Sky Pilot Lake
The best views of the trip
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It got cold last night. Wow. Though I was wearing every stitch of clothing I had along (except for rain gear), I was riding a fine line between relative discomfort and shivering most of the night. Amazingly enough, I slept pretty good, waking up only once when I felt chilled. I’d also slept with my camera and batteries in my shorts in hopes that I could coax a few more pictures out of each,
By 6:30 I’d had enough and decided to get outside and stretch out. The one good thing about the cold night was that the condensation inside the tent was frozen so I didn’t have to be careful prying myself out of my bag lest I get rained upon.
It was shaping up to be a beautiful morning: lots of blue sky, a slight breeze and plenty of large rocks to drape our frozen tents and damp sleeping bags over to dry. Spirits lifted, we moved quickly to break camp and were heading up to High Pass by 8 AM---possibly a record early start for the group in the three years we’d been hiking together.
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After checking the GPS the night before I knew we were just a bit more than a half mile (as the crow flies) and perhaps 300’ vertical gain from High Pass Lake. Once we got up to the pass the rest of the trip would be all downhill so I was fairly stoked about that.
After 40 minutes of hiking we found ourselves not only at High Pass, but above High Pass. For the first time during the trip we had missed our mark and had climbed an extra 100’, topping out on the eastern slope of Sky Pilot Mountain. Ooops.
This turned out to be a good thing as we had stellar views in every direction. Lonesome Mountain, Island Lake and the Beartooth Highway (barely) to the south, Whitetail Peak to the north and a lot of the Beartooth Plateau to the southwest.
On a whim, after seeing reflections on car windshields, I pulled out my cell phone and turned it on. I really didn’t think I’d be able to get a signal unless there was a tower near the Clay Butte Lookout or Top of the World Store---which I thought was unlikely--- so I didn’t get my hopes up.
Hmmm…I had a signal.
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I took advantage of this good luck by calling the Hyundai dealership in Billings. They had good news and bad news. First, there was a factory recall on the trailer arm so that wouldn’t cost me a cent, and I gained an instant savings of the $1000 I figured it would cost to repair. The bad news was that they might have to truck in a part from wherever. If that were the case they wouldn’t have the repairs done by the weekend. Conversely, if the part could be found locally, I’d be on my way home on Friday. I decided to ask Ward, a deeply religious man, to say a one heck of a prayer on my truck’s behalf. Maybe I’d get lucky?
Next I called home and telling my eldest son, Todd, what was happening with the truck and to call Yumi, who was in Colorado with Melaiina, to let her know what was going on and that I’d give her a call on Thursday.
Finally, I called my friend Lisa from work who was looking after Kintla while everyone else was gone. I was informed that she wanted to keep my beautiful Yellow Lab forever.
In the meantime, Tye, Ward and Brad decided they wanted to climb Sky Pilot Peak and asked if I was going to come along. I wanted to but spent too much time on the phone and by the time I’d filtered some water they were ¼ of a mile away already. Instead, I decided to make the sketchy descent down to High Pass Lake where Reed had gone 15-20 minutes earlier to do some laundry.
The 45° snow-covered slope was by far the most difficult 150’ descent of the entire trip, and one which had me a little spooked and hoping to get back onto the unstable talus ASAP.
I eventually made it down in one piece to the amazingly flat High Pass area. And after 5 minutes of hiking on what looked like a cobblestone street spied Reed at the lake. High Pass Lake wasn’t much of a lake and the shoreline was a marshy quagmire but for one 15’ x 15’ flat rock. Reed was taking full advantage of the space and was drying what appeared to be every article of clothing he owned.
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I found the next best spot available and dropped my pack. I was going to make some more breakfast but remembered we had packed up wet tents and thought this might be a good time to dry it out. The breeze funneling through the pass quickly dried off my Contrail and I was back in business for a late breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon.
Just as I finished cleaning up the three climbers came back into view. They didn’t summit but didn’t feel the need to as the views from 11,600’ allowed to them to see virtually all of the Beartooth Plateau AND a campsite at Sky Pilot Lake that we had to camp at that night.
After I told the others what was happening with the truck, Tye asked if he could use my phone to try and change up his flight. Remember, we were originally going to come out on Saturday but were now forced to leave the wilderness two days earlier. Tye didn’t want to spend a couple nights in Billings waiting for his flight. He was a newlywed, after all. It took a while, but Tye finally was able to change his flight to Friday.
I still wonder how things would have turned out if we hadn’t missed High Pass to the high side. Would I have pulled out the cell phone? Probably, but I wouldn’t have gotten a signal, as Tye found out for himself when he tried, Only after climbing up to where we originally found the pass, 150’ above, did he get a signal. Would I have climbed the extra 150’? Probably not.
The 45° snow-covered slope was by far the most difficult 150’ descent of the entire trip, and one which had me a little spooked and hoping to get back onto the unstable talus ASAP.
I eventually made it down in one piece to the amazingly flat High Pass area. And after 5 minutes of hiking on what looked like a cobblestone street spied Reed at the lake. High Pass Lake wasn’t much of a lake and the shoreline was a marshy quagmire but for one 15’ x 15’ flat rock. Reed was taking full advantage of the space and was drying what appeared to be every article of clothing he owned.
I found the next best spot available and dropped my pack. I was going to make some more breakfast but remembered we had packed up wet tents and thought this might be a good time to dry it out. The breeze funneling through the pass quickly dried off my Contrail and I was back in business for a late breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon.
Just as I finished cleaning up the three climbers came back into view. They didn’t summit but didn’t feel the need to as the views from 11,600’ allowed to them to see virtually all of the Beartooth Plateau AND a campsite at Sky Pilot Lake that we had to camp at that night.
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After I told the others what was happening with the truck, Tye asked if he could use my phone to try and change up his flight. Remember, we were originally going to come out on Saturday but were now forced to leave the wilderness two days earlier. Tye didn’t want to spend a couple nights in Billings waiting for his flight. He was a newlywed, after all. It took a while, but Tye finally was able to change his flight to Friday.
I still wonder how things would have turned out if we hadn’t missed High Pass to the high side. Would I have pulled out the cell phone? Probably, but I wouldn’t have gotten a signal, as Tye found out for himself when he tried, Only after climbing up to where we originally found the pass, 150’ above, did he get a signal. Would I have climbed the extra 150’? Probably not.
Once we were all together again we began the tricky descent down to Sky Pilot Lake. The first 100’ was an easy stroll down a grassy slope but things got a bit sketchy when we had to navigate what Brad likes to call “boulderfields from hell”. Not any boulders, these were the size of refrigerator’s, Hummer’s and everything in between. The going was very slow, steep and (don’t tell my wife) a little bit dangerous when one considered the distance and/or drop between each foot placement .
Reed, Tye and Ward must have found the easy way down because they left Brad and I in their dust. Perched safely down by the lake, they got to watch us say “screw it” to the boulders and descend the last 50’ down an insanely steep snow field which would have meant a quick slide into the lake had we lost our footing.
Like the studly mountain men we were, we made it down without getting wet and were soon sitting in the grass with the others in what was probably the most beautiful alpine cirque I’d ever laid my eyes on.
The perfect campsite the boys had spied from Sky Pilot Mountain was not the perfectly flat, grassy swatch of earth they had thought, but that didn’t matter as there were plenty of places to pitch a tent. There was no way we were going to not camp here for the night even though it wasn’t even 2 PM yet.
Then the banter began…
Tye: I can’t understand why I’m not sucking air?”
Reed: “That’s because you’re 24 fucking years old”
Dorf: “We came down THAT? That’s pretty stupid!
Ward: “This sucks. You dragged me out here for this?
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We spent a good half hour just relaxing, taking in the view that disgusted Ward. The cirque headwall was about 40% snow-covered and barren of any vegetation. Yeah, there was no doubt we'd be spending the night here.
After getting our tents set up a few of us decided to do a little exploring further down the cirque and were rewarded with a plethora of goodies: A 16 oz. jar of dried onions that still looked edible, a swiss army knife, and what appeared to be a femur. We packed out all but the femur so that the next group that came up this way could experience a pristine Sky Pilot Lake cirque.
Now that it was getting closer to dinnertime and we were actually able to spend some time together, Ward and I felt that it was time for Tye and Reed to step up, be men and ingest some Spam. After some minor dissention, they both agreed that it was the right thing to do lest they be branded cowards for the rest of the trip.
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Being the humanitarian that I am, I offered to cook the Spam, thereby burning off the trademark gelatinous slime. I even threw in a couple of sun dried tomatoes which made for a beautiful presentation.
The moment of truth had arrived. Tye's rite of passage went about as well as could be expected, which is to say he scrunched his nose and choked down his small piece of Spam while resisting the urge to puke all over himself. Frankly, I was surprised that a country boy from the mid-south would have had that much trouble with one little piece of Spam, but then I remembered he was a baseball player and it all made sense.
Next up was Reed. I had little doubt that, after the week he'd had dealing with his messed up heels, he'd devour his Spam with gusto, and unlike Tye, like a man. Much like Andrew Zimmerman, the fat dude on the Food Channel who eats all that fucked up stuff, Reed seemed to savor the moment and the flavor. Yes, Reed was the star now, putting young Tye to shame.
Ward, Brad (who had popped his Spam cherry last summer) and I then welcomed the newbies into the Brotherhood of Spam with hearty congratulations and newfound respect for all.
Since my cooking gear was ready and the contents of my food bag scattered about I decided to declare another Pizza Night and began working my backcountry culinary magic
I had plenty of dehydrated veggies and pepperoni left over from Pizza Night I and more than enough cheese so I was confident that these pies would be superior in both taste and quality.
After adding water to my veggies and pizza sauce I turned my attention to the valley below and behind us. On Google Earth this looked to be the toughest down climb of the trip, but I had been fooled by the imagery before. It would be even more difficult in inclement weather---which is exactly what appeared to heading up the valley directly toward us.
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Fortunately, Mount Lockhart was our guardian angel and appeared to redirect the clouds before they could make it up to our camp. Hopefully it would all be gone in the morning.
Dinner, as anticipated, was quite tasty and after everyone was cleaned up we were able to all sit around to solve the world's problems and talk stupid for the first time all trip.
Tye, the Army rocket scientist, held the same belief as I had for the past 20-25 years: Namely that no man has ever stepped foot on the moon and the entire thing was the greatest hoax ever. Then he bored us all to tears with talk of metal fatigue, stress and whatever else. Actually, it was very interesting stuff, far beyond what any of us non-engineers could ever hope to comprehend.
Sadly, the night was getting colder and we started to feel a few sprinkles coming down so it was back into our tents for the night.
For a very low-mileage day---a whopping 1.2 miles according to my GPS--- it had been the best of the trip so far as far as scenery and just hanging out with the boys getting goofy. There was even hope that I wouldn't have to deal with truck issues when we got off the trail.
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