Having whetted our appetite last week, we returned to the Cloud Peak Wilderness of the Bighorn Mountains en route to Red Lodge, MT for the 4th of July.
This time, we planned ahead, and picked a fairly high (9000+ feet) and remote hike (Coney Lake), and were rewarded with a pristine trail. Although we did encounter other hikers on our way back, our tracks were the first in the still snowy upper reaches. The altitude, snow-skirting and multiple river crossings made this a challenging tramp.Onward then we went to Red Lodge, MT, where early the next morning we hiked deep into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness and shot the following video hike:
By breakfast on the 4th we were on the way back to Gillette, but took the (truly!) scenic route from the Beartooth Highway, back across Chief Joseph Highway and then over the Bighorns via Medicine Wheel Pass (which is still snowed in).
Below is the "beartooth peak ' from which the range takes its name.
The 10,000 foot high pass from which we took this photo, incidentally, was where back in the 70's they used to set up a "Drift Bar" in the high snowbanks during the summer. According to Jeff, a local skier we dropped off here, they used to party pretty hard, and even brought up an elephant from the (now defunct) Red Lodge zoo, which they painted pink!
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