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.