To celebrate making it this far we decided to go on a little adventure. We left the kids in Miles City and headed to the Beartooth Mountains. We stayed at a very cool place, the Rock Creek Resort, outside of Red Lodge. Our room had a balcony that overlooked Rock Creek, and we loved sleeping to the sound of the creek rushing by. The sauna, hot tub, and huge pool made it a place we definitely want to stay at again.
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| This is the view from our balcony. |
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| Rock Creek Resort |
In the morning we set out for the Pryor Mountains with the intent to hike Big Pryor Mountain and find Crater Ice Cave. I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story.
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| After traversing some interesting roads we found the "trail head." |
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| Bailey would have loved all the snails. They were everywhere! |
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| Some parts of the trail were a little confusing and barely there. |
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| Miles has a tendency to practically sprint to the top, so I took the lead and set the pace. |
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| It didn't take long to come across some bear poop. I was trying for a scared face, but I ended up channeling my inner chipmunk. I was actually quite scared and we did lots of yelling to warn any bears in the area that we were in the vicinity. We didn't see any on the hike but we did see one on the road as we were leaving. |
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| Wildflowers. This picture doesn't do them justice. |
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| That tiny gold spot is our truck. |
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| We made the summit of Big Pryor Mountain! Next we had to figure out how to find the Crater Ice Cave. We had heard it was a bit tricky. |
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| It turns out we were about 20 feet from the crater when we decided to take a different fork in the trail. We found it easily once we knew where to look. |
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| Miles decided he would drop into the upper opening. |
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| I thought about it for a few minutes but decided I would go around to another opening. |
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| This entrance looked like a better option to me. |
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| It was dark and cold inside! But very neat. |
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| Miles signed our names to the US Forest Service Cave Registry. It had been about a week since anyone else had been there. |
I am so glad Miles talked me into sticking with our original plan to find the ice cave. I almost changed my mind when we really looked at a map and realized it was going to be a trek to get there and back home. It was totally worth it! What a fun was to celebrate our anniversary. I am motivated to find more adventures for us to take together.
