with every step. We could not believe how great the trip had started with the bear tracks, the elk, grouse and moose sightings and the clearing skies. Spirits were very high and it just turned into a beautiful morning. So far we had mainly stayed on a contour line around the butte but as we gently climbed a bit higher the ground even began to dry out and the trail conditions improved dramatically. As the clouds cleared off more we got our first views of 11,409’ Lonesome Mountain off in the distance. This was originally going to be the central hub of our backpack trip and our route would have circumnavigated this isolated mountain.
Hiking along Beartooth Butte
Soon we dropped down to a creek, crossed it and worked our way into new terrain of forest, rocks and creeks. It was easy going as the trail climbed higher and I seemed to be doing just fine hiking at the high altitude.
Terrain beyond the meadows
Our map showed that our trail should have connected to a different major trail just a bit to the southeast of our first lake called Native Lake but much to our surprise, as we crested a small hill we came directly to the middle of the shoreline. Native Lake was everything you could ask for in a mountain lake. It was large but not too large, rocky cliffs and meadows surrounded the shoreline and plenty of potential camping spots were found on the knobs around the lake. Speaking of camping, in the Beartooths there are no designated campsites in the wilderness areas. You can camp anywhere you can find a flat spot to erect your tent as long as it is a hundred feet or more from the water.
Native Lake
Now that we had finally reached the wilderness we opted to up the adventure a tad. Our plan was to do a modified loop from Clay Butte to Beartooth Lake which is why we did the car shuttle. From Native Lake our next move would be to reach a basin called T Lake Basin but to reach it would require off trail navigation. Cross country travel in the Beartooths is no simple task. It might look easy on the map but in reality it is a maze of hills, meadows and constant ups and downs. There are a ton of lakes of every shape and size, many that aren’t shown on the map and many of the ones that are shown don’t even have names. We took a compass reading on Lonesome Mountain but Mike had a tracking app on his phone that was a big help.
From Native Lake we continued a short way on the actual trail to where it veered off to the left. There we left the trail completely and wandered through a lovely rock-strewn meadow until we came to an unnamed lake. Keeping a close eye on the map and the app we passed by several more small lakes and then climbed to a saddle above only to be looking down on Native Lake from the opposite side from where we started. This was fine though as we wanted to wrap around to that side anyway. We knew what direction T Lake was so we continued on, climbing a couple of knolls and then worked our way up a wooded ridge.
Off trail travel with Lonesome Mountain in the distance
Soon we climbed up and over the ridge and as we topped out we all gasped at the scene that lay before us. Our position was a few hundred feet directly above T Lake and the first big view of the Beartooth Plateau sprawled out before us. Wow! What a sight! In addition to the T Lake Basin, Lonesome Mountain rose by itself as if presiding over the area. We could easily see a half a dozen lakes and in the far distance the upper reaches of the plateau was visible, lined with big peaks with a fresh dusting of the recent snowfall. It seemed like the perfect place to have our lunch and gawk for awhile. With my Peakfinder app I was able to identify numerous mountains near and far, many of which were over twelve thousand feet high.
We stayed perched on our ridge top for the better part of an hour. It was getting plenty warm and I shed my long johns and even zipped off my leggings to just wear shorts. Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from our spectacular view spot and we made our way down the grassy hillside to the shore of T Lake. Following the shoreline we made our way down the basin past several more lakes, none of which were named lakes until we eventually connected up to the official trail. This we followed down past Claw Lake to a junction. A left would have taken us to another lake on the Beartooth Highway called Island Lake. We stayed to the right and worked our way up and down to Beauty Lake which was an extremely large lake. Beyond Beauty Lake it was a short descent through the woods back to Beartooth Lake and the other vehicle.
T Lake and the Beartooth Plateau
Upper T Lake Basin
12,408' Castle Rock Spire
Inlet creek to Claw Lake
Mike and me at the Beartooth High Lakes junction
Beauty Lake
Late afternoon light on Clay Butte
Mike and Sandy had moved their camp to a reserved camp spot near Red Lodge which was close to where I was staying so once we shuttled back to my Jeep we got to drive up and over Beartooth Pass and down the other side to reach our respective sleeping spots. I had only been up on the Beartooth Pass area once in the smoke and they had never been to the Beartooths before. They were blown away at how beautiful the drive was and driving over just before sunset made it even more special.
One of the views from up on the Beartooth Highway. We would eventually do a hike over near Silver Run Peak, one by Spirit Mountain and another near Metcalf Peak.
Zoomed in on The Bear’s Tooth
We could not even believe how amazingly great our first day had gone. The weather had been much better than we had anticipated and the hike was sheer joy every step of the way. All in all we probably hiked around ten miles and passed by at least fifteen lakes. Being in no particular hurry we really took our time and just soaked up the experience along the way. I didn’t get to my motel in Red Lodge until 8:30PM and didn’t get to bed until 10:30PM. I was tired but elated and fell asleep excited for the next morning’s adventure.
Part 4 coming up...