Fellow blogger, adventurer-badass, and one of my best friends on this wet spinning planet Matt Pray rolled into town on Friday midday with his red Honda Accord, grinning like the vagabond he is (rrrrooOOAAADDD Trip!). So we decided to go on a hike into the Lee Metcalf Wilderness area, Gallatin National Forest, Spanish Creek trailhead. You know, to stretch the legs a bit and checkout each other's backpacking gear. And take a bite out of the playground nearby -- exactly 43 minutes drive from my new place in Bozeman, MT. It was a 'local' hike...
Miles: 25
Days: 2 (12 hours hiking = 2.1 mph)
% Hike/Float: 100/0
Elevation Chg: +4000, -4000 (loop)
OOO-AAAH Factor: 7
Route description: Starting at Spanish Creek trailhead (west of Rt. 191), we hiked a half mile past Mirror Lake then began our bushwack-scramble up over the ridge, through a spot we coined 'Crocodile Pass' because it looked like an agape crocodile when the western sun shone behind it. Down the other side to Beehive lake, and onto the rest of the loop north -- through Spanish Lakes, Lake Solitude, Upper Falls Creek Lake, Jerome Rock Lakes (14 in total!), and some tasty pine forests, ranchland, and general Rocky Mountain High beautaciousness.
Conditions: Partly cloudy, some light rain showers, and 40-50mph wind gusts throughout the night. Our Tarptent Contrails ate the wind FOR BREAKFAST. They held together well, albeit very noisily, and made it altogether hard to sleep with Zephyr all up in our business. I told Matt to look for me at the bottom of the cliff, blown into the lake if my tent and I were gone the next morning. True story..
The map below shows the loop in all its glory:
View Crocodile High Lakes Circuit in a larger map
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