Article Contributed on: 9/16/2009 9:36:31 AM
At 13,167 feet, Cloud Peak is the highest summit in the Big Horn Mountains in north-central Wyoming.
Although people do ascend it as a day hike, I wouldn't want to. A group of four of us (and a golden retriever) did a three-day weekend, backpacking to a camp near the summit trailhead the first day, climbing the mountain the second day and backpacking out the final day.
The Cloud Peak ascent and the trails surrounding it are some of the most popular in the Big Horns, and we saw probably a half-dozen groups either on their way out or back.
To get to
Cloud Peak, you start at the West Tensleep Lake Trailhead, which gains about 1,100 feet in the seven or so miles to Mistymoon Lake. In the first quarter mile of the trial, you have to ford West Tensleep Creek, which at the end of August was a still couple of feet deep and very cold.
The waterfall that marks the start of the Cloud Peak climb is another mile or so (and probably 500 feet elevation gain and loss) past Mistymoon Lake.
We chose a"base camp"on a knob that was in view of the Cloud Peak "trailhead" waterfall but above and across the Paint Rock Creek drainage from the start of the climb.
Since 189,039 acres of land surrounding Cloud Peak is a designated wilderness area, no fires are allowed above 9,200 feet, so camp stoves were the order.
We were able to have our tents pitched by about 4 p.m. and had eaten by 5:30, so two of our group decided to hoof it back to Mistymoon Lake for a couple of hours of fly-fishing before dusk. Not being a fisherman, I stayed behind and saved my energy for the summit attempt the next day.
After an early night, we started to the trailhead across the valley at about 8 a.m. the next day.
Just below the waterfall, we had to cross Paint Rock Creek. We were able to rock hop across without getting wet, but during runoff season, hikers should prepare to ford the creek.
The ascent started immediately after the crossing.
The "trail" up Cloud Peak gains about 3,000 feet in five miles (starting from about 10,000 feet and ending higher than 13,000 feet), so it's difficult in its own right.
But about a mile into the climb, the trail fades and you're left to spot cairns. About two miles into the climb, even the cairns seemingly disappear and navigation simply becomes "Head higher and follow the ridges."
At the same point the cairns disappear, the climb begins to traverse seemingly endless boulder fields, with rocks ranging from the size of microwaves to full-size vans.
To add to the difficulty, it had snowed about seven inches the weekend before. Because of the altitude, there also are permanent snowfields, which are packed enough that you can safely walk on them. Not so with the recent snow, in which you would take a few steps before sinking up to your knees without warning, risking a huge gash in your leg or breaking a bone between the boulders, something that could be fatally dangerous in such a remote area.
Without being able to visually tell the difference between the trustworthy snowfields and the risky ones, we basically had to avoid both, which made the already difficult route-finding even more tricky.
The Big Horns are uplifted granite mountains carved by glaciers, much more like the Colorado Rockies than the jagged, misshapen igneous Absarokas to the west, which means steep glacial cirques and towering cliffs.
Subsequently, Cloud Peak also isn't for those afraid of heights. At one point, the ridge to the top narrows to about 10 yards across with thousand-foot-plus cliffs on either side.
The reward at the summit, however, was worth the seemingly endless boulder-hopping. Despite a hazy day, we could see for miles around us (I've heard that on a clear day you can see from Yellowstone to the Black Hills), and looking off the east edge of the peak, Cloud Peak Glacier, the last glacier in the Big Horns, and two jade glacial lakes rest about 2,000 feet straight down.
Cloud Peak does have a false summit, with the true summit marked by a large, flat stone covered by cairns.
Unfortunately, we were only able to spend enough time at the summit to eat a brief lunch and take some photos because an afternoon storm was approaching, and we still had a long trip back down. Unlike many climbs, where you can turn on the cruise control and coast all the way down, boulder-hopping down the mountain was more difficult than and as time-consuming as the ascent.
By the time we had reached the waterfall again, we'd been on the mountain for about eight hours, and we still had the hardest part left to go: crossing the Paint Rock Creek drainage and the final 500-foot ascent back up to our campsite on the knob overlooking the valley.
When we arrived back at camp, I barely made it out of my tent to eat and crashed before the sun had set.
The next morning, we had packed up and broken camp by about 8 a.m., and had made it to the trailhead by about 1 p.m. Three of us didn't even bother to take off our boots to ford West Tensleep Creek and just slogged the final ½ mile with wet feet.
Having hiked nearly every weekend this summer - including a few trails longer than 10 miles with substantial elevation gains - I thought I would have been better prepared for this trip. But being overpacked on the trip in and out and the difficulty of the Cloud Peak ascent made the trip more exhausting than I had expected. Still, it was the highest mountain I've climbed, and it was well worth the effort.
That being said, it'll probably be awhile before I have a burning desire to climb Cloud Peak again. Besides, there are countless other great hikes around to explore.
Next year, some of us are talking about a trip across the Thorofare, a route through the Absarokas that connects the South Fork of the Shoshone River with Jackson and Yellowstone and is the most remote (read: farthest from a road) location in the Lower 48.