August 4-8, 2003

Collecting Cambrian Trilobites in the Bob

Marshall Wilderness Area

"The Bob". For the rest of my life those two words will conjure up images

of pristine forests, beautiful scenery, and an awfully long hike to collect a

few trilobites. It only took me a week to recover, but I can still feel my

sprained ankle, and I can still imagine the sixty-five pound pack on my

back hiking up and down trails that shouldn't be trails, and some that

weren't. The way we figured it we hiked for roughly 55 miles, spending a

little more than 40 hours on the trail. My rockhunting friends Arvid Aase,

and Jake Skabelund went along for this journey. An experience that none

of us will forget.Because of the length of the discussion, and the number

of pictures, I will retain all of my comments to the header from this

trip.We began hiking on Monday August 4 at 2:30 PM from the North

Fork of the Teton River Trailhead found on the east slope of the Rocky

Mountains about an hour outside of Choteau. That day we put about 10

miles between us and the trailhead, cleared one pass, crossed the

continental divide, and entered the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area before

bedding down for the evening.On day two we headed toward Basin

Creek, which, on the map, shows a trail up it. We also caught our first

glimpses of Pentagon and Kevan Mountains. As well as some of the local

frogs and toads. As a word of caution though when you see a sign that

says "trail not maintained" I recommend paying attention to it, they aren't

kidding. Within five or six miles from that sign we were "bush wacking".

It wasn't pretty and while stepping down from a log I sprained my ankle.

Nearly twenty miles from the trailhead, this is not a good thing to have

happen. Luckily I had brought my trusty duct tape and within 15 minutes I

had a nice little compression wrap on my ankle that allowed me to

continue hiking. Within an hour though we had reached a literal dead

end. A large cliff loomed above us with little evidence of a way around or

over it. Jake took the task to find a way over the top, so he dropped his

pack and took off. An hour later we heard him and saw that he had made

it over. This was a bit of a relief and Arvid and I started hiking towards

him. When Jake caught back up with us he didn't have good news. There

was no trail, he had scaled the cliff. At this point we were pressed for

time to find a place to camp for the night. We decided that we had to

make it over the top and resolved to find a way to get up. We found the

place where Jake had made it up earlier and sent Jake up far enough that

we could pass our packs up to him. We continued this until we were able

to slowly move us and our packs over the cliff. Then we rushed to find a

place to camp near a stream. After over 12 hours of hiking we were

finally greeted by a small stream and a relatively flat spot just as a storm

hit us and it got dark.The next morning we figured we were only a short

distance from Pentagon Mountain so we broke camp, stashed our packs,

and headed for Pentagon. What an awesome site. The only bad thing was

that once we got close to the trilobite bearing rocks a large storm hit us.

We sat tight for about an hour and a half, and eventually had to leave to

get to our next camping spot before the end of the day. It was quite a

disappointment to have gotten that far just to be rained out. We headed

out again, crossed over Switchback Pass, across the continental divide

again, and began our journey toward Lake Levale. As we dropped down

from the pass we could see it in the distance. It was absolutely beautiful.

By the time we arrived we only had a couple hours left in the day so we

made the most of it and collected some trilobites. We hiked up the hill on

the backside of Lake Levale and began working the scree slopes that

contain shale from the Pentagon Shale above us. We all found some very

nice specimens, spotted a mountain goat in the cliffs above us, and took

in a spectacular view of the lake below us.The next morning we decided

that we had only a few hours before we needed to break camp and head

for the trailhead. Jake ventured up the hill again and Arvid and I broke

camp and recovered for the hike out. We each added about 15 pounds of

rock to our packs and were on our way by 10:30. We hiked out a different

trail that we came in on, thankfully, and went down Open Creek. The trial

was in great shape in contrast to the trail we came in on. We looked over

our shoulder a number of time only to see our trilobite sites get farther

and farther away. After putting over a dozen miles behind us, we found

another spot to settle down for the night and prepared for our final climb

up the backside of washboard reef.In the morning we readied ourselves

for the final day of hiking. Little did we know how tough it was going to

be. When we stopped at the forest service headquarters they warned us

about Washboard Reef. Going up the back side wasn't too bad. The view

from the top was spectacular. We saw our last glimpses of Pentagon

Mountain, and enjoyed the spectacular view from what seemed to be on

top of the world. The descent down the front of Washboard was a

different story. It was nearly impossible to comprehend how steep the

trail was. I would feel sorry for even pack animals that would have to

make that trek. The knees were not made to be abused that badly in a

single descent and we could certainly feel it. Though not tiring it was

without question exhausting. By the time we had reached the bottom flat

ground had never felt so good. The final 4 or 5 miles back to the trialhead

were awfully long and by the time we reached it we were more than

ready to shed the packs.Unfortunately that was not the end of our

troubles. On the way home I lost the transmission in my car. I won't go

into too many details, but it made for an awfully long journey home. If

you desire to journey into "The Bob" for trilobites shoot me an e-mail. I

will be happy to share any thing that I can to make your journey a

successful one. Just remember not to sprain your ankle.

Recent avalanche shoot.

Looking back from Teton Pass.

Entering "The Bob".

Jake Skabelund.

Arvid Aase.

Me,Glade Gunther.

Day two.

Consulting the map.

One of the 50 or so river crossings.

This is not a "good sign".

Wolf track, see the 10x triplet for

scale.

Spade foot toad.

First view of Kevan Mountain.

First view of Pentagon Mountain.

Nice little avalanche shoot.

The dead end.

Slowly moving up the cliff.

The start of day three.

Filtering water in the creek.

Pentagon Mountain.

Dean Lake.

Basin Creek - The way in.

The cliff we conquered the day before.

Switchback Pass.

Open Creek - The way home.

Lake Levale

Lake Levale

Coming down from Switchback Pass.

Collecting trilobites - Finally

A few trilobites, mostly Bathyriscus

formosa

Lake Levale.

Mountain goat, small white spot at

center.

Day three, camp visitors.

The Pentagon Shale lies just above

the lower cliff.

Pine Grouse.

Looking back at the way we went in,

Teton Pass.

Pentagon Mountain in the distance -

right

Leaving "The Bob".

My feet, notice the swollen ankle.