Articles (2020)

Day 11: July 19

I got to bed late last night due to negotiations with the mountain goats that were not entirely successful. Only one guyline got nicked and fortunately didn’t result in any more damage than a dislodged tent stake which I found this morning.

Last night was our warmest night, with the temperature not dropping below 40 degrees F. This morning’s clear skies came with a blazing sun and only a slight breeze, promising a hot day of trekking, for the mountains at least.

We left camp mid-morning and started walking up a steep talus slope towards a col that divided the Sky Top Lakes and Aero Lakes Basins. Upon reaching the col, which sits right below The Spires, we enjoyed expansive views of the south faces of Glacier Peak and Mount Villard.

We scouted a few different routes down and decided to head south through a gentle draw filled with snow and easy talus. From the bottom of the draw at the Rough Lake-Upper Aero Lake col, we dropped down to Upper Aero Lake and skirted its southeast shore on granite ledges and tundra benches.

The Aero Lakes (Upper and Lower) have to be seen to be believed. They are alpine oceans compared to what most people know to be “alpine lakes”. Each of them a mile long and nearly as wide, it takes several hours to circumnavigate their rugged shorelines.

Upper Aero Lake sits at an elevation of 10,140 feet above sea level and has a surface area of 292 acres. It receives a plant of nearly 30,000 Yellowstone Cutthroat every six years and they grow to fat, healthy proportions. Lower Aero Lake sits just below 10,000 feet, is a little smaller at 190 acres, and is populated by trout that drift down the creek from Upper Aero. Since Upper Aero was last planted in 2012, I was banking on the probability that by now the fish would be big, and still plentiful.

We moseyed down to the rocky tundra between the two lakes and set up camp on the softest bench we’ve seen since we left the meadows below Whitetail Peak a week ago.

We got the shelters set up just in time before a thunderstorm moved in and dumped rain and hail on us. Once the storm subsided, I treated and drank a liter and a half of water to get caught up from a hot, dehydrating hike, and tried to soothe the severe sunburn on my right hand – I forgot my Glacier Gloves – a mistake I regret. For the past several days, we have been trekking at high altitudes in intense sun, over lots of snow. It’s been tough to manage the UV exposure.

This evening, I strung up the tenkara rod and managed to bring three fat trout back to camp. By the time I had poached and deboned the fish, we had a fry bake filled to the brim with three pounds of meat for dinner.

After dinner and the moonrise I presented a case study that stimulated a lively discussion about legality, ethics, and morals – a mental exercise that allows for the exchange of different ideas and perspectives in a way that challenged us all.

I also wrote a celebratory Haiku about our trip, and shared it with the group tonight, with feeling:

Ye Rock of my soul
Let your love overwhelm me
My sweet sweet talus.

Upon retreating back to my tent, and writing this journal entry from my chair with my down quilt draped over me, I notice the grunting of what has now become a regular visitor: a mountain goat is rustling around somebody’s pee spot about 20 feet from my tent.

Tomorrow we exit.

Godspeed,
RJ

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.

Day 10: July 18

Last night’s rowdy thunderstorms created an electric air. Before the lightning came, we heard the humming in our carbon fly rods and felt the static in our hair.

After the worst of the storms plowed through camp late last night, I heard grunting coming from the direction of my Ursack, and my pee spot. Shining my light over, I saw a mountain goat pawing at my food bag, which was tied to a chockstone secured in a boulder crack. I shooed it away with a granite fastball which sent it trotting over towards Eric’s tent. Fine by me. I put in earplugs, and went back to sleep.

In the morning, I listened intently to Eric’s own goat story…

We left Fossil Lake and wandered up the meadowy draw of its inlet until we found talus and snow that took us up a snakey route to a high col dividing the hydrology of Fossil and Cairn Lakes. From there, we climbed up to the Absaroka Crest once again and entered the beautiful Sky Top Lakes basin.

Not satisfied with the 4.5-star views in the lower basin, we proceeded higher over talus, snow, and granite ledges to the Fourth Lake, and are now camped in rocky tundra there at 10,436′.

Our view into the upper cirque is unparalleled, framed by Tge Spires, Mount Villard, the dramatic South Face of the Montana High Point, Granite Peak, and Cairn Mountain. I can see Granite’s summit out the doors of my pyramid tarp, just two miles away.

Two high point parties wandered through en route to establishing their base camps for an attempt at Granite’s summit tomorrow. One fellow was wearing a Backpacking Light cap and turned out to be a customer from California. It always warms my heart to run into BPLers “in the wild”!

In addition to their beauty, Sky Top Lakes are famous for weather, fish stories, and the highest concentration of mountain goats in the range.

This is a hostile spot. The wind blows incessantly here, and through the years I have experienced some of the worst storms the Beartooths have to offer in this drainage. There is no cover – no trees or shrubbery of any sort – only rock and snow. The high peaks concentrated in this area create their own drama when prevailing weather slams into them. The lakes are some of the last to melt in the Beartooths. Once, almost 15 years ago, I visited here in August and Lakes 5, 6, and 7 were still frozen.

And, if I’ve ever seen a fish in these lakes, I won’t be writing anything about it.

A mountain goat ewe and tiny, curious kid have been visiting us all afternoon, licking our pee spots and wandering to and fro through camp. I don’t have the heart to hurl another rock at the ewe or the adorable little kid (those innocent dark eyes…ugh!), so I’ll just keep the Ursack a little closer tonight and maybe head over by Eric’s tent to pee.

Skies are clear as I write this at 10 pm, and the wind is howling and whistling through the ridge tops. But it’s warm enough to sit in my chair with my sleeping bag draped over me, huddled in my down parka, and watch the light of the full moon cast its eerie glow on the Sky Top Glacier as the last light turns the sky from blue to indigo.

Goats are mewing in our camp and I can hear the footprints of the ewe, and what sounds like a few dozen of her closest friends, trotting to and fro. I hope they don’t trip over the myriad guylines that are spun like a spiderweb to secure my tent in the Sky Top Winds.

Tomorrow is our last full day in the Wilderness and we plan to make the most of it by pursuing large trout over the divide to the west.

Godspeed,
RJ

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.

Day 9: July 17

The day broke calm and clear, but frosty.

I had pitched my tarp at the base of a west-facing forty-foot cliff so I didn’t get to enjoy the warmth of the morning sun. Instead, I shivered as long as I could and then packed up my chair and coffee kit and moved to a sun-warmed granite slab overlooking Lake of the Winds’ eastern shore.

After some fishing, we packed up and had a map session, using the big map spread out in an oriented position on the slab and secured at its four corners with granite stones. Now that we were entering the final 1/4 leg of our trek, we reviewed our exit options in case there was too much snow for us to safely cross Sky Top Pass. A doe and buck mule deer wandered into the back of our campsite and curiously looked on while we searched for more lakes with big trout prospects on the map.

We left camp and circumnavigated slabs and ledges around the lake’s south shore and then started a nearly direct line due NW towards Fossil Lake. Our first pass, a Kindergarten climb of only 80 vertical feet, dropped us into the beautiful Gallery Lake basin with a pretty waterfall cascading into the lake’s northeast shore.

From Gallery, we got distracted talking about silly things and got suckered into an inviting climb to the north of our target pass, which was going to drop us into our intermediate destination at Lake of the Clouds.

Instead, we found ourselves more than half a mile northeast of the lake in a little tussocky meadow containing the headwaters of the lake’s inlet stream.

Realizing our error, we decided to stay on this bearing and enter the Fossil Lake basin via a pass that was a a bit west of the route that most backpackers take from Lake of the Clouds, and upon our arrival at this seldom-visited 10,280-foot col, we enjoyed one of the finest scenic vistas I have ever seen in this range.

We stopped here for a long time, solving world problems and such (which seem easier when your packs are off and you’re restfully reclined in a patch of wildflower-laced tundra), as well as identifying all of the peaks on the horizon.

These peaks included a spectacular panorama comprised of some of the Big Ones of the Beartooths: Iceberg Peak (11,552′), Mount Wilse (11,831′), Glacier Peak (12,200′), Mount Villard (12,344′), the Montana High Point, Granite Peak (12,799′), and Cairn Mountain (12,200′).

While at the pass, we were able to recon our exit route over the Villard-Granite col and were surprised to see its east face choked with much more snow than we thought would be there. Giant cornices that we could see with the naked eye from five and a half miles away still protected the top of the col. And so, since we don’t have our snow climbing gear with us, we will have to formulate an alternative exit plan…

The route down was steep and a little precarious, as we walked “over an invisible fall line” to a deep, unnamed lake tucked away on a high bench overlooking Fossil Lake.

On the way down, we discovered talus litter: a deflated helium party balloon, undoubtedly released by accident by some crying kid at a four-year old birthday party down in Billings. This is the second balloon that we’ve found in high elevation talus on our Crew expeditions, so now we are wondering about the wilderness impact of helium balloons at parties down in town…

We reached Fossil Lake in the mid-afternoon and are camped on its exposed North Peninsula. We managed to catch several nice cutthroat trout, a half dozen of which made their way into our dinner stews.

I took a swim today in the lake and I think my heart stopped beating when I dove in. It was the coldest mountain swim I’ve had in a decade. I may be getting too old for this sort of nonsense. Once I recovered with a hot coffee and some time engulfed in my down jacket and sleeping bag, I came back to life and fished for a bit more. We were caught a bit by surprise as a thunderstorm moved in, so we scurried back to our tarps and broke down our carbon fishing rods just as lightning bolts flashed overhead.

As we are a late dinner under the nearly-full rising moon, a giant meteor streaked across the southwestern sky, in a flaming glory of orange, green, and blue. We saw bits break off of it and vaporize quickly, but the meteor disappeared across the horizon with no apparent intent of burning out soon. None of us had ever seen anything quite like it.

This brings us to the end of our ninth day. Ominous dark clouds are building up to the west, and thunder is booming, so it’s time now to batten up the hatches and brace for the next round of storms.

Tomorrow: Sky Top Lakes? After that, maybe we wander out to the southwest and walk into Cooke City, where we can get burgers.

Godspeed,
RJ

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.

Day 8: July 16

I slept well last night, and felt good enough this morning to walk.

We broke camp in the late morning and made the short trek over rocky tundra to Lake of the Winds via Z Lake. We took our time and arrived at camp in the early afternoon.

Lake of the Winds is notorious for two things: large finicky cutthroat and, as the name indicates, wind.

Lake of the Winds is perched on a high bench with lots of weather exposure and little protection. Camping in the wind is problematic up here for backpackers who expect to have a relaxing sit by a nice fire in the evening.

After setting up camp, the winds picked up, the crew scurried to the big tent (an HMG Ultamid 4) and played cards.

I dressed in my storm gear and went fishing.

In spite of whitecaps on the lake, the wind blowing my line every which way, and graupel pelting my face, I managed to sneak enough temptation along the deep shelf at the edge of the talus to get into several tangles with large trout.

The trout were winning, spitting out my fly or breaking me off. So I switched to heavier tippet and finally managed to land a 19-inch Yellowstone Cutthroat. After a little more fishing and one smaller trout, my numb hands were done and I walked back to camp, a forked willow stick carrying my dinner fare.

With the others getting rather excited about me bringing a leviathan back to camp, they grabbed their fishing rods and headed down to the lake themselves. I cleaned one fish (saving the other for the other cook group), poached and deboned it, and put the meat in the fry bake to ready it for dinner later.

A makeshift fireplace and chimney has been constructed at our camp with flat stones stacked and arranged against a large boulder on a granite slab. A few of our Crew improved it by filling in the cracks with mud, so the fireplace now works as designed. This is the problem with having a bunch of engineers and engineer’s sons together in the wilderness.

Needless to say, the fire that has been built within it is creating a monumental amount of heat that is welcome in this cold, windy environment.

After a dinner of Alfredo noodles with more than a pound of ghee-fried trout meat added (for me and my cooking partner), we cleaned up and noticed a very strange phenomenon.

No wind.

So we went fishing again, caught more trout, cooked more trout, and ate more trout.

By the time Round 2 was done, it was dark, warm, and calm. For the first time on our trek, we are enjoying a warm, windless night at a famously cold and windy spot.

I’ve been here half a dozen times over the past two decades and this is the first time I’ve enjoyed an evening here without weather trauma – we are indeed enjoying a relaxing sit by a nice fire…

Tomorrow: crossing the crest via an easy col to fish-filled Fossil Lake.

Godspeed,
RJ

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.

Day 7: July 15

In spite of yesterday’s “short mileage rest day” I am more fatigued today than I’ve been so far on the trip, and more fatigued than I’ve been on any backpacking trek since the day after we finished the crest of the Chinese Wall in the Bob Marshall Wilderness two years ago.

My strength seems to decay a little every day, and I wonder if I’m in need of a true, do-nothing rest day at this point. I didn’t start the trek strong or rested and the first several days were accompanied by some unusual intestinal distress, and maybe it’s catching up to me. I’ll see how I’m feeling in the morning and play it by ear. There were points in the day today where I simply wanted to snap my fingers and be home.

We started the morning with a Crew meeting at our camp at Flat Rock Lake.

I like to do these meetings at the halfway point of our expeditions. It gives us a chance to regroup in an intimate setting as a team, take inventory of physical, emotional, and mental stock, and provide some food for thought on topics related to expeditioning and leadership.

This morning’s conversation focused on the concepts of “team vs. community”.

In our discussion, we came to the realization that “team” is a group of people working towards a common goal, and that “community” is a group of people having shared values and respect for each other. In expeditioning, both team and community must exist. One of the most powerful things I’ve watched on these last three annual Crew expeditions is that we operate with a peer leadership model. There is no captain or patrol leader, no duty roster, and no assigned roles, as occurs in more traditional Scouting settings.

The diversity of expertise that each of our 14-18 year old members bring, combined with the community that already (and previously) exists, makes for a cohesive team framework that has allowed this group to accomplish some incredibly challenging wilderness travel objectives over the past few years. This year we are further learning that competition and scorekeeping kills expedition community and fragments the team, compromising our goals. This morning we renewed our commitment to preserve these values on our expeditions.

Today we traveled a high route between Flat Rock Lake and Desolation Lake via Copepod, Till, and Big Butte Lakes.

The terrain throughout most of the day was talus (much of it loose and sharp) or snow (much of it rotten and lying atop cavernous talus). We traveled five or six miles, and they were hard-earned.

We actually took a wrong turn at one point and ended up down a drainage we weren’t expecting. None of us bothered to look at the maps, because the “route” that was naturally revealed to us was so inviting

Up here on this part of the plateau, the terrain is a jumbled mass of seemingly random granite domes and talus piles. They hide drainages and seams, creating convoluted passageways from one basin to another. Our GPS has been useful (when we look at it; sometimes we get distracted by the fun of endless talus-hopping).

In the mid afternoon, one of our Crew Members slipped on loose scree and his trekking pole fell down to the bottom of a small ledge. I went down to retrieve it and stumbled in some loose, sharp talus and fell into the rocks. The whole thing happened quite fast and I wasn’t too sure what was happening until I felt various bits of piercing pain in my knee, shoulder, ankle, and hand.

I regrouped a few minutes later on a soft patch of tundra and discovered the injuries to be not so dramatic but rather annoying. The worst of them was a broken pinkie finger accompanied by lots of blood from the flesh stolen from it by the offending talus rock. I dressed and taped it to its neighboring finger, and it seems only to interfere moderately with scrambling for now. Its constant throbbing reminds me that we are off trail and remote in a relatively hostile mountain environment.

The ankle bone and shoulder are only bruised but the knee is rather troublesome when trying to balance on one leg while carrying a 40 pound pack. Another argument for a rest day, perhaps. I found myself talus-hopping quite gingerly for our last mile and a half to camp.

Tonight we are camped on tundra at the expansive mini-ocean of Desolation Lake. My last visit here was on an epic winter traverse of the Plateau eight or so years ago with Jörgen J., Mike M., Mike C., Ryan C., and others. Desolation Lake was a fitting name then, and remains so today. We are alone here tonight and there is no apparent sign of frequent human visitation to this beautiful, high-altitude golden trout fishery.

There is more snow up here than we thought, and we’re eager to see what the conditions on the east-facing couloirs and slopes look like as we travel further west towards our exit. We need our exit over Sky Top Pass to be mostly snow free as we are not prepared to travel steep and exposed snowfields since we have no axes or traction.

Godspeed,
RJ

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.

Day 6: July 14

Today will be a well-needed recovery day, with a few less trekking miles and more fishing time.

After fishing the early morning midge hatch at Maryott Lake, we enjoyed a lazy morning there in the warm sunshine and left camp in the late morning.

En route, we enjoyed pleasant off trail walking over talus, tundra, granite ledges, and snow, stopping to fish at Crystal and Alp Lakes before heading up higher for the night.

We arrived at our destination, Flat Rock Lake, in the early evening. After setting up our shelters, we brewed coffee and washed our socks. And then, tenkara rods in hand (and one spinning rod), set out to add a few trout to the ones we packed up from Alp Lake in a snow-filled zip bag.

The Beartooth Plateau’s highest lakes (those near and above 10,000 feet), which are found along the route we are trekking now, are still very cold this time of year and the fishing can be challenging. Thankfully, the spinner brought a few healthy (fat!) foot long cutthroats to the shore. Those of us fishing tenkara all got skunked here this evening.

For dinner: trout Alfredo by moonlight. My cooking partner and I decided to add some pizazz to ours, so we fried it in a fry bake with a handful of crushed jalapeño kettle chips – ending another glorious day in the Beartooths.

I am camped on a little patch of tundra at 10,129 overlooking the lake below, with the Copepod outlet waterfall providing the soundscape. The night is chilly, clear, starry, and the waxing moon is bright.

Godspeed,
RJ

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.

Day 5: July 13

Today we (attempt) to cross the Absaroka Crest to the Beartooth Plateau, where easier terrain and world class alpine lake fishing awaits.

The clear skies at dawn this morning make me hopeful for a high altitude traverse that is absent of the drama that comes with wind, cold, and rain.

Between the Beartooth Highway and the Stillwater River, there aren’t many places to cross the Absaroka-Beartooth Crest if you aren’t a backpacker with some mountaineering skills.

The two easiest spots, perhaps, are High Pass, which we would attempt today, and Sky Top Pass, which will be the key to our exit next week.

High Pass is visited occasionally by day hikers coming from the south via Donelson or Two Bits Lake. The terrain is mostly Class 1 with only a little bit of Class 2 talus here and there.

Far fewer backpackers traverse High Pass. The route north and east, the route we were ascending, poses difficult travel. So you have to want it.

We left camp “mid-morning” with rain jackets on as we walked into a weak storm system that would release intermittent bits of sleet and snow on us for the next few hours.

Our route took us through creekside willows and bogs before delivering us at the foot of a nasty glacial moraine strewn with sharp, car-sized talus.

We opted for the steeper terrain of grass, granite slabs, and snow flanking the moraine until we reached the beautiful Sky Pilot Lake. Here, we rested, ate, and hid behind our backpacks out of the bone-chilling wind while taking in the view of one of the Beartooth’s most dramatic, pyramidal peaks immediately above: the SE summit of Sky Pilot Mountain.

We skirted the south end of the lake, climbing loose scree and talus above steep snow that plunged sharply into Sky Pilot Lake’s icy blue waters. I can feel the fatigue in my legs and back, after several thousand feet of climbing over the past few days. I’m looking forward to easier days and more rest when we get to the Plateau, so I can recover a bit before attempting the difficult traverse of Sky Top Pass next week.

By mid-afternoon, we reached the first of High Pass’s passes. High Pass is a two-pass pass, with a lake in between (High Pass Lake). The gentle pass was covered in a flat talus and snow field, which was a welcome reprieve from the steep climbing required to get here.

We descended the pass and reached Maryott Lake by late afternoon.

We are camped on little tundra benches overlooking the lake, and surrounded by the jumbled topography of the Beartooth Plateau. It’s cold here (we are at 10,500 feet or so), with a bit of a breeze (just enough to numb hands and cause a chill if you’re not hiding behind a large rock), but beautiful. It feels only a little hostile, but very remote.

I tried to fish tonight into the headwind and managed to land a 13 or 14 inch cutthroat before retreating to our sheltered kitchen to warm up.

It’s been a cold trek. I’m burning a lot more calories than I’m consuming and I’m constantly hungry. I’m looking forward to sunshine and rising trout, soon!

Godspeed,
RJ

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.

Day 4: July 12

I woke up at 5:30 am noting an orange glow through the wispy fabric of my Cuben Fiber pyramid shelter.

Unzipping the door, I was elated to see the day dawning clear with the first fiery tinges of morning alpenglow descending from the summit of Whitetail Peak.

I brewed coffee from the warmth of my sleeping bag, not wanting to brave the crisp morning air quite yet. After journaling and reading for a little bit, I fell back asleep.

The warm morning sun invited us to lounge around in camp, where we felt the need to thaw out after the past 60 hours, which have been very cold and wet. As such, we got off to a lazy start, not hitting the trail until, well, let’s just call it “mid-morning”…

We might question our lack of intention, not knowing what would be ahead of us today.

The climb up and over 11,037-foot Sundance Pass was steep and beautiful. We were treated to expansive views of the snowy Whitetail-Castle cirque that made it difficult to keep our eyes on the rocky trail. Near the top of Sundance’s interminable switchbacks, a cold wind funneled through the pass. I climbed the remaining 100 vertical feet in a down vest and rain jacket just to stay warm, in spite of carrying a 45 pound pack up a steep incline.

After snacking at the top we made a hasty descent to September Morn Lake, where we veered off trail. It will likely be the last time we travel on a trail for the next 8 days.

A steep bushwhack down a forested slope, with a little small talus, brought us to First Rock Lake and our third major alpine valley of the trip.

We spent a little time here in the mid afternoon enjoying more snacks and the pleasant warmth of being alone and remote in the Beartooths.

More bushwhacking and Class 2 scrambling through giant talus led to the headwaters of Second Rock Lake, a hopeful camp for us. We spooked a young and curious bear, who ambled up the talus above us with grace and ease that made me both envious, and awe-inspired.

Unfortunately, the meadows around the inlet were still swamped and the woods were thick with blowdowns, so we soldiered on up the canyon. By now, it was past our dinner time.

More bushwhacking and a steep climb up moose and bear trails. Cooling temperatures. Dark clouds heading our way. Running out of daylight. And the ominous black granite of the 3,000-foot NW face of Beartooth Mountain rising above like a sentinel protecting the upper cirque. We were tired, out of trail snacks for the day, and just about bushwhacked out.

Finally, we stumbled across a dry grassy bench rimmed by subalpine fir, just barely big enough for our shelters, and called it a day in the waning daylight.

We celebrated with “pizzas” made in fry bakes (fried cheese on the bottom as a crust, with tomato paste, pepperoni, and tortilla bits layered on top), and were just finishing dinner when the heavens broke loose. I hastily cleaned up and made it to the shelter of my tent just as the peak of high winds and driving rain hit our camp.

We are at 9,400 feet. The sound of Lake Fork Creek rumbles below through a boulder garden. Beartooth Mountain rises vertically, directly above our camp. I’m camped among willows, with bear scat underneath my ground cloth.

And the cold and wet have returned again. Wind howls through the treetops and ridges above.

Tomorrow we continue up valley to its head, attempt to cross the Absaroka-Beartooth Crest, and begin a weeklong traverse of the Beartooth Plateau.

Godspeed,
RJ

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.

Day 3: July 11

Temperatures plummeted last night as the full force of the storm hit. Sleet, graupel, and snow with the wind howling eerily across the ridges above.

We stayed in our tents well into morning to ride out the worst of it.

During a break in the storm, I got up and moved our fire pit (built atop a hearth of flat stones) and cooking area in a heavily forested hollow behind a large boulder to give us protection.

One by one our crew members showed up as we boiled water for breakfast and coffee. We spent the entire morning here feeding the fire and drying wet clothes as best as we could.

And then we saw something: our shadows!

The sun was not visible by any stretch of the imagination but it was clear that it was now a few degrees warmer and the clouds were a little thinner.

Expecting to ride out the storm here another night, but wanting to be as close to the base of Sundance Pass (tomorrow’s objective) so we can get back on schedule, we had a discussion: should we stay or should we go?

So we packed up hastily, wanting to take full advantage of this possibly brief weather window to at least move up the valley a few miles.

By late afternoon, we reached a campsite and dropped our packs to scout up the valley a little further. After exploring the very breezy area above Sundance Lake, we retreated to our packs and settled in at a wildflower-blanketed meadow, with a fire and cooking area tucked back among large spruces flanking the meadow.

After pitching my shelter, I snuck back into a tree grove to get out of the wind and fetch an appetizer from my snack bag. Except there was nothing left. The cold has amped up my metabolism and I’ve already stolen food from snack bags allocated to future days.

Even after dinner I remained hungry, and I really hope we can fish soon…I made a few freezing casts this morning on the creek to no avail.

Evening brought declining temperatures, more wind, and intermittent views of the 12,000 foot peaks rimming the head of this valley. The most dramatic of all is Whitetail Peak and its iconic north face, triangular summit, and NE Couloir, a 2,500 foot stripe of steep snow rising from the valley floor nearly to its summit. I climbed this couloir with my friend Alan many years ago (2002?) and it remains one of the highlights of my experiences in this range.

By 9 pm, the temperature has dropped too much for me to stay warm, so I went to the tent, zipped up, tightened up my down parka hood, put on my down booties, snuggled deep into my down quilt, and settled in for another cold night.

Godspeed,
RJ

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.

Day 2: July 10

Booming thunderstorms and torrents of rain came shortly after I crawled into my tent last night.

I wasn’t able to get a good satellite signal with the iSavi, since Sylvan’s north face was blocking the space view, so I lied in bed thinking about potential exit routes if one of the lightning bolts ignited a tree near our camp. It wasn’t lost on me that we were camped in a tinderbox filled with piles of dead fuel accumulated during decades of forest ecology at work.

Unable to craft an acceptable outcome for such an emergency, I put in earplugs and went to sleep.

I woke up in a pool of water.

I think the wind blew the lip of my ground cloth out under the edge of my shelter, creating a convenient irrigation system that delivered quite a lot of water into my wilderness bedroom.

Thankfully I was sleeping atop a two and a half inch thick mattress and stayed mostly dry. I wrung out what I could from the edges of my 19 oz down quilt, and started packing up. We’ll see if this “water resistant down” is worth anything…

The “storm” hadn’t arrived yet but the temperature was dropping.

By the time we left camp this morning, we were dressed in rain gear and took our first steps in thunder, lightning, and hail larger than any peas I’ve ever eaten.

The route to our target pass was off-trail through forest brush. Eventually we emerged to subalpine fir, tundra, talus, and even some wobbly tussocks with ice water channels flowing between them.

By the time we reached the pass, the rain had turned a bit white and the high wind was causing it to sting our faces.

At this moment I recall thinking that this was one of the most hostile trekking days I’ve had in a few years. To keep morale up, we practiced foreign accents and non-indigenous expletives (“Bloody stinging hail! ‘Tis a bugger!”)

We dropped down to the Mary Lake basin and huddled in the scrub trees to eat and drink. A break in the storm gave us a reprieve and boosted morale with a few rays of sun.

After a jarring descent (back on trail now) to the valley, we rested once again and chatted with Ranger Jenny for a bit. She grilled the younger ones with LNT questions and they all passed. She was shocked, and maybe impressed, that we were heading into the Big Storm as part of a 12 day trek. She and her partner were heading home.

More cold and wet trekking took us a little ways farther up the valley of the West Fork of Rock Creek. Tired, cold, and hungry, we decided to camp around 4 pm. We are again in the trees, with the river nearby and gigantic cliffs flanking our camp. They rise more than 2,500 feet from their base to their top.

After setting up shelters we all changed into dry clothes and napped while the rain pounded down outside. I was wearing all of my clothing to stay warm.

Then, silence: a break in the storm.

We managed to build a fire and cook a quick meal before the storm returned. With temperatures dropping constantly, and the wind picking up, we were now being basted by sideways blowing snow.

Clean dinner, tie up the Ursacks, retreat to the shelters, get warm.

Time to settle in for what promises to be a cold night.

Godspeed,
RJ

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.

Day 1: July 9

The beginning of any expedition is almost always accompanied by chaos.

There are loose end tasks that must be wrapped up, and it seems like the number of those tasks grows exponentially as the expedition departure time gets closer.

Inevitably, I get little sleep the night before I leave. I’m usually packing and repacking my pack, checking and rechecking my gear, and working late to try to tie up all those loose ends. Plus, there’s always a mix of nervous excitement and trepidation about a big trip, which contribute to poor sleep quality. This may be why I’m always so tired on the first day. It doesn’t take long for the adrenaline to wear off and you realize that you have a steep mountain to climb, and your pack is heavy, and you’re going to suffer a bit.

This was my hardest Day 1 in awhile. A 51-pound pack combined with a few thousand feet of elevation gain in warm temperatures has a way of sapping the enthusiasm right out of you.

Nevertheless, we plodded along for eight or so miles up and over the Red Lodge Creek Plateau and are now camped on a forested bench above beautiful Crow Lake.

The mosquitoes here are moderate, and it’s a headnet night.

We are currently traveling along one of the routes for this years’ Wilderness Adventures treks (our Silver Run trek). It’s a pretty spectacular first day that includes travel on one of the iconic, barren, tundra plateaus capped with a dramatic descent while staring at the imposing 3,000 foot tall northwest face of Sylvan Peak. What an incredible sight!

I brewed a coffee and roasted sausages over a fire for dinner, then wrapped them in a tortilla slathered with ketchup and mustard from the little packets – these things boost my spirits.

Thunder is booming in the distance, but I can still see stars for now. I wonder if, and when, the forecasted cold front will hit.

Tomorrow we go off trail, up and over a remote high pass…

Godspeed,
RJ

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.

Day 1: July 9

Late last night, upon realizing that my starting pack weight for this trip would exceed 50 pounds, I decided to keep my ultra comfy camp chair and jettison some food instead.

The great thing about trekking in an area known for its legendary alpine trout fishing, and carrying a very light tenkara rod, is that you have confidence (which is sometimes confused with reliability) of gourmet fish dinners every night.

Confidence is a great way to reduce pack weight.

I dropped my breakfast rations to 5 oz/day (oats/granola with freeze dried berries, nuts, seeds, and Nido), dinner rations (various homemade and packaged meals) to 6 oz/day, and snacks (nut butters, cured bison meat, waffle cookies, cheese, chips, and energy gel) to 11.5 oz/day. This gives me 22.5 oz of food at a caloric density of about 118 Cal/oz, for a total daily ration of about 2,700 Calories.

That’s pretty thin for a 12 day trip at high altitudes with cold weather expected.

So I hope to catch, and eat, many pounds of fish en route.

Stay tuned, we’ll see how it works out.

We hit the trail in about an hour.

Follow this live expedition blog as Backpacking Light’s Ryan Jordan, Eric Vann, and five others weave their way through glacial cirques, tundra meadows, and talus fields in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness July 9-20. Dispatches will be posted to the Backpacking Light Facebook page, Instagram feed, and the backpackinglight.com home page.