Keyser Brown Lake
The bushwhack day from hell
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It turned out to be another cold and wet night on the shore of Sky Pilot Lake. Adding to my own personal discomfort and disgust was the oncomming unsuppressible urge to defecate at 4:30 AM, cutting off what had been a very sound sleep up to that point. It must have been the pizza.
So I dragged my stiff bones out from the warmth of my sleeping bag, grabbed my headlamp and hand sanitizer. Nearly falling back onto my tent after standing up I slipped into my Crocs, grabbed the water bucket and into the drizzly night to take care of business.
Not yet having the balance or even the will to walk a good ways from camp, I opted for the first good opportunity which presented itself. Rock and roll, baby. Rock and roll.
Now thoroughly awake, wet and a little bit cold, I tossed and turned for the next two hours, finally dropping back off to sleep at the first sign of light.
I was up again at 8:30, along with everyone else, and was once again disgusted with the weather. It had not warmed up, there was no sun but at least it wasn't raining. Instead, we had snow flurries. Why not? Now all we needed was an earthquake, volcanic eruption, hurricane and a tornado to make the trip complete. Ticked off at the world, I crawled back into my sleeping bag until 9:30 when I made a PB & J wrap still snuggled inside my bag.
The views down the drainage toward Throop Lake weren't encouraging. Not only could we not even see the valley below, the reality was that it could have very well been raining. We decided to wait it out in the snow flurries, hoping the weather would break.
And we waited.
Having had enough of the waiting game, we decided that we'd leave at noon no matter what---sooner if the valley below us showed signs of clearing up. At about that time it began to sleet. Forgot about that one, better mark it off on the “Crap weather/natural disaster checklist”.
Finally, at 11:00 the sun made an attempt to break through the clouds and would have made it if the clouds weren’t so thick. The same phenomenon that seemed to be keeping the clouds away from us last night were now working to our disadvantage.
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Having been stuck at the same camp for 22 hours, and tired of doing nothing, Brad and I decided to jump the gun and began heading down to Throop Lake at 11:55. There appeared to be multiple routes down the first step, all of which involved hiking over snow bridges undercut by Sky Pilot’s outlet stream. Still, it was no big deal and we were soon enjoying a leisurely walk on grass.
This lasted for about 15 minutes when we discovered that, yes, the descent down to Throop Lake wasn’t going to be easy.
After navigating a minor cliff band we found ourselves on a large snowfield which was easily traversed. By this time the others had caught up to us and were on another large snowfield to our left. To our right, massive glacial moraines, partially obscured in the fog, dominated the landscape below Beartooth Glacier and Mountain. Quite the excellent scenery.
Now in the middle of the most rugged terrain we’d seen all trip, the real fun would begin as there were more cliff bands and snow to navigate.
Tye and Reed seemed to have found the quickest way down once again while the rest of us cliffed out a couple of times but eventually made it down with only a bent trekking pole for damage.
Together and below the tree line, the scene behind us was was as beautiful as any I’d seen before in the mountains. I think we all realized very few hikers had the privilege to see what we were now seeing and were taking multiple photos of the same scene.
Not much of a lake,more like a wide spot in the stream, Throop Lake was just the first of four lakes we’d pass today as we followed the Lake Fork of Rock Creek downstream. I suspected that we might get luck and find an unofficial trail sometime before we got to First Rock Lake, but for now it was time to bushwhack.
The first half mile up to the Throop outlet was easy as the sub-alpine forest was not the dense variety most often associated with Montana. We were making good time until we came to the first of several falls. It seemed to me that the falls were specifically placed where they were as if to say “Here, look at this. Isn’t it pretty? Enjoy it while you can because the next few miles are going to be brutal.”
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“Brutal” would be understating the situation.For the next hour and a half we followed some game trails but most of the time was spent climbing over downed trees, boulders and hiking through marshy swamps. It was so bad that we were ALL separated after about 15 minutes. Luckily, the valley and Rock Creek, what we actually saw of it, kept us on track so it was impossible to get lost
As if by magic, we all met up at the head of Second Rock Lake within 5 minutes of each other and decided to have some lunch on the rocks.
By now the skies were partly sunny and we were about halfway to our destination for the night, Keyser Brown Lake. We’d hoped that the most difficult bushwhacking was behind us but the forest was becoming more dense as we lost elevation so we weren’t so sure what we were getting ourselves into.
The bushwhack down to First Rock Lake turned out to be at least as difficult as the leg from Throop to Second Rock. A thicker forest combined with some boulder fields and fatigue made for a rather unenjoyable hike.
Arriving at First Rock Lake, we suddenly ran into two fishermen. Somewhat surprised after not seeing anyone since day 2, we didn’t spend much time chatting, only asking about the fishing. Shortly after we found the unofficial trail I’d heard about and were soon sprinting to Keyser Brown.
Without a lot of warning we arrived at the meadows located at the head of Keyser Brown Lake at 5 PM. While it appeared we had the entire lake to ourselves, the lake was haunted, dare I say "tainted", by campers past.
Fire pits, some of them very large, and piles of firewood scarred the otherwise picturesque scenery. Horse shit was everywhere, some partially concealed in the deep grass, some not so much.
Multiple heavily impacted camp sites tucked in the woods 8 and mere feet from a stream, some complete with hitching posts and ropes nailed to trees, dotted the periphery.
It was disheartening to see, but we knew we'd do something about the pile of fire wood later that night.
It didn't take long for us to get set up and for Tye to pull out his fishing gear and get down to the inlet stream.
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Meanwhile, Ward and I held a high level conference and decided that we would hold the First Annual Spam Fry for dinner. What a glorious event it would be! Most of us had plenty of extra food and, more importantly, we had Spam!
The first order of business would be to get fire going to better rehabilitate the area---more specifically the unsightly pile of fire wood. It struck me that this would be the first campfire we'd ever made as a group, spanning a total of 23 nights.
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Reed had a beautiful fire going within minutes and we were soon drying our boots which had been soaked through since before lunch.
At 6:00 PM the First Annual Spam Fry began. The first course consisted of mashed potatoes, Spam and cheese served in a ziplock bag. This turned out to be quite good and left the group craving more Spam.
Next up was some freezer bag macaroni & cheese with Spam AND leftover pepperoni. I was not happy with the consistency of the final product, however, and decided it needed to be fried in my skillet before serving. This turned out to be a brilliant move as this allowed the chees to melt a little more and to brown up the macaroni a bit
Reed then came forth with some Backpacker's Pantry Juevos Rancheros mix and Tye with a few leftover tortillas. Breakfast burrito time! Ward still had a partial squeeze tube of salsa to top it all off. Muy bueno.
Ward took control of the skillet and masterfully prepared enough eggs, Spam and bacon for all to partake in this backcountry feast. Even the previous Spam virgins succombed to the power of the wonderfood known as Spam.
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Though stuffed to the gills, I had one more surprise for the group when I pulled out enough instant pudding for all to partake in desert. Banana Cream and Cheesecake pudding in the Beartooths is tough to beat---especially after a Spam fry.
After the clean up was completed we all heartily agreed that the Spam Fry was a huge success and should become an annual event.
We then focused our energy on trying to get our boots dried out before bedtime. There was a definite nip in the air and the clear skies combined with our location meant that tonite could be a cold one. None of us felt like putting on frozen boots in the morning so this was priority 1.
For the first time during the trip we were all able to laze about the fire and talk. I can't even remember what we talked about, only that it was easily the best night of the hike.
We also found the air getting colder and soon found ourselves creeping ever closer to the warmth of the fire. I don't think it was a coincidence that the most vocal of the anti-Spammers, Reed and Brad, were the first to wimp out and retire to the warmth of their tents.
Tye, Ward and myself stuck it out for another hour or so until 10:30, just long enough to burn through the last of the firewood and dry the last wet boot and wet sock. We dumped a bucket of water over our once-cozy fire which was now reduced to nothing but glowing embers and hit the sack. Our last night was going to be a cold and damp one.
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