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Published: November 12th 2007
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Old Stone Face Vs. The Shadow Witch
Along time ago in the Lee Metcalf Wilderness a evil witch made of shadow and darkness with an upturned nose, once threatened the forest. But she was defeated as the forests champion took the form of stone defeated the witch in a blinking contest. She comes back every now and then to challenge the man of stone, but he never seems to blink. Do you see their epic stare down here? Let this be a warning to all who decide to half ass the planning of a fairly long distance hike! My friend Justin Van Almelo and I had earlier this fall planned to do a hike up into the beautiful Spanish Peaks area. It was going to be an amazing loop taking us from the Hell Roaring Creek drainage up to Hell Roaring Lake and back to Lava Lake, where I would have previously parked the old black toyota to fly us back to Bozeman at the end of the weekend. Because Justin had to work on Friday, I generously offered to pack in camp, like some crazy super soldier and have it all set up and dinner ready for him by the time he got to camp. That weekend ended up being nothing like that thought due to some crazy mistakes we made in our planning.
Mistake One: Misreading the distance from the trail head to Hell Roaring Lake. So somehow both Justin and I misread the distance to be about five miles from the Hell Roaring Creek trail head to Hall Roaring Lake (The actual distance is about 10 miles or so). So that Friday I get
a late start and decide to park my car at the Lava Lake Trail Head and hike the two miles between the two trail heads. "No problem, it's still a seven mile distance from here to the camp site, I can do that", I think to myself. So I heft on my pack which contains the total sum of 40ish odd pounds of the weekends food, a horribly heavy tent, my sleeping bag, and my fishing pole and start trudging along the road to Hell Roaring Creek. I must admit, I think I looked pretty sweet -a huge backpack with fishing rod and a huge straw hat attached to it, the top of the pack about six inches over my head and a nice hiking stick trudging through the woods. Isn't this what the American dream was about, I know some motorists thought so judging by the couple of honks I got along the way.
Mistake Two: Not bringing my own map. So I trudge on my merry way, over a hill and across a bridge, nod hello to a worn out looking trail crew, and enter the Lee Metcalf Wilderness.
I'm very excited despite the overcast weather that
would occasionally spit down rain upon me. The first five miles weren't so bad. It was after the first large stream crossing that things got a little rough. I had been hiking for some time and had started hiking up hill and away from the stream. Which started to have me second guessing myself, had I missed a turn in the trail somewhere? Was I going in the right direction. I would have checked my map, had I had one. Justin had previously tried to photocopy a map for me, but it just didn't work out. Ridiculously I didn't even think about taking a picture of the map with my digital camera. So this is what they mean by hind-sight being 20/20. I did have a compass on me and as dusk approached and I crossed a second stream, I started to rethink if I was going in the right direction. I stopped and took a reading from my compass, North-East...but I swear I should be heading South-West...what the hell! So I stop and collect myself and decide that the best bet is to go back as darkness is falling and Justin hasn't caught up to my slow trudging, heavy
My little friend
These butterfly's were all over the place! pack hauling ass (which is basically what you are when backpacking, a human ass). So around I turn and trudge back, every 15 minutes or so calling out Justin's name (as dusk is the time for those pesky grizzlies and black bears to be a little more active and I did not want to surprise one of those guys -there have been a dozen or so maulings this year in the Yellowstone/Gallatin Valley area). Almost all the way back to the first stream crossing Justin and I meet up, both relieved to see the other and ready to set up camp and call it a night. So we hike back to this nice camping area by the first stream crossing, set up camp, and eat dinner around 9:30pm that night.
Needless to say we slept in. It was nice to go over the map again and laugh at our crazy misjudgment of distance between the trail head and Hellroaring lake. It also occurred to us that the loop we intentionally thought to do was unrealistic as the loop was a total of 30 miles long. So we changed our plans to hike up to Hellroaring lake and stay the
night or so and just hike back. The following day, we took a nice long stroll up the drainage to the source of Hellroaring creek. It was an amazing amphitheater of stone, and lodge pole pine, with a clear glacial tilled lake at the base of the mountain. That evening Justin and I did some fishing with no luck, had a nice kielbasa sausage and bean dinner and slept like babies.
I awoke that evening around two in the morning to a bright pale light filling the tent. Looking outside I was greeted by a clear empty sky illuminated by hundreds of thousands of stars and the swath of light that is the Milky Way. It was amazingly breathtaking and on top of it all it was at the height of the Perseids meteor shower and the sky was streaked with meteors every two to three minutes. It was a great evening overall! The following morning, Justin and I broke up camp and trudged down the drainage back to the car. It's a great hike if you ever get the change to take it, there are few hikers up that way and it is a beautifully secluded area.
Here is a final note about the fishing on Hellroaring lake. On our hike down we come across some people on horseback and one of them, an old leathery cowboy, sees our fishing poles and asks where we were fishing. After telling him we had been up to Hellroaring lake, he huffs out at us, "Why the hell did you go fishing up there? There is nothing in that damned mud puddle". So don't go fish up at Hellroaring lake or else you may upset some old cowboy.
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