100 miles of adventure across the Bob!

Tom M sent me a proposed route a couple of months ago on caltopo link- basically a route that went from Montana Hwy 200 to Hwy 2 (bordering Glacier).  We revised it a couple of times, but due to constraints, eventually had to chop two days out of it.  It still was a 5 day trip taking in some country that maybe a handful of folks ever see.

We started at the Benchmark trailhead (on the SF of the Sun River)and would finish at our original destination on Hwy 2 at Marias Pass (well that’s what we thought anyways).

Our wives accompanied us to Benchmark Tuesday evening where we found a nice, out of the way camp spot.  We were up early on Wednesday, and after some breakfast drove the couple of miles to the trailhead.  We said our goodbyes and our wives headed back to civilization.  We were on the trail about 7:30.  The weather was really ideal- cool and overcast and we made good time down the South Fork.  We crossed the West Fork pack bridge and turned westwards towards the Chinese Wall.  We saw a few groups of folks heading out, Benchmark is the closest trailhead to access the Chinese Wall so it sees a few folks in the summer.

With fresh legs and near perfect weather we continued to make good time.  Soaking in some nice scenery enroute

We stopped for lunch at the little creek that flows out of Grizzly Gulch, we were about 15 miles at this point and feeling good.  After a steep climb up Burnt Ck, we finally got our first glimpse of the Wall.

The trail continues to climb rather steeply until you hit a small pass that drops you into the Moose Ck drainage.  Our original plan was to camp near Cliff Mountain, but we were feeling it, so pressed on.  We are headed for Trick Pass, a very little known route that takes you near the top of the Chinese Wall.  We traversed the full length of the Wall last year and never heard of this pass, so we were pinning our hopes that it was legit.

View from the saddle near Cliff Mountain.  Trick Pass should be right where the visible snowbank is on the upper left of the photo.

We got to that general area and found a small spring to fill up on water, is there is none on top.  It was about supper time, so we got a good calories boost as well.

As we scrambled upward we could see a faint goat trail that had to be it.  Lots of large (and loose) talus to negotiate; I found out it’s not overly forgiving when you fall on it!

As we climbed we eventually saw a small notch that wouldn’t be visible from below on the trail (or on top of the Wall).

 

This eventually led to the bench with the snow and then a couple of shorter climbs and we were to the top, well kind of :).  This technically is on top of the Chinese Wall, but you can’t get to the true top, north or south, as both are blocked by long cliff bands.  But as Tom can attest, some great views from here.

We continued on following the northern cliff band downward, giving up precious elevation we had gained, but the views weren’t too bad here either- looking into the White River drainage to the west.

and Sphinx Peak to the south

The perfect weather we were having, was now just flat cold.  Wind was howling and it was a degree or two from spitting full on snow.  Time to kick it in, get around the cliff band and find a spot to camp on top.  We made it on top, but wasn’t easy to find a spot to camp.  We finally decided to make due with what was offered.

It was pretty windy and cold that night, but about 25 miles and a bunch climbing makes for a pretty good sleep aid :)

The wind died down significantly by morning, but it was definitely frosty!  We both agreed that eating breakfast and drinking hot coffee on the edge of the Wall with the sun coming up was priceless.

It’s great hiking on top!

Unfortunately all good things come to end and we were forced off the Wall as we approached the northern terminus.  Again losing precious elevation to get around a cliff band and only having to regain it to eventually go through the pass that accesses the east side (where we gained the top last year).

Still, plenty of nice views (behind Tom is Silvertip Mtn, he’s been to the top- it’s on my short list)

We finally gained the past and one really good view of the Wall before dropping and redoing the CDT.

Our next destination was Spotted Bear Pass where we depart the CDT once again to climb Redhead Peak and then on to the Three Sister’s Peaks.  We ate a quick lunch at My Lake and tanked up heavily with water is appeared we wouldn’t see any up high.  I was disappointed to see us dropping a lot of elevation going to Spotted Bear Pass, as I knew we would have to pay for it.

And pay for we did.  It’s a tough climb up to Redhead; at first fighting elevation and brush and eventually elevation and loose talus (my second tumble confirming that rock is not forgiving to fall on).

It took us nearly three hours to summit Redhead, but damn the views!  Tom pointing out where we camped the night before- looked like a 100 miles away!

It also gave us a good view of our next objective- the Three Sisters.

As slow as the climb was up Redhead, it was agonizingly slow getting off of it- plenty of “sauce” as Tom would say :)

But we eventually made it to the ridge that would get us to the Three Sister’s.  The Sisters didn’t disappoint.

The east side of each of the Sisters held mountain goats; we guessed they don’t get to see too many folks up here.

As beautiful as it was, we realized that making it to our planned destination of Sock Lake was an impossibility.  We had several rather technical sections to navigate and not a good idea to do so in headlamps.  We did have another problem though, we didn’t have a ton of water left.  When we rounded the bend from the northern most sister, we spied this.

Tom had his pack off before I could finish the sentence if he thought this would do :)

Not shabby a spot though.

It was windy on the Chinese Wall, it was extremely windy on the Northern Sister!  Windy enough I didn’t get a lot of sleep.  But somehow seemed well worth it the next morning.

We were really determined to make up for lost ground today, but immediately the terrain was working against us.  We tried to find a way through a cliff band that would allow us to gain a ridge that would get us above Sock Lake, but it was a no go.  We followed it all the way to the very bottom.  But there was water :)

It was a tough climb back up, but we were still convinced we could still make up some time today.  Sock Lake had other ideas for us.  We arrived above the south end of the lake and as far as the eye could see, the lake looked very well protected.

We continued north, hoping for a small break somewhere.  Traversing northward it didn’t look promising, but the little bench we were on was being heavily used by elk- lots of grass and browse, a few little spring and seeps and obviously not a lot of human activity to worry about.

 

As we neared the very end of the lake, there was a faint game trail angling downward.  As it was headed for all rock and scree, it had to mean one thing- a way down.

Yup- a bit saucy.

The break eventually lead to a grassy avalanche chute that we followed to the lake for a well deserved lunch.  There is no trail into Sock Lake from the CDT, but fortunately Tom had been here before and knew how to access a game trail that would leads back to the CDT.

Well it was very apparent that we weren’t going to be able to make up much time today, so we set our sights on Lake Levale- well short of original destination of Trilobite Lakes.  But we still had a lot of real estate to cover to get Lake Levale.

The trail follows a long reef along the Continental Divide.  There is a lot of up and down as you pass from drainage to drainage and we had exactly four to get across.  Many of these drainages had seen fire in the recent past and with the sun fully out, it was warm-ish.  But despite the heat and the elevation gain/loss, the miles went by much quicker than the previous day and a half.  The views weren’t too shabby either.

We arrived at the lake at about 8:00 PM and it didn’t disappoint

We had enough time (and ample wood) that we got a nice fire going to eat supper around.  We had a pesky mule deer doe that was hoping for a left out sweaty shirt or shoulder strap to chew on, but this wasn’t our first rodeo, so she didn’t get anything from us.

It was a long day, so we hit it pretty early and I think we both slept pretty damn good that night.  We were up early and decided the evening before to make an adjustment to our route to get caught up.  We wouldn’t make the climb into the Trilobite range and instead descend Open Ck, catch Sun River Pass and hit Strawberry Ck.  Not a lot of savings in miles, but hopefully time.

The morning was nice and cool and the upper portion of Open Ck almost entirely in the shade, a stark difference from the previous afternoon.

But it didn’t last, the lower reaches of Open Ck and the trail to Sun River Pass were very open from previous fires and with the sun out strong it was warm!

But it did open up the views- Trilobite Peak

We made pretty good time to Sun River Pass and took a nice lunch break in the shade; I think we could have both stayed there longer than we did.  We descended Bowl Ck and promptly came to a junction that announced a cutoff trail that looked like it would put is a little farther up Strawberry Ck than following the CDT.  Tom asked where was the trail.  I rummaged through the waist tall grass and fount a faint tread, here I proclaimed.  Should we give it go, Tom said sure, what the hell.  At this point it would have really behooved us to have someone to point to the error of our ways.  But we didn’t, so we proceeded straight into hell :)

This is not a trail.

Neither is this.

At some point, it was a trail, at this point it was an exercise in futility.  Up, under, around blowdown we went (almost killing myself once tightroping a spruce that decided to shed it’s bark under my La Sporitvas!).  The one saving grace was that it was only about two miles of this before we hit the Trail Ck trail and our ticket to Strawberry Ck.  Imagine our disappointment when we were quick to discover that Trail Ck had been abandoned as well. Jeez, only two more miles of hell before we hit Strawberry Ck.

Do Not Use This Trail!

Well we finally did hit Strawberry Ck, just took us over three hours to get there.

 

We took a much needed shade break and got the map out.  The good news was after closer inspection we did indeed save some miles, .7 miles to be exact.  The bad news was we lost about two hours doing it.  You win some, ………..

At this point we realized we weren’t going to catch up to our original itinerary to make out to Marias Pass on Sunday.  We decided to go to Plan B and head towards Swift reservoir via Gateway Gorge.  Tom had never been to Gateway Gorge or through Gateway Pass, so this wasn’t a bad option at all.  We hit the trail with renewed vigor, despite the heat and the f’up.  It wasn’t long and we the entrance to the gorge in sight and the creek was nearby, so we stopped for supper and got out the inReaches to inform our spouses of the change in plans.  The sun was starting to dip behind the mountains and the calorie dump seemed to put a little spring in our step.  The scenery didn’t hurt either.

It’s a pretty climb up into the gorge and then gently drops you to creek level on the other side; you’d be hard pressed to find a nicer camp site.

We were on the trail early the next morning, like horses pointed towards the barn- we got after it.  Gateway Pass was a very important pass for Northwest Native Americans to get to their bison hunting grounds on the east side of the divide.  It’s also a primo looking elk spot with large and long meadows.

 

It’s also a pass that simply sneaks up on you, you’ll hardly notice you even crossed the divide except when you notice the water is flowing the other way.

Before we knew we had the sun in our faces and were headed down the South Fork of Birch Ck.

Pretty nice, old Birch Ck is

As we descended Birch Ck the weather went from warm to hot to hell!  We still had a fair bit to go to get to the trailhead at Swift and the temperature kept climbing.  We had to ford Birch Ck a couple of times and we would soak our shirts and hats which gave us a little relief.

Right before we hit the south end of the reservoir you exit the Bob Marshall.  Couple of happy campers.

But it’s a looooong 4 miles around the reservoir and to the trailhead.

We made it out early afternoon and didn’t have to wait too long for our wives to show up- with lots of food and beverage :)

It was a most memorable trip and damn glad Tom came up with the route!