Wilderness offers solitude, majesty
RED LODGE, Montana — As I crawled from my warm sleeping bag out the tent door, into the darkness and pre-dawn wind whipping across the plateau, I looked up into the cathedral of the sky. Whirlpools of constellations spun overhead and I held my breath.
It’s hard not to feel vertigo in the majesty of Montana’s wilderness, whether experiencing the rocky heights of a 10,000-foot peak or an endless chain of lakes. The region also offers pastels in mountain meadows, the endless catch of trout and one of the state’s most magnificent ranges — the AbsarokaBeartooth Wilderness.
Don’t be put off by the name of the best way to get in there: the Beaten Path, a 26-mile trail that climbs up and over the Gallatin National Forest watershed divide, wending its way past pond after lake, peak after cliff, meadow after plateau.
The trail has a reputation for high foot and horse traffic, but in the five days we backpacked through last summer, my hiking partner Ben Yeomans and I saw just a handful of others and embraced the solitude.
The trailhead sits at the southeastern edge of East Rosebud Lake. Accessible by car from the north via a 14-mile road from Roscoe, the lake’s shores are dotted with cottages and cabins, and make it an easy jumping-off point for the wilderness.
We decided, however, to access the path via Red Lodge, a tourist town east of the wilderness that is best known as the jumping-off point for the Beartooth Highway, the breathtaking drive that climbs to 11,000 feet while winding along the border with Wyoming.
Two-thirds of the way up West Fork Road, we got to a trailhead and started hiking north — and up — out of the river valley and onto the Red Lodge Creek plateau.
Much of the valley and surrounding ridgeline is a moonscape of charred timber and ash on the forest floor, the result of an intense 2008 fire. Our boots and legs were gray and dusty by the time we reached the tree line, and the parched vales and streambeds on the way up made us glad we packed extra water.
We camped on the marshy shores of Crow Lake, hemmed in by a seam of serrated peaks that turned crimson at sunset.
The following day, we climbed out of the valley and crossed an amber meadow carpet, then descended a dusty switchback to arrive at East Rosebud Lake and the beginning of the north end of the Beaten Path.
The fishermen we passed carrying trout in plastic bags provided reassurance that even novice anglers like us could catch something. At Elk Lake that night, we did not.
The next evening, we did, in excess. At Echo Lake, Pika Peak was bathed in a tangerine sunset, and we were astounded that, literally, with every cast of our reel, we pulled in brook trout well bigger than a foot long. It was pan-fried trout for dinner, and breakfast.