One of my dreams. Then, DSLR happened. But I’ve been contemplating using film again.
I don’t know if I’ll do a full dark room, but I’m definitely going to have to start developing my own film at home. A week turnaround plus $15 a roll (of only ten exposures) is too much for the volume I prefer. I mean, I could just slow down, but… nah.
Are those little pools of water in the first picture? Looks awesome.
For what it’s worth, I’ve heard great things about the Canon 135 f/2–though it doesn’t have the defocus control that the Nikon has. It’s an interesting focal length, at any rate.
Another couple shots from the day:
Yep, and thanks! Respectively.It was hard to get a clean shot along there as people kept walking by heading towards the lighthouse, Thankfully, I managed to get one or two shots there before the heavy rain hit.
Beautiful pics! Love the contrast and roiling skies. Very dramatic.
I miss storms.
We do get sunsets:
And a zoo:
And lots of raccoons:
Plus a couple of forts:
And some bridge thing:
— Alan
I love the raccoons shot. It looks like a gang strutting out.
They do walk like they own the place.
I got my film from last weekend back from the lab, and I thought this shot turned out particularly well. I was initially worried it would be too far underexposed because I was using a red filter for the first time but neglected to adjust the exposure calculation.
I might have to make a print of this one.
Link as the pictures are now broken: https://hikinginthelight.us/bomber-mountain-golden-trout/
For this trip, I decided to visit Bomber Peak, starting at East Tensleep trailhead. I woke up at 0400 on Friday and hit the road.
I arrived by 3PM and was on the trail by 3:15. The Cloud Peak Wilderness has a lot of regulations—more than the Winds—but they let you camp within 100-feet of water, which is nice. The entire trek to Bomber Mountain is very easy. The trail starts out by West Tensleep Lake, going through boreal forests, and then goes through some grasslands. You’ll be in and out of trees, cross a stream twice, but the uphill is, at least to me, almost unnoticable. The total vertical climb for this trek was an easy 6081 feet.
I had decided to camp at Lake Helen as it appeared to have more trees than the other lakes, and high winds were in the forecast. I reached Lake Helen by 5:15, which is a nice, leisurely pace. It had only been 5.2 miles of hiking, so I was still fresh, but also ready for bed. On the drive up, my stomach had felt a little…off…and I’d thought about turning around. This comes into play later.
I immediately saw a tent, which was there for the duration of my stay. Oddly, I never saw the owner of this tent. Instead of camping by the trail, I crossed the outlet to the east and looked around. Good choice! Tons of places to camp, and all better than where everyone else camps on the other side of the lake. Plus there was no one around my edge.
After putting up camp, I thought about dinner, but I was feeling wretched. I cleaned up a little, but the wind and cold were out in force, so I quickly retreated into my tent to read some SCPs and then watch an episode of a historical-based fiction series. I quickly fell asleep to elk bugling.
Waking up at 7, I ate some Further Fuel, which my stomach was mostly OK with. I had a full-day ahead of me of climbing and fishing, and at least 50% of it would be off trail, so I was on the “road” so to speak by 8:30. There was no wind at my camp.
Instead of using the trail, I had discerned that it was better to go through the trees on the east side of the lake and orienteer through a gap in the mountains, which let me see Lake 10,594, an unnamed lake. My route took me through a number of small meadows, and I decided to shoot the gap at an inlet by the NE end of Helen, rather than the inlet by Lake Marion a bit further on. Smart decision. The climb was very quick, with only a couple of boulder patches, and mostly it was just ascending grassy ramps. I was at Lake 10594 by 10:00, which included some downtime by a pleasant stream where I drank 80oz of fluid with electrolytes. That made me feel quite a bit better.
I spent a couple of hours catching trout-after-trout at this unnamed lake; most of them were golden trout, which are not native. Fantastic tenkara fishing. Almost too easy. I often find late August and early September to be the best times for camping, because the temperatures are better and the fishing is the best. Earlier in the season, the trout will often be too content with the excessive numbers of other bugs just pummeling the waters, but in fall they start becoming greedy and stupid.
I listened to some podcasts on metaphysics and also some podcasts on the Mission Impossible series as I headed out under cloudless skies. The rockfield between 10594 and Gunboat Lake is really not a bad one, and I never felt any perilous movement, which is much unlike my previous hike. I was to Gunboat Lake within 15 minutes, and I intersected the trail up to Florence Lake. Oddly, a tiny stream between Florence and Fortress Lakes has full-sized Brookies. Weird. While you can use either the west or east side of Florence to access the mountain, I think that the east side is easier, as there are more granite ramps to follow, rather than pure boulder fields. (Best hikes to avoid boulder fields in the Bighorns are the Powell or Middle Cloud Peak Lakes.) On the eastern edge of the lake, past the outlet, you’ll also find a memorial to those who lost their lives in the crash. It’s on the eastern face of a rock by the trail, and often marked by a cairn. I also climbed up the grassy ramp to the south of Florence to look down toward Soldier Park. It was pretty enough.
Soon enough I was climbing Bomber Mountain, and I was at the wreckage within 40 minutes, with a vertical climb from 10,875 feet to 11,946’, which puts it at a fairly low elevation and easily accessible to anyone in decent shape. Again, a leisurely pace as I just didn’t feel all that well. I felt very sad at the wreckage, and even sadder when I found a memorial to a young kid who had died. He had always wanted to hike to Bomber to see the downed aircraft, but he passed away before he could. Truly sad.
Sadly, much of the wreckage has been defaced by chuckleheads who have to put their signatures on everything. I find it highly grotesque. The rubber parts of the plane are in exceptionally good condition. There is even still oil in them.
Instead of returning the way I’d came, I decided to navigate around the “peak,” if that’s what you can call the boulder-strewn hellscape, and descend via an unnamed chute and Mistymoon Lake. A smiliar approach last year had saved me 18 miles (don’t ask) coming off of Goat Flat outside of Dubois, WY, which, by the way, is a similar alien hellscape. The contour lines for my planned route were just on the verge of being unsuitable, but I figured that I’d give it a shot.
As I made my way up and around, the drainage to Lake Solitude came back into view. To my right was…more wreckage! How??? Did the Army blow it up after they found it? I know that such used to be a common practice, but I can’t figure out how the pieces came to be so widely scattered. I inspected the bits that I found while listening to the Flop House’s Godzilla review, then aimed down along the path of least boulders.
Eventually I was getting near a pseudo-precipice, and my inclination was to follow some grassy ramps off to the left, instead of taking the chute down. I had a hunch that I could perhaps even find a straight show down with grass if I went beyond the view-horizon. Despite this hunch—which I would later find to be absolutely correct—I decided to navigate to the right of the main chute, which had some grass, but was still mostly scree, talus, and shifty boulders on an incredible angle. I mostly did this because I thought that the view was worth the extra time spent picking my way down (I’m a rock nerd), and it was.
Soon enough I was at a creek where I drank three, 32-oz servings of water and electrolytes. I then walked on down the draw, keeping to the right, and crossed the creek closer to the bottom. I saw a small game trail through the rocks that simply started and ended in nothing, along with a panoply of pikas. While I expected that I might have a lot of uphill as I angled over to the left, such was not the case, and the walking, other than a couple of spring-fed marshes, was easy. I observed that my hunch about the grassy-descent on the far side of the mountain to be spot on as I rounded the hillside.
Soon I had picked up an old trail, and I honestly don’t know what it had been used for. It was mostly grown over, but still deeply rutted. Never seen the likes of that before. I shot past a couple of meltponds and through a gap to find myself overlooking Mistymoon, Marion, and Helen Lakes. It looked like a short jaunt, but I knew that I still had 4 or so miles to go, and it was getting dark, with the sun below the mountains. Unfortunately, getting this view meant that I was away from the trails, so I had to cross more boulder fields to find the trail back. This same trail goes down to Lake Solitude, and a branch goes over by Lily Lake and to Battlecreek trailhead, which I used earlier this summer to access the Middle Cloud Peak drainage. Oddly, while the trail shows up on the map, and I could see it faintly from high up, I was never able to locate it when I was on the Solitude/Grace Lake trail. My suspicion, based on some discrepancies that I noticed back on my birthday, is that it as “moved” approximately 1-1.5 miles from its original intersection. I might check that out one day.
The trail back to camp featured some undulation, which I hate, and moose, which I despise. I also saw about 6 tents, so obviously a lot more people had arrived. This time I went to the west of the Helen because a.) I didn’t want to encounter a moose in the increasing gloaming, and b.) I wanted to see how great the trail was. Suffice it to say that it is much easier to travel off-trail on the east side of the lake.
Three moose which I skirted around at a distance. I’ve been chased by them before:
I arrived and grabbed a chilled Coke which I had brought along. A first for me! It was very cool from being in the lake. My tummy still hurt, but I tried two bites of food…couldn’t do more. Drank a bunch more fluid, too. It was very warm and still, being perhaps even in the 60s, so I stripped down and bathed myself. Felt so good. Thoroughly washed my hair, too.
By this time, it was quite dark out, so I watched TLT and read some SCPs, then fell asleep. I woke up at 6, fell asleep again until 7:30, and was on the trail out by 9:08. With stops (people coming in wanting to chat), I was back at my Jeep by 11:12.
Very good, fun, historical, and easy hike! 4/5.
The following week I met up with my mother to hike to Frozen Lakes and Lake Angeline. It was below freezing and very windy, but a very interesting hike meteorologically. More on that some other time.
Just fantastic stuff @Hal9000 I keep thinking, man, I’d love to do a hike with you one of these days.
— Alan
I second the appreciation of the post. Great adventure and photos.
When we’re all retired we can set up a Qt3 Appalachian Trail trip.
Thirded. Always a pleasure!
I don’t remember if i posted this it not. A shot i took from the Salk institute.
Very weird place architecturally.
A couple of photos I took at Bayeux Cathedral last week. Both taken with a Sony WX500. Especially love the spiderwebs acting as a projection screen.
At present, replicas of the Pinta and Niña are moored in Pittsburgh, so my wife and I went to see them.
The Pinta (to the left) is actually 20% over-scale, and the Niña is true scale. Below, it was all I could do not to crack my head on the beams overhead, and I am not tall.
Didn’t realize those boats were so small! Pretty impressive they even managed to cross the atlantic with them.
Caravelles were the superior boats, as Sid Meier’s studies proved.
Very cool pictures, @Fishbreath, and my favourite of your croc pictures is the first one, @krayzkrok: it’s always so fast when shown in motion, I learned it was really a gallop.