After a good nights sleep that featured a good amount of rain, thunder, and lightning, we set out for the Bighorn Trailhead.  We started hiking by a little after seven.  The trail started up steeply as usual but wasn’t as bad as Pitkin or Booth.  The trail also passed through a giant aspen grove that must be just amazing in fall.  As we approached the first views of the Grand Traverse I noticed that Bill and Johnson were slowing down a good bit.  It sounded like they were going to try to climb the peaks but they might just run out of time because of their speed.  They were sort of expecting me to go on alone but I didn’t want to attempt that ridge alone.  So, I decided this would be just a scouting trip so we decided to hike up to the cabin and then see what we wanted to do there.

The trail description at the Bighorn Trailhead mentions a cabin about 3 miles up the trail.  It didn’t take us that long to arrive at the cabin which is halfway between Grand Traverse and North Traverse Peaks.  The description mentioned how the door was kept unlocked so that hikers could use it if necessary.  It made the cabin sound like it was in good condition.  Not so.  Although you could camp inside it, it’s very dilapidated and the roof is very short.  There was a couple of tarps and candles in there.  I’d take a tent any day over the mice and ghosts that are certain to roam around in there!

After hanging out at the cabin for a while, we headed up the valley.  Johnson said he wanted to hike up to the next shelf.  So, I stashed my pack off the trail and brought only my camera along.  We hiked around and the trail started to fade fast.  At a large meadow that was full of Parry’s Primrose, the trail completely stopped.  We kept wandering around.  As we approached some of the upper tarns, a prominent 12er at the end of the valley began to look appealing.  I suggested that maybe I could go on ahead and try to climb the 12er.  They said they would try to follow. Just before I took off, we saw some people on the saddle between this 12er and North Traverse Peak.  Amazing!  I never see anybody up here. I went on ahead and spied my route.  I would climb a short scree gully then traverse across grassy ledges to the ridge then head to the top.  The scree gully was a real pain.  It was very loose and because I wasn’t planning on hiking very far, I left my trekking poles way back down by the cabin.  Oh well, I continued on and emerged on to the more comfortable grass slopes.

The hikers coming down were yelling down at Bill and Johnson trying to have them point out the best route down from the saddle.  Going straight down the saddle led to cliffs so they had to traverse.  Because they were asking directions, they must have come from the other side.  The clouds looked really really dark emerging from the other drainage.  Not hearing any thunder or feeling rain, I continued up and arrived on the ridge.  As I approached the summit, I realized that I would see Keller off in the distance.  At this point I had great views of East Thorn, Willow, and Mount Valhalla, the latter of which is a very prominent mountain.  I got a shock on the summit – there was a higher mountain right in front of me barely 100 yards away.  I realized that I was indeed on Keller! The day before I was planning on going up Pitkin Valley so I brought the Pitkin map…so I didn’t have the chance to really look at the map of Bighorn Valley and Johnson’s map cut off early.  At the top of this peak, which was actually a shoulder of Keller, I took my remaining pictures.  I took a lot of panoramas, picking out the peaks in the heart of the Gores to the Northwest and then the southeastern section.  I went up to the southern summit of Keller.  At first, I thought this was the true summit but after looking at the map later, I realized the true summit was still a ways off although it was only thirty feet higher than the summit.

I was almost positive that Bill and Johnson turned around so I started back down. I caught up with the other hikers at one of the snowfields at the head of the valley and they informed me that they were still up there.  I don’t know how, but I passed them.  The other hikers were 5 college students who had hiked from Rock Creek to Bighorn, a pretty short but neat shuttle hike.  We stayed at the cabin for a while then they headed out.  About forty five minutes later, Bill and Johnson showed up.  Johnson ended up staying in the valley but Bill had climbed to the top of the 12er.  As we hiked out, we got rained on and the dark clouds made the scene pretty gloomy…but it was really neat to hike in and a reprieve from the hot sun.  This was a really fun hike.  I’m hoping to return here and camp out near the cabin the attempt the Grand Traverse the following day.

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