Finertias Quest

A little gem tucked away in the AB wilderness. This is a fun mission in the AB that is worth every step to me. Tucked in the massive granite features of these mountains is one little arch, that to me has built quite the reputation.

It all started two years ago when Shane and I saw a picture in Allies office of a rock Arch. We asked her about it and she mentioned it was somewhere up the East Rosebud Drainage. I think it was that off hitch that we decided we should go and find it. We set out to find it with a late start fueled from last nights shenanigans and a mission in our heart go discover this hidden feature of the Beartooth’s. After a late start and having to hike an extra few miles because the driving bridge was out we finally made our way onto the trail. We scurried through the trail we had made in the last couple weeks and hopped through the rocks of the newly made East Rosebud River bed. The next and final step was to clamber up the drainage to where our arch was patiently awaiting, but on that day the arch was nowhere to be seen. We walked up and down, speculated, and searched, but to our triumph, no arch was to been seen. Don’t get me wrong I don’t want to take away from an amazing adventure. We walked around chatted, ate some snacks, and absorbed the beauty of the place we get to work. I will say that arch created an itch in my brain that needed to be scratched.

We never made it back up to find the arch that summer, but it always remained in my brain. Fast forward to a couple days ago and a late starting winter. Shane and I met a new guy in town that was eager to get out backpacking before the snow hit. We threw ideas around on what we could do while the weather was making up its mind, and somewhere in the mix the idea of the arch came back up. With a little delay on the adventure on my end, we set out on a beautiful weekend to find our beloved hidden arch. Shane, Alex, and I made our way up and camped at Elk “lake”. We had a chill night, with a little excitement of some random headlights shining on the walls towards Snow Lake. In the morning we made our way up to our mission. Again we scurried along the highway of the new trail put in by our lovely and hardworking trail crew. (Thank you USFS and MCC, you all do so much and care so much and rarely get the praise you deserve.) Then started our mission off trail with a little balance beam act. We made our way up fairly familiar with the terrain from our mission last time. When we made it up the drainage I was eager to start looking. We stomped around in the snow for a bit, and finally made it to where we could supposedly see it. This first vantage point didn’t give us any luck so we decided to punch through the snow a little higher to see if maybe, just maybe we were in the wrong spot. This next area did not give us any luck. We glassed the rocks fora bit and came up with theories, but no luck was to be found. We set off for what we believed was going to be the spot to give our final looks. We looked at the one promising spot that we had hoped we were looking at from the wrong angle, but nothing was to be seen. This damn arch was not gonna get the best of me again. We surveyed a little bit longer and then all of the sudden this arch decided to show itself. I was seeing a weird shadow in the middle of the rocks, and then it started to click. It was it, we found it.

I don’t know why this little arch meant so much to me, but my goodness it was sweet to see it with my eyes. I love the way mountains hold so many secrets, to me it feels like a never ending quest. Every part of these places deserve a lot of respect, they hold so many stories, that I get excited to stand in and try to understand.

Shout out to Alex for being a trooper in his first mission in the Beartooth’s, and to Shane, who will forever be anyone’s best adventure buddy.

Pictures!:

No arch pictures sorry! If you want to see it go and give it a try. All the information is out there, half the fun is finding it yourself.

Today I set off on something Ive been wanting to cross off my list for a while but never made the effort. From the Bear Track trailhead in the rock creek valley you can go up and over the Silver Run Plateau and end up in the West Fork of Rock Creek valley. I’ve always been fascinated by the trails that bring you up onto plateaus. It’s usually pretty grueling to get up there but running or walking across a plateau is a pretty epic feeling. The bear track trailhead is tainted for me as well from an injury years prior, nothing bad, just hard not to think about it when I’m on it. Anyways, I was feeling kind of skeptical about making it over to the other side. The idea of turning around danced in my mind here and there, and I don’t really know why. Sometimes when the weather isn’t quite right I get shyed away from doing solo missions. This time I was determined to get a little uncomfortable and see what was in store for me at the top of the switchbacks. The climb up there is what feels like a never ending maze of switchbacks. I don’t hike this trail to often so each turn feels like its gonna be the one that brings me to the top. After chugging a long for a bit with determination in my heart to at least make it up to the top and check it out, the trail finally leveled out and next thing you know I was opening my stride and running up and onto the plateau. All the clouds that appeared to be socking in the rest of the plateau stopped before they took over the trail. I had a great view of Silver Run peak popping in and out of the fog, almost teasing me, and to the east I could see the beginning of the plains of Montana as well as the priors standing proud. The Silver Run trail down to the west fork side was steep and snowy, but quite a thrill to run down, definitely kept me on my toes for fear of slipping in ice snow or mud. As you descend down the tail you eventually end up on the double track jeep road. Running back on this I thought was going to feel more grueling than it needed to be, but I ended up enjoying it and reveling in the little adventure I did. I think what clicked most in any head today while running was something a coworker told me a couple years prior. I asked him about skiing in the wilderness, and his simple, and to me, profound response was “Do it, do it hard”. I catch myself saying this quip about things to people when they get excited about going to do something. It really stuck with me and today it felt like it clicked, I’ve been in my own way for a long time. Maybe afraid of failure, maybe a little bit of laziness, but today I did it, and that felt good. Just go and do it.

Also Mel Brought home sour dough! :))

Soup Time!

Hello Friends and Family and anyone else interested in my thoughts and adventures! I’ve been contemplating creating a blog for a while, which is strange because I never particularly enjoyed writing. After I was urged by my boss to write a blog post for work, I ended up really enjoying it. So that was the final nudge to try it out. I don’t really know what this space is going to be yet, in my head I see it as a log for my adventures and create narrative stories for each one. Another reason I wanted to create it was an unhealthy obsession with instagram. I love the idea of sharing myself online to my friends and family, but what instagram and various other social media apps have become is so beyond that. So my compromise with myself was to get rid of instagram for a bit and try putting myself out there in a different way, that will probably be more rewarding for me in the long run.

Today I challenged myself to create a running plan. My relationship with running has been difficult for the last couple years. I identify as a runner and do enjoy doing it, but have a hard time keeping up with it all the time. I get easily distracted by other things to do (typically brain rotting or watching a sitcom I’ve seen hundreds of times). Or the other thing I do is shoot high in the first week and hurt and pull back. I think this is a common experience for a lot of people trying to get into running or back into running. We get so caught up in all these grand adventures or seeing what other people are doing and get inspired and go straight from couch to huge to failure, and endlessly repeat this cycle. Well I am tired of it. I’m gonna draw these endorphins out for a while, and start by building my foundation again. Going for simple runs, and throwing in a fun long run once a week. Once that feels like a strong consistent cycle is when I will start to add some more s~p~i~c~e to my regimen.

So that was my first “adventure” posted for the world. I think this is going to become a mix of narrative adventure pieces and a flow of thought about things going on in my life. Both are adventures in my book, this one just starts at a metaphorically trailhead.