Day 3 of Lupe’s 2018 Dingo Vacation to the Bighorn Mountains & Wind River Range in Wyoming
7-15-18, the wee hours, Gunboat Lake – The crisis struck when Lupe woke SPHP up. She wanted out of her new Marmot tiny house. No telling what time it was. SPHP let her go. The American Dingo shot off into the night. No stars. The silent night was pitch black. Must be cloudy.
Loop was back soon enough, and settled down to snooze some more. Though profoundly weary, SPHP couldn’t. Those faint flashes of light, were they real or imaginary? SPHP listened. Nothing. Eventually two brighter flashes were conclusive. Lightning!
Was a storm bearing down upon Gunboat Lake? Was the weather going to be rotten in the morning, destroying Lupe’s chances of ever making it up Bomber Mountain (12,840 ft.)? Even if it wasn’t, how was SPHP ever going to accompany her up there feeling so pathetically drained and weak?
The mind raced. Fears multiplied. Real or imaginary? Potentially either, perhaps, but unrealized yet. Low blood sugar was fueling the fear. Nuts and applesauce! Get that blood sugar back up! A couple of hours of mental failing went by. SPHP fell into a deep sleep.
7-15-18, 7:32 AM – Heh. When even the Carolina Dog is sleeping in, you know it had been a long day! The morning news was all good, though. No storm had ever materialized. Sunshine, in fact! Scarcely a cloud in the sky. Gunboat Lake sparkled. Bomber Mountain loomed off to the NE, daring the American Dingo to try it. SPHP was still fatigued, but yeah – a perfect day! Weary or not, Loopster was gonna do this!
Slowly SPHP got ready. At least the Marmot tiny house and sleeping bags could be left here at Gunboat Lake. A lighter pack would help a lot.
Miss Sleepyhead revived and made her appearance. She was moving a bit slowly, too. Loop sniffed around lazily and stretched. Didn’t appear she was in any great hurry to go anywhere. Understandable. This little ridge overlooking Gunboat Lake was a glorious place to be!
Before long the pack was ready, even if SPHP wasn’t. Feeling it or not, Lupe was on her way!
Being on the move again put a spring in Lupe’s step. Her energy came surging back. Nose to the ground, she raced along sniffing everywhere. Instead of heading straight for the Solitude Trail to Florence Pass, Looper went down to explore the NE shore of Gunboat Lake first. Gunboat Lake was gorgeous!
From the NE end of Gunboat Lake, it wasn’t far to the Solitude Trail. The trail was good all the way to Florence Pass (10,900 ft.) 0.75 mile from camp. Florence Lake came into sight as soon as Lupe reached the pass.
Florence Lake nestles just N of Florence Pass in a spectacular setting! The whole N shore of Florence Lake was surrounded by massive ridges, all part of the SW reaches of Bomber Mountain (12,840 ft.). A waterfall plunged noisily into the NE corner of the lake.
Upon reaching Florence Pass, the Solitude Trail turned ESE staying well above the lake’s S shore. North Clear Creek flows out of the SE end of Florence Lake. When Lupe got to where she could see the outlet, the views were encouraging!
Though a big stream, North Clear Creek was chock full of rocks. Looper ought to be able to rock hop it! The headwall beyond North Clear Creek was steep, but definitely climbable. Situation excellent! Lupe headed for North Clear Creek.
Lupe was across North Clear Creek in nothing flat. SPHP wasn’t nearly so agile, but rock hopped it, too. Wondering what was taking so long, Loop came partway back to give SPHP encouragement.
Once across North Clear Creek, the easy part was over. The Solitude Trail turned ESE disappearing down Florence Canyon. A relentless trek higher was about to begin. More than 2.5 miles and 2,000 vertical feet of up, all the way to the as yet unseen summit of Bomber Mountain.
The first step was to get up the 300 foot high headwall NE of Florence Lake. The climb was steep, but not bad. Lanes of vegetation allowed Lupe to avoid much more difficult areas of nothing but rock. The worst part was simply how played out SPHP felt from yesterday’s long march to Gunboat Lake. Starting off tired wasn’t good. Bomber Mountain was going to be a long, long day.
A spectacular day, though! The view of Florence Lake from the top of the headwall was amazing.
The original intention was to go up the big canyon NE of the headwall at least far enough to see the Golden Lakes from High Point 11328. Lupe started off that way, but the terrain was really rough. Patches of green here and there, but mostly broken rock. Progress was slow despite not gaining much elevation.
Loop got fairly close to High Point 11328 before SPHP decided it wasn’t worth the effort. The Carolina Dog was no longer rock hopping, but scrambling among huge boulders. She was good at it, but SPHP was barely moving. Wasting too much time! Better get above all this giant debris.
Abandoning the High Point 11328 idea, Lupe scrambled E directly up the side of the canyon. Also slow going at first, but no worse than down below and at least getting higher. Conditions began to improve. Scattered green lanes of vegetation appeared. Making progress again! Heart, lungs, and legs dictated the pace instead of obstacles.
Lupe never did see the Golden Lakes on the way up. She was too far E. The climb went on and on, but this was the worst of it. Loop must have been feeling the effects of yesterday’s long march, too. She wanted to stop often to rest and be petted.
SPHP could hardly disagree. The danger was in sitting around too long. Would be so easy to simply get wrapped up in relaxing and enjoying the views, and end up proceeding too slowly to ever get there. SPHP tried to keep the rest breaks short.
Puppy, ho! Onward! Rinse and repeat. Endlessly.
The views became ever more impressive. Gradually the going became easier. The slope of the terrain was slackening. Good thing. Despite, or perhaps because of the glorious surroundings, energy was fading, too. The terrain led Lupe to turn more and more to the NE, then NNE.
A high point that had been visible from way back at base camp was off to the N. It was still far away, but Lupe was definitely getting closer. Was that the summit of Bomber Mountain? If not, it had to be close to it, didn’t it?
Higher, higher! Vegetation all but disappeared. Nothing but rock.
At each rest break, SPHP tried to judge how high Lupe was by comparing her position with other mountaintops where the elevation was known. Finally, it was possible to see that Looper was getting nearly as high as Mather Peaks (12,400 ft.) off to the S. This had to be High Point 12436 on the topo map that Loop was coming to.
Lupe got very close to the top of High Point 12346, but passed W of it. She actually lost elevation heading NW around cliffs to the N. By now a small distant ridge E of the high point SPHP had thought might be the summit of Bomber Mountain was in view.
That distant ridge was it! The true summit of Bomber Mountain. Only 0.75 mile away now! Tired, very tired, but Lupe was going to get there!
N of High Point 12436 a huge, narrow ridge extended far to the E. This ridge was nearly as high as the summit of Bomber Mountain, still 0.5 mile farther N. Towering cliffs surrounded the ridge, and ran all along the entire E face of Bomber Mountain.
A 12,580 ft. saddle N of the scary E ridge led to the summit of Bomber Mountain. The rocks got smaller and the terrain easier as Lupe made her way toward it. She crossed a snowfield on the way, but it wasn’t steep. Upon reaching the saddle, Lupe could see Lake 11124 and a string of smaller ones off to the NE.
0.25 mile and 260 vertical feet to go! Lupe headed up yet another rocky slope, steeper than what she had gone through on the way to the saddle. Nothing too difficult. Wasn’t long before she was almost there. Off to the W Looper could see the high rocky knob that had been visible from base camp.
And then she was there! Lupe scrambled up a jumble of large rocks. A small cairn sat near the high point. The summit of Bomber Mountain was on the brink of a dizzying precipice. The high point visible from camp could be seen from here, too. It looked every bit as high as where the cairn was. If she had time later on, Loop would go over there, too.
Off to the N was the eye-popping view that the Carolina Dog had come all this way for. Cloud Peak (13,167 ft.), mightiest of the Bighorn Range, was on display in all its magnificent glory!
A metal canister containing a registry was laying on a rock amid the highest ones. SPHP signed in for Lupe.
Bomber Mountain is named after a B-17 Flying Fortress that crashed into one of it’s vast ridges on June 28th, 1943 during World War II. All 10 men aboard were killed. Along with the climber registry, the canister contained a separate Bomber registry commemorating the crash victims.
The weather was near perfect. Clouds were building to the NE, but the wind was out of the W at 10 mph. The sky was clear in that direction, and the temperature was a pleasant 60°F. There didn’t appear to be any urgency at all to start back down the mountain. Fabulous!
Neither Lupe nor SPHP were anxious to leave. However, after a quick look at the stunning views, a longer rest break was in order. The highest rocks were a jumble with no good place for Lupe to get comfortable. W of the summit was a shelf of flatter rocks 10 feet lower. Lupe and SPHP retreated down there for food, water, and to simply relax.
Resting felt great. The views were grand. The weather cooperative. For an hour and a half Lupe and SPHP hung around the summit area, sometimes down at or near the break spot, sometimes up at the very top. Last night’s worries were but a memory. Lupe was really here! Her Bomber Mountain experience was superb!
Of course, the stupendous views to the NW and N of the most rugged part of the Bighorn Range held the attention more than what lay in any other direction. Cloud Peak (13,167 ft.), Mount Woolsey (12,978 ft.), Black Tooth Mountain (13,005 ft.), Peak 12590 and Peak 12644 were all spread out in a glorious panoramic display along with Glacier, Sapphire and Diamond Lakes.
That didn’t mean there weren’t other splendid scenes to gaze upon, too! Strung out along the lofty spine of the Bighorn Range were Peak 12328, Mather Peaks (12,400 ft.) and others beyond them to the S. Lupe might even have seen Darton Peak (12,275 ft.), but it was very far away.
Well past mid-afternoon. Getting back to Gunboat Lake was a long trek. Despite being downhill nearly the entire way, the rocky terrain would prevent as rapid a return as one might expect. Time for a few closeups of the grandest peaks, then Lupe would have to be on her way.
Leaving the official summit, Lupe traveled WSW toward that seemingly equally high point that had been visible from base camp. She got only partway there. The WSW high point was farther than it first appeared. It was taking longer than expected to get there across the endless rocks.
So close, but yet so far! Too much time had gone by already. Shouldn’t have dilly-dallied quite so long at the official summit. SPHP decided Loop would have to settle for a photo.
After that, it was down, down, down! Lupe made good progress. Being able to see what was ahead from above helped to avoid the worst of the boulder fields. The Carolina Dog stayed farther W this time, hoping to get a look at the Golden Lakes. Eventually they did come into view.
How many rocks had Lupe leapt onto or over? Thousands. While going down was faster, even this was tiring work. Loopster was getting sick of the rocks. She wanted to rest and be reassured frequently. Feeling the same way, SPHP obliged, but time was a-wasting. The rest breaks were all as brief as possible.
The sun was behind Bomber Mountain’s SW ridge by the time Lupe reached the headwall overlooking Florence Lake. The American Dingo was thrilled when she finally got down to the Solitude Trail again. No more obstacles, but the sun had set.
Light faded as Lupe and SPHP marched back to Florence Pass and on down toward Gunboat Lake. Clouds were building to the W, but SPHP hadn’t really paid much attention to them. The very minute Looper reached her new Marmot tiny house, a few raindrops fell. A peel of thunder echoed through the mountains.
That was all it took. Lupe and SPHP ducked into the tiny house pronto. Only 2 or 3 minutes later the storm broke. Lightning, thunder, torrential rain! The Marmot tiny house shook violently in a gale that threatened to flatten it. In a darkness rent by flashes of lightning, Lupe stared up at SPHP wide eyes full of concern, while SPHP sought to reassure her the destruction that seemed imminent wasn’t going to happen.
It didn’t. 15 minutes, and it was over. No relapse, just done. The storm sailed off to wherever. In her old tiny house Lupe, SPHP, and every bit of gear would have been drenched. The Marmot tiny house had withstood the storm and leaked only a few drops.
What a day! What an utterly exhausting and exhilarating day! A bite to eat, then cozy, safe, and dry, Lupe and SPHP collapsed for the night.
Links:
Next Adventure Prior Adventure
Bomber Mountain, Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming – Part 1: The Solitude Trail to Gunboat Lake (7-14-18)
Cloud Peak, Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming (7-19-16) – Part 1: The Mistymoon Trail to Base Camp
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