Hellfire on Froze-to-Death

Here are the photos for our recent (failed) attempt to cross over Froze-to-Death Plateau in teh Beartooths. Click here to jump to the bottom and see the day unfold sequentially...

And here's one last picture to end with - a panorama taken from up on top of the world! This is God's country folks, and we get the privilege of traipsing all over it, seeing things very few other people will ever get to see... We consider ourselves most fortunate!

For those of you who crave more detail, here's a link to the hi-res version in all it's glory!

On the road home. Lilly Pad lake. Way earlier in the day than we expected, we hiked a ton and didn't even get to wet our lines, but it sure was fun! Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

...and this. This is one of my favorite spots in the whole world, and it's less than 400 yards from the trailhead. Shhh...don't tell anyone!

And just off the beaten path, where hardly anyone ever pauses to explore, there's this...

How close can we get? Pretty close...

Look what's growing right beside the path. Pretty-purple-anemone-lookin flowers. Somebody buy me a Flowers of Montana book...

Walking out back to the trailhead.

And again.

Christian and Jack

Uncle Jake and Strider

"Hey, dad, look! MORE WATER!!!! Watch me jump off this bridge, dad, I know I can doooooo iiiittttt!" - (*huge splash...sputter, sputter, gurgle, gurgle*) - "Hey, where'd all the fish go? I know I saw some down here???" Like I said, Strider is very brave...

Here's what it looks like from the end of Mystic Lake, as the wind blows swells of water over the spillway. Brrr.

Jack on the other hand takes a couple of swims and then says, "Dang! This water is cold dad, brrrrrrrr...." Jack is very smart, but a wee bit wimpy. Strider on the other hand, is very brave, but a wee bit...brainless. In the best labradorian sense of the word, of course.

"Come on dad, please? Please throw the stick? Just one more time! Please? Please? Pleeeeeeeease?" Strider will sit and actually throw the stick up in the air, trying to help you understand what he wants you to do. "Hey, dad, look! Stick! Water! Throw. Stick. Water! See? Pleeeeeeease?" I trust you get the idea. It's really quite hilarious to watch.

Of course it's great swimming weather for a dog. Or so thinks Strider the brainless - I mean 'fearless' - labrador. You could throw a stick 3 miles out and he'd try and go get it.

Back at Mystic Lake. The canyon is much clearer now, but the wind has picked up down here as well. The waves are 2+ feet with whitecaps - kind of hard to cast a fly line in weather like this.

Looking back into the undergrowth.

Jack's a little hot and tired by now. What's this? A stream across the path? AHHHH.... (I think I would be shrieking, not 'ah'ing - that water's cold!)

And this one too...

More of the same. I feel stupid sometimes calling them 'pretty yellow ones' - the problem is, there are so many different kinds I'm not sure where to begin learning the names. A few at a time I suppose...

And now some pretty little yellow ones.

More of those beautiful blue flowers.

Southwest in the direction of Granite Peak again. Notice how clear the sky looks now? It was really weird - as we descended, the wind continued to blow the valley clean from smoke, and the stuff that we had seen pouring over the ridge up on top disappeared. Hard to say why - maybe it was a fire that started near the top of a ridge and quickly burnt itself out? Maybe it will smolder for a couple of days until the wind changes and then spring to life again. You just never know with these things...

Another view of Mystic Lake as we descend.

Looking back into the sun, as it crests the ridge we were sitting on half an hour ago.

Some of you are probably tired of flowers by now. Tough. Go read some other blog. I like 'em, and I love to take pictures of them. This here is Indian Paintbrush, and the higher you get in the Beartooths, the brighter the blossoms...

And another yet again.

Here's another shot...

Speaking of flowers, here's what it looked like sitting down in the midst of them.

About this point, the three of us huddled and made an joint decision to bail out. We were within a mile of the peak, and then would only have a mile or so further to go to get to the lakes, but we were concerned about the fire - not knowing exactly where it was, or how big it was. Add in the severe wind and you have a recipe for disaster if any little things goes wrong. So we did the smart thing and headed out. Those 28 switchbacks we just climbed? Time to backtrack down them. Any wonder why it felt good to take a breather in the midst of this flower bed?

And a little bit closer view of that same peak. Big. Very big. You may want to click the image so see the larger view in order to appreciate the size of these things. That horizon out there is probably 3-4 miles edge to edge, and yet it looks like you could reach out and touch it. It would take you all day to get there from here.

Looking directly north, towards the unnamed peak again. We watched the spotting plane fly incredibly low - through all these side canyons, then only 100 feet or so above that far plateau. It's a weird feeling to see a plane flying BELOW you...

And right in the midst of all this, we have THIS. I have no idea what these flowers are called, but they were incredibly beatuiful, growing in isolated clumps with great big long stamens. It never ceases to amaze me how much stuff can grow up here, where the topsoil is only inches thick and there is nothing but granite beneath that. Isn't God amazing?

From out vantage point, we can see the smoke billowing up to the west. It flares, then dissipates, then mushrooms up again. If we were going to head up to Granite Peak today, we'd be walking directly acros that plateau in the background. From here to that skyline is probably 3 miles (as the hiker walks).

Time for a break! The wind has really picked up by this point (constant 30-40 mph), and this has us a bit concerned, given all the smoke we are seeing directly to the west of us. About this time, we spotted a fire spotting plane - so we weren't the only ones interested in what was cooking!

Looking directly to the north, towards a peak which I don't know the name of (it's off the edge of my map). At this point, we are about 10,000 feet above sea level. We started at about 6500 ft, 4 hrs and 6 miles ago. Needless to say, our legs are beginning to burn by this time...

By now we're really looking DOWN on Mystic Lake. You can see Island Lake in the distant background, and Silver is beyond that. This is beatiful country, but man is it rugged.

And another view, a little bit later on. Again, that's smoke on the left hand side of the skyline. By this time we're beginning to get nervous. Is it coming from Huckleberry Canyon? Or further away? We'll have to get higher up to tell...

Looking to the southwest (directly towards Granite Peak, which is out of sigh behind this ridge). On the skyline to the left we are beginning to notice more smoke - lots of it; we can see it billowing up and then rolling on down into the Slough Creek drainage to the south.

And here's a little bit broader view. Notice the pinks in the clouds...

Looking back down on Mystic lake to the northwest of us. By now we are fairly high up, but you can see that the smoke down below has begun to clear up quite a bit.

Water break (a little over half way up). By now, the sun is up and we're ready for second breakfast (assuming the half a bowl of grape nuts in the parking lot at 3 AM actually counted as a first).

First blush - here comes the sun (6 AM). This is looking to the west, with the sun rising behind us. See that puff of cloud on the horizon? That's actually smoke, coming over the ridge.

Goodnight moon! This was about 5:30 in the morning - we've already hiked about 4 miles (3 miles up to Mystic lake and then a good bit up the south canyon wall as we head towards Froze to Death peak).

I should point out that when we got to Mystic, at about 4:40, the canyon was completely socked in with smoke from a fire that must have started from the thunderstorms the previous night. With winds blowing from the west at 20-30 miles an hour, this means we need to stay on our toes...

Yukon Cornelius with his new headlamp and two faithful labs - Jack (yellow) and Strider (black). These three are ready to go at any hour of the day.

3 AM, Saturday morning, Mystic Lake Trailhead. That's a full moon peeking through the scattered clouds. Beautiful night - nearly 70 degrees, warm, and fairly breezy. The goal here is to dayhike over Froze To Death plateau and down into Froze To Death and Turgulse lakes (about 8-9 miles each way).

That's Master Aegidius readying his trusty pack. Scroll on up to see what happens next...