Five-Day Backpacking Trip, Gallatin Divide Trail, Gallatin National Forest, Montana

Between August 20 and 24, 1997 Jan Mack and I took five Boy Scouts on a five-day, 50-mile backpacking trip from Hyalite Creek Trailhead (15 miles south of my house) to the Daly Creek trailhead in the extreme northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park. The scouts were Tyler Mack, Peter and Christopher Hancock, Justin Leishman, and Nathan Ziegler, all of Troop 679, Mountain Valley District, Montana Council, BSA. Most of the way we followed the "Gallatin Divide Trail" which is a continuous, but at times obscure, path along the crest of the Gallatin Range. The first day was a 5.5 mile climb to Hyalite Lake, at the base of Hyalite Peak. (Hyalite is a mineral - a cousin to the opal that in fact has some small local value as a curiosity and is found in this area. It isn't a gemstone, but looks like dribbles of clear glass on black or gray or red volcanic rock.) The lake is a 'tarn' -- one of those glacial features found at the heads of the U-shaped valleys that glaciers carve. It's shallow enough that it doesn't support a fish population, though several other nearby lakes (in other U-shaped valleys) do.

	We arrived at Hyalite Lake at about 1pm, set up camp, had lunch, and then went prospecting for opals for the rest of the afternoon. The kids loved it. We had some success. They stashed their finds near the lake so they could return and retrieve them on another trip. Our packs ranged from 40 to over 50 pounds (mine was 49 at the outset) and we didn't need to add to the load with rocks.
Our Camp At Hyalite Lake

Sadly, my son David wasn't among the campers. He and I had climbed Hyalite Peak the Sunday before the backpacking trip and on the way down he'd slipped at a stream crossing and had fallen on his wrist, pulling the cap of a bone away from the cartilaginous growth area below it. So he elected to stay behind. That meant I slept alone, which was fine, except that I had to carry 100% of what I needed rather than the expected 50% of tent, cook kit, and other sharable resources.

It clouded up Wednesday night, so while we were sleeping at Hyalite Lake we had thunder and lightning. It's an amazing phenomenon at such elevations and in a glacial cirque! We felt we were right at the center of each thunderclap, and the nearby lightning was unbelievably intense. The storm didn't last long, there wasn't too much rain, and by morning the sky was clear again. From then on, with the briefest exception Sunday morning, our weather was great.

The second day we climbed Hyalite Peak, I phoned home from the summit on my cell phone to reassure any potentially nervous parents, and then made our way out along the high ridge that extends south from the peak. The lake had been at about 9,000 feet and the peak was at about 10,300 feet. The ridges stayed in the vicinity of 9,500 feet throughout most of the trip. We hiked across grassy tundra, sometimes miles of it, stretching out on either side for half a mile or more, right up to the verges of cliffs and canyons. Sometimes we went through woods of limber pine and spruce clinging to the crests of narrow ridges.

The Crew on Hyalite Peak

Other times we dipped down into the spruce-fir forests that blanketed the canyonsides. Always to our left were the Paradise Valley, then the volcanic crags of the Absaroka range (ab-SAIR-uh-kuh: 'people of the crow' in the Crow Indian language) and to our right were the Gallatin River valley, the Spanish Peaks of the Madison Range, and then later Lone Mountain (location of Big Sky ski resort) and The Sphinx in the Madisons. Ahead of us, often visible, was Electric Peak near Gardiner. It's a magnificent mountain (and because of its name, it made me mindful of Electric Pass Peak in Colorado and my run-in there with the crow).

Lunch Thursday was at Crater Lake, a small, but beautiful little pond tucked into a diminutive valley right at the crest of the Gallatins. From there we entered a "vortex of confusion." We had maps dated 1955 and 1989. The trail south of Crater Lake was shown on the two maps in two different positions and we could find it in neither of them. So we bushwhacked about a mile and a half, which nearly exhausted us all several times over, took three hours, and left us very low on drinking water.

Crater Lake on the Gallatin Divide

We could see the switchbacks of the trail ahead of us as it ascended a 500 feet rise in the ridge, but we couldn't find a trail that would get us to them. We set our sights on the lowest switchback and headed straight for it. When we got there we found the trail suddenly began and was well defined, but to the north of that point, in the direction we'd come from, there was not the least sign of a trail of any sort. Fortunately we found a snowbank and were able to make ourselves some drinking water out of it.

We climbed the switchbacks in a state of exhaustion. At the top the view was spectacular and refreshed us a little. It was clear we wouldn't get as far as we'd hoped by nightfall, but in the distance we spotted a safe-looking campsite down off the tundra, away from any rocky promontories, nestled among the limber pines. We steered for that, found another good snowbank along the trail, pumped about eight liters of water from its runoff (pumped it through our backpackers' water filters), and made it to our (very nice!) campsite well before dark.

Our dinners tended to be "Pasta-Roni" kinds of things, usually with a can of chicken or tuna mixed in. That's pretty much a meal for two people. I'd planned meals intending to share with son David; when he bailed out I could cut back on everything but the dinner entrees. It's hard to divide a can of tuna in two, or a Pasta-Roni seasoning packet, so I was able to share my dinners each night with scouts whose stomachs still had empty corners. Lipton also makes some good dinners, by the way. A few of the kids brought expensive "backpacker's meals" but generally found them either unpalatable, unsatisfying, or too complicated to prepare. Thursday night's "Lemon and Herb" Angel Hair Pasta-Roni with tuna was delicious.

All Thursday night I slept fitfully. I kept hearing elk "coughing" in the timber all around. Tuesday night I'd slept poorly because of anxiety about the upcoming trip. Wednesday the lightning kept me up. So Thursday was my third night in a row of poor sleep.

Friday we had good, clear trails, plenty of snow to melt for water, and at least 14 miles ahead of us to get to Golden Trout Lakes. There we were going to be met by a small group of parents, scout leaders, and other scouts who were considering joining us for the last two days. They brought in some fruit and dessert and some soda pop that the kids had requested via cell phone during our Thursday check-in call. ...But that gets me ahead of the story of Friday. Nearly our whole day Friday was spent on the USGS map called "The Sentinel." On the entire map there are only a few miles of dirt road. The rest of it is basically wilderness, though its status is National Forest (I've learned recently that part of the Gallatin National Forest in this area is now a wilderness study area, which may afford it some protection or at least special consideration when land use questions arise); near the road there are a number of clear-cut areas, but most of the rest of it looks untouched. We had lunch overlooking the cirque in which Bark Cabin Creek heads. It was fabulously beautiful. The valley bottom was grassy, dotted with trees, and we expected to see herds of elk grazing, being stalked by grizzlies. In fact, we saw no wildlife at all, but the area was still enchanting. The mountain named The Sentinel was just over our right shoulders as we lunched; if we'd had more time we could easily have ambled up the grass to its summit.

We pressed on to Windy Pass, meandered around the huge, miles-square tundra area atop the pass, eventually found our way to the Eaglehead Peak trail after adding two confused miles to our total (16 miles for the day). Soon we began our climb of the peak. To get to Golden Trout Lakes we had to leave the trail somewhere along the mountain ridge. Our options were either to go up a shoulder of the peak and drop over into the cirque, bushwhacking our way to the largest of the three lakes; or to go to the summit and drop down 1000 feet directly to the lake. Jan had done the latter on a previous trip, but after 14-15 miles of hiking none of us relished the idea of climbing to the summit just to descend again. We decided to try the shoulder approach. It involved lowering ourselves into a gully on the side of the mountain and inching down to the base of the cirque. It was a slow, dangerous business and consumed two hours of our time. We got everyone down, across some frighteningly steep grassy slopes, over a lot of very loose rock, and onto the cirque floor. On the way we passed over a remarkable deposit of petrified wood. There were stone treetrunks still rooted to the slope, snapped off at ground level and showing years and years of growth rings. Everywhere there were shards of wood, looking natural but clinking like the stone that they actually were. There was petrified cordwood all around -- quarters of logs, 16-24 inches long, made of stone. There were roots and stems and bark, all mineralized in fabulous shades of cream, tan, brown, yellow, and red. We literally couldn't believe what we were seeing. (The Eaglehead Peak area is within the protected Gallatin Petrified Forest. A [free!] permit is required to collect specimens there.)

Once in the cirque it took us 30-40 minutes to find our lake. We greeted our friends and families there. My son Mike and another Scout named Brandon Rogers had hiked in. Mike's intent was to share my tent and then hike out the next morning with Dick Lund and Jarvis Brown, the district leaders who had hiked in with the parents to see how we were doing and to stay the night. Brandon slept alone. He and Mike were invited to do a day hike back up to the ridge with us the next day and then go back home Saturday morning with Mike, Dick, and Jarvis. We had dinner, the parents left, and for the first time on the hike I slept well.

Father and Son Cooking at Golden Trout Lakes

Saturday morning, Mike, Brandon, Dick, and Jarvis followed (and at some points led) us up onto Eaglehead Peak and sent us on our way after feeding us fresh cantaloupe. We found more petrified wood on the summit and as we walked out across the tundra also found some Indian artifacts made out of the stuff. I found a perfect little hide scraper, made for a hand smaller than mine, discarded, I assume, because it had gotten a chip in it. As I held it I tried to imagine how it had felt in the hand of its original owner. I was immediately overcome by a feeling that it was wrong for me to remove it from the mountain, so I tried to throw it -- like a skipping stone -- off to my left. Somehow, though I've skipped a thousand stones in my day, I couldn't release the stone when I wanted to, and I wound up throwing it all the way around my back and off to the right of the trail -- the side I had found it on. It seemed very weird at the time, as though the hand I held it in were no longer my own. Spooky....

We found the trail hard to follow south of Eaglehead. It led us through craggy ridgetop rocks and across wide areas of grass and boulders where there were head-sized chunks of opaque white quartz. All along the way there were chips and flakes of rock that clearly showed signs of human industry. We felt like we were walking through hundreds of years of Indian encampments. It's a place I want to revisit.

The trail became clearer in a mile or two, a narrow red track following the very crest of the mountain range. At many places our footsteps fell exactly on the divide between the Yellowstone River to the left and the Gallatin to the right.

After passing through a delightful, grassy woods of limber pine (and making LOTS of noise to let the grizzlies know we were coming), we descended into a saddle, then were faced immediately by the longest, steepest climb of the trip, up to the shoulders of Fortress Mountain. At the high point of the trail, coming our direction from Ramshorn Lake, two horses and two women riders suddenly appeared. Five of us, completely out of breath, had stopped there to rest. We spoke softly to the horses so as not to spook them on the narrow trail. The riders started down the other side, down the steep trail we'd just come up, when the remaining two scouts emerged from the trees. The horses freaked out! They reared and bucked and nearly threw their riders. They left the trail and staggered on the steep, uneven slopes. I was sure they were going to tumble. But as it happened, they regained their footing and headed back up the trail toward us. The riders dismounted and led the horses behind them. Meanwhile, our last two scouts had left the trail and headed toward us along the ridgecrest, through the brush and small trees.

We spoke to the riders for a while, apologized, and found out where things had gone wrong. One of the horses was just a colt and had never seen humans with backpacks before. It simply panicked. We were very relieved that no one was hurt.

In hopes of finding something to drink, we'd been steering toward a patch of snow. The steep trail had bypassed it, though, so we were concerned about where we might stop for lunch. On our maps we located a small pond a mile or so below the shoulder of the mountain, along the trail. We continued toward it, passing the impressive western ramparts of Fortress Mountain on the way, filtered some water from the pond, rested, and lunched.

Within an hour after lunch we arrived at Ramshorn Lake. It's a deep blue jewel of a lake at the base of some rugged white volcanic cliffs. A beautiful spot. We had thought we might go farther that day -- our fourth -- but after doing 16 miles the day before we were exhausted enough to want some rest. We found a pretty campsite back in the forest and spent the afternoon swimming, sunning, sewing, and maintaining some of our gear. (Jan's water filter had clogged and needed work. My pack had been damaged by the sheath of the pocket knife hanging from my belt, and needed to be sewn up.)

We rested well, fixed warm, satisfying suppers, had a nice campfire, and went to bed feeling at peace. I slept VERY well, and even dreamt a little.

Sunday morning at 6am my alarm went off, though I was half-awake already. Not 20 seconds later, it began to rain. Fortunately the shower lasted only long enough to wet our tents' rainflies and didn't interfere with breakfast or with breaking camp. We walked down the Ramshorn Lake trail to Buffalo Horn Creek, a very heavily overused trail. (There had been several parties of day-hikers at Ramshorn Lake, and a number of tenters. It was the only "competition" we'd had for tent sites the entire trip.)

We turned south from the Buffalo Horn Creek trail onto the Tepee Pass trail, and hiked up past a grizzly-clawed ranger station (where we got water from a spring) to the pass. All the way down from the pass along Tepee creek, across the divide to Daly Creek, and on to the trailhead, we walked through tall grass and sage. It was very different country from the tundra of the first four days. We ran into a group of eight motorcyclists on the Tepee Creek trail, missed a turn and wound up farther south on Tepee Creek than we'd hoped. We backtracked a little after lunch, and finally crossed the boundary of the National Park with a chorus of yelps and hurrahs.

Lunch stop along Teepee Creek

The hike down Daly Creek was long and rough until we hit the trail. From there it was just long.... We hit the trailhead at 2:48pm, 12 minutes before we'd predicted we would. At that exact moment one of our shuttle drivers (Kris Hancock) arrived to pick us up. She passed out sodas and snacks and we debriefed a little. Kathy, my wife, and Justin's mother Marian arrived a few minutes later with a cheesecake and another round of sodas. After gratefully consuming all those calories we squeezed into the two vehicles and headed back to Bozeman.

That was the longest backpacking trip I've ever taken, both in terms of days and of distance. For all the scouts except Tyler, it was the first backpacking experience they'd had. We completed the major requirement for the Scout 50-Miler Award, fulfilled a big requirement for the Backpacking Merit Badge, and got several Scouts a lot closer to both the Camping and Hiking Merit Badges. We all had a good time and learned a lot. The next evening at our regular Scout meeting all the boys who had been on the trip said loudly that they would eagerly do it again. ...Sounds like success to me!!