Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness hiking guide updated by veteran Helena author

BILLINGS – With its sheer cliff walls, emerald blue lakes and waterfalls, the East Rosebud Canyon in the Beartooth Mountains would probably be a national park if it were located anywhere else, Bill Schneider said.

“I don’t think people know how fortunate they are to have the Absaroka-Beartooths,” he said referring to the wilderness area that encircles the Rosebud. “It’s such a wonderful place. It’s like a national park only better because its more scenic, there are more recreational opportunities and fewer regulations.”

Schneider literally wrote the book on “Hiking the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness,” a 943,600-acre protected area in south-central Montana dotted with more than 900 lakes, about one-third of which have been stocked with fish. Nine major waterways carved scenic drainages in the region, and Granite Peak – the tallest mountain in Montana at 12,799 feet – rises above the jagged landscape.

This year, Schneider updated the guide, its fourth edition. The update includes a note that the 2022 flood destroyed portions of the East Rosebud trail, more popularly known as the Beaten Path. A bridge at the base of Rimrock Lake was also washed out, meaning hikers have to ford East Rosebud Creek. That’s unadvisable at high water, Schneider noted.

Richard Stiff, former High Mountain Lakes survey coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, provided fishing information in the book.

Schneider also updated “Best Easy Day Hikes Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness,” another fourth edition. This offers details on 29 hikes. Both are available at stores carrying FalconGuides as well as online.

Exploring the guide

Schneider’s hiking book is broken down into five main sections: hikes accessible from the Boulder River Road, the Beartooth Front, the Red Lodge area, hikes that take off from the Beartooth Highway and finally the Absaroka Range. In all, the guide provides details on 63 routes, some of which hit more than one lake.

Although the Beartooths are the main attraction for hikers, Schneider likes the contrast the adjoining Absaroka Range provides.

“The Absaroka could be compared to the second child, a quieter, less aggressive sibling,” Schneider wrote in the guide’s introduction. “Fans of the Absaroka must put up with the ‘first born’ getting all the fanfare and friends and fame and fortune while they sulk in obscurity. The Absaroka is like that – wild and magnificent but almost forgotten next to its big sister, the Beartooths.”

Distances, difficulty ratings, elevation profiles, maps and a variety of trip types – from loops, to shuttles and base camps – are included. Schneider also provides information on lightning storms, bear and mountain lion awareness and avoiding hypothermia.

Wet and wild

Although Schneider has run into many bears while on remote trails, it is hypothermia that came closest to killing him, he recalled.

It was while scouting trails for the first edition of his book that he left from Lake Abundance at the head of the Stillwater River, clad for what he thought would be a daylong run in mild summer weather.

“I almost died there,” he said.

From Lake Abundance he ran down the Stillwater drainage to Horseshoe Creek, turned up that drainage to reach Horseshoe Lake.

“Just when I was going up to Horseshoe Lake this huge storm came over from the west, which I couldn’t see because I was in the woods,” he said. “So I got caught in a huge hailstorm up there, 4 inches of hail.”

Schneider said he barely made it back to his vehicle after completing the 29-mile route that gains an estimated 4,000 feet in elevation, partly because downfall blocked some of the last sections of the trail making the going even slower as he was pelted by a freezing rain.

“When I finally got back to my truck it took me like 15 minutes to get my key in the lock because I was so hypothermic,” he said. “It was unbelievable.”

‘Man of steel’

In the book, the hypothermic-inducing route can be found as a recommended five-day, four-night loop that he rated as “very difficult and demanding.”

“This trip is not for the beginner or the fainthearted,” he wrote. “It goes through the wildest, most isolated country in the Beartooths, and most of the trail is poorly maintained and, in places, hard to find.”

At the time Schneider jogged the loop he was in his early 40s, a “young man of steel” compared to the 77-year-old body he occupies. Yet he boasts of never having to replace a hip or knee and continues to hike, albeit day trips instead of the longer routes requiring a backpack heavy with camping gear. He’s also an ardent angler, chasing walleye and trout from his home in Helena, and continues to ride his bicycle.

“You know, I’ve done a lot of hiking,” Schneider said. “I’ve hiked every trail in Yellowstone, every trail in Glacier. I’ve hiked every trail in Grand Teton. Canyonlands.

“The only place that kind of rivals the Beartooths is the Wind River Range in Wyoming. … If you like the high-altitude, above-timberline type of environment, it’s pretty impossible to beat the Beartooths.”