Rainbow Lake
Finally on the trail
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The East Rosebud Trail is the premiere route through the Beartooths, running from Alpine to the Beartooth Highway just east of Cooke City. The route I planned covered about 16 miles and 4000’ worth of elevation gain on the “Beaten Path”, as the trail is sometimes called, up to Fossil Lake. From there we’d leave the trail and hike across the Beartooth Plateau, eventually making our way back to the Lake Fork trailhead.
Now that we were finally on our way I had time to think about the hike itself and whether or not my touchy sciatic nerve was going to cause any problems.
For the previous 7 months I’d experienced some numbness in my left leg. The numbness would come and go as it pleased no matter if I was active, laying in bed or doing some stretches found online. The fact of the matter is that I was stupid not to get it checked out. I assumed, correctly as it turned out, that the excitement of the trip would take care of it, as if by magic or something. Still, I had lingering fears that the nerve would act up a mile into the trip and I’d be forced to make the decision whether to bail or continue on deeper into the wilderness.
Reed and Ward started off just ahead of Brad, Tye and I and were hiking fast, probably due to having to sit around for nearly 4 hours waiting for Tye and I to arrive. It was already 2:30 and we had close to 8 miles and 1500’ worth of climbing to deal with but I wasn’t worried about running out of daylight. I was worried about the elevation gain, my back and my own energy level after dealing with the Santa Fe. To be honest, my only goal for that first afternoon was to make it to the meadows at Rainbow Lake without bonking.
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The first few miles were fairly easy following the East Rosebud Creek up to Elk Lake about 3 miles up a very well constructed trail. Waterfalls, more than I could count, were in abundance as were sheer walls of rock. I managed to lose one of the baskets on my trekking poles and wasted 5 minutes trying to find the damn thing without any luck.
We got a good look at our once-proposed route down from the Snow Lakes and decided it was doable but would be a rough descent over boulders and downed timber. It was a moot point anyway since we would all be doing a 7-night hike.
Once we arrived at Elk Lake we decided to take a short break before tackling the majority of our elevation gain over the next 5 miles. Tye told me that Reed was starting to develop some hot spots on both heels, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. I had a few on each heel as well, though I could tell that it wasn’t anything serious and didn’t feel the need to apply moleskin.
The next 2-3 miles were spent climbing higher into the drainage, following the creek the entire way.
As I approached Rimrock Lake I caught a glimpse of Brad just across the footbridge but saw no sign of the others who were probably a good 15 minutes ahead of me. I also noted that we were probably going to get rained on later that night as thunderheads were starting to roll in from the west.
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At the head of Rimrock I saw a few campers including a pair from Minnesota. Normally I wouldn’t speak to anyone from that place, but I was getting tired and needed a short break. I killed 10 minutes chatting about that asshole Brett Favre and our hike before moving on.
The trail left the waters edge for about a half mile, weaving its way through some dense forest untouched by the fire that ravaged the valley down below. I was happy to note that while pesky, the mosquitoes were not nearly as bad as they were last year.
Finally, the trail reached the foot of Rainbow Lake providing a great view of where I had to get before the rain started to fall. It only took about 30 minutes to hike the length of the lake and was soon ambling into the meadows at the lake’s head at 7:30.
The others were still in the process of setting up their shelters when I arrived but there were plenty of places to camp and I quickly found a level patch of thick grass and had the Contrail up in less than 3 minutes.
After fetching a pail of water from a small stream I filtered a couple of liters and added some cold water to my ziplock bag containing a new pasta salad recipe I’d thought up during the past winter. I wasn’t sure how long it would take for everything to rehydrate but I didn’t mind waiting as long as I didn’t have to cook tonight. I was tired.
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By 8:15 the first of many raindrops during the trip began to fall so we all retired to our tents, or, in Tye’s case, his tarp. I still hadn’t eaten so I was forced to do the rest of my dinner prep and eat inside my tent.
The pasta salad turned out great and was a great no-cook alternative.
The rain tapered off after about 20 minutes but there would be no chatting around a camp fire on this night since everyone was ready for bed. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway since the rains started up again at 9 PM.
With no one else to talk to I attempted to sleep but my brain was working overtime thinking about how much it would cost me to get the truck repaired. All in all it had been a trying day, but it was great to be back in the Beartooths.
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