Editor’s note: In July 2025, Now Habersham weathercaster Tyler Penland headed west to hike and camp in Yellowstone National Park. His latest “Go west, young man” series features the stunning images he captured and the stories he brought back.
Getting around on the Beartooth Plateau in a car is nothing short of a miracle of human engineering in most cases. There is only one main road, the Beartooth Highway, but there are numerous dirt roads that dot the landscape. My final goal of my trip out west was to summit the highest mountain I’ve yet to hike: the 12,000ft Mt. Rearguard. We could plainly see our target from the Beartooth pass, but getting there isn’t quite so easy.
A drive all the way to the bottom of the plateau nearly to the town of Red Lodge allows you to hop a dirt road and drive another 8 miles back roughly in the direction you came from. However, this dirt road spits you out at the parking lot for the Glacier Lake Trailhead. Here, we loaded up our 40-50lb overnight bags and set out on a trek that would just about beat me by the end of the next day.
There’s really no way around it when you are in the Beartooth Mountains: it is going to be steep. In this case, very steep. An unmaintained social trail runs up from the Glacier Lake trail and it was certainly cut with no regard for the people going up it. Used mainly by people going up to fish the high elevation lakes, this trail runs through some of the most remote, rugged scenery you can imagine. However, this ruggedness also means absolute, unmatched beauty. We were rolling in just as the wildflower season was peaking. This area, that is currently covered in several feet of snow as of December, was a beautiful green mountainside in late July.
As we climbed our way to the top I had to take many breaks. The weight of the pack combined with the quickly increasing elevation was absolutely wearing me out. We gained about 1500ft of elevation in right at 3 miles, mostly done in small spurts of 100-200ft at a time and more gradual rises in between. After a couple hours we found our way just beneath Shelf Lake. Here, the creek blows through the countless rocks and with the blue skies above it really looked out of this world.
The good news for my lungs is that just above that next rise lay Shelf Lake: our stopping spot for the day.
Shelf Lake sits right at 10,100ft above sea level. It is a true glacial lake surrounded by plenty of rocks and a sheer cliff dropping into one side. Up here, the wind almost never stops blowing and it never gets very warm. This particular day was warmer than most, with highs in the 50s and overnight lows around freezing.
We spent most of the afternoon fishing this small lake. We had initially planned on traversing up to Moon Lake, just above Shelf, but decided to save our energy for our climb the next day. The view looking back from near our campsite was absolutely spectacular. You could see how far we had climbed from deep in the valley and from here you begin to get a sense of the scale of just how vast this place is.
We caught some absolutely gorgeous native brook trout in the lake, and learned a lesson about keeping a couple to eat while they are biting. Our plan for fish chowder for supper quickly went south as they stopped biting before we were ready to eat. So, we went to plan b and had our pre-packed meals. After eating I took my camera and set out to capture the countless wildflowers blooming here. I had long dreamed of seeing the wildflower blooms at high elevations, including the lupines. I got my wish, because hundreds of purple lupines dotted the landscape.
The sunset that night was beautiful, but it was soon time for bed. After all, we had a long day ahead of us the next day.
Check out Tyler’s other articles in this series
