9-2-89
Often much of the effort in exploring new places is in figuring out how to reach them. Neither Karl nor I had any experience with the trailheads in the northern Bighorns. It took 5 hours driving from Lead, and a bit of navigating to reach Bighorn Reservoir where we planned to start the hike. There were two sections of rough road, including the infamous red grade, on either side of Spear-O-Wigwam Resort, but we eventually found our way to a locked gate at the outlet of the reservoir. We slept beside the pickup, disturbed only by the visit of another lost truck in the night.
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| Karl and Nitro heading for Highland Park. |
9-3-89
We awoke to realize that we had stopped on a small spur road, and that the main road around the reservoir was closed. That left us about a two mile walk to the Cross Creek TH on closed road that was rough enough that we probably would have preferred to walking to driving. The trailhead was well marked with signs and a map. We started up the feeder trail, then turned southeast onto the Solitude Trail for a steady 2-3 mile climb. Once out of the trees, and near the two junctions with the Little Goose Trail, the grade lessens and the terrain becomes more open with great views.
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| Exit Pass and Spear Lake. |
It was a longer hike to Highland Park than we expected, but the trail was easy and well marked. We took the old trail around the west side of the park and then a steep and rocky segment down to Highland Lake. It was about 4.5 hours to Highland Lake when we stopped for lunch. Highland had a good beach, nice campsites, and one tent, but was too cold for swimming. Our weather was good, but any breeze turned us from cool to cold.
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| Black Tooth above Bard Lake. |
Leaving Highland Lake, we met two guys from the Bighorn NF trail crew, then immediately lost Trail 36 descending to Kearney Creek. While the trail stays high above the creek to Spear Lake, we had descended to the creek and followed it west to Spear. Overall, it was roughly 6 hours and 12 miles to Spear Lake, much of it above treeline with awesome scenery.
We camped at the NE side of the meadow at the far end of the lake. There was one other horse party camped nearby. Since we were sitting right below Black Tooth and Woolsey, we decided to hike up to Bard Lake for a closer look at this high alpine oasis. Though Karl had the skills needed for these technical peaks, our scouting went in vain as neither one of us was ever able to pull off an attempt on either peak. On the descent my right calf got sore and began to cramp, but I was able to get back to camp with no major issues.
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| Karl and Nitro west of Exit Pass. |
Spear Lake 12 miles plus 2 mile side trip
9-4-89
Our goal for this day was to hike west cross country over Exit Pass to Cliff Lake and then rejoin the Solitude Trail. Then we would head north over Geneva Pass to camp at Crystal Lake. The morning hike over Exit Pass proved easier than we’d expected. Karl managed to find a nice trail on the south side of Kearney Creek while I battled through the trees on the north side. We ended up climbing through a small notch north of the pass to avoid all the loose talus in the pass itself.
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| Geneva Lake. |
The west side of the Exit Pass starts out gently, then drops steeply to Lake Elsa. We walked around the lake and then found Trail 60 before stopping for lunch at Cliff Lake. I needed the break, my calf had started to hurt again, but after the rest it didn’t bother me for the rest of the trip. The hike over Geneva Pass was gentle enough not to warrant any description in my notes, beyond that the north side was sheltered from the wind. We also passed a small prospect pit, rare in the Bighorns, containing some fragments of a quartz-pyrite vein. North of the pass we started to encounter our first hikers/fishermen since yesterday’s trail crew. It sounded crowded at Geneva Lake, so we stopped to camp at a site on the east side of Crystal Lake.
After setting up camp we climbed up the prominent appearing peak on the west side of the lake. This turned out to be an easterly ridge of nearby Spear Peak. The climbing was fairly easy, we spent an hour going up and 45 minutes down. By the end I was fried by the sun and wind, especially on the legs, so it was nice to relax in camp. Karl took a swim, but it was too cold for me to get in the water. Looking at the map I realized how much open country there is to the west of our valley. If it was possible to stay on the ridges out there to avoid the rock piles, there’s great potential for exploring.
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| View over Elsa Lake. |
Crystal Lake, 10 miles, with 2 mile side trip
9-5-89
We had a cold, clear morning for our easy walk out back to Highland Reservoir. We found two small errors with the trails on the topo maps; There is no trail along the west shore of Lake Geneva, and the Solitude Trail doesn’t intersect the Geneva Lake Trail where Edelman Pass Trail does, but instead intersects about 0.1 mile farther north, just short of a meadow. In addition, there is now a side trail to Duncan Lake. In all cases the older USGS quads were wrong, and our newer Trails Illustrated map was correct. The last section of the Lake Solitude Trail wasn’t described in our guidebook, but was beautiful trail with little sign of horses.
We were back to the truck at noon after a four hour, 9 mile walk. The drive back to Buffalo, Wyoming took 90 minutes, and then we were off to home in the Black Hills.
Hike out to Highland Reservoir, 9 miles
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| Our Spear Lake and Crystal Lake Route. |
Spear-O-Wigwam Resort (just north of Bighorn reservoir) reopened in 2020; www.spearowigwam.com
Other options for great loop trips in the northern end of the Bighorns & Cloud peak Wilderness are the 55 mile Solitude Trail Loop, or the ~21 mile Edelman-Solitude-North High Park Loop.
More on the Bighorn NF & Cloud Peak Wilderness at; www.fs.usda.gov/main/bighorn/home
