Gabletop Mountain
August 7th, 2009
Report Summary
For our first full-day hike, we decided on a new loop. Starting from Bear Lake TH, the route was down to Odessa Lake, up to Tourmaline Lake, continue up the gorge to Gabletop Mountain, and then return via the Flattop Mountain trail to Bear Lake. Our start time was around 5:45AM. The sunrise was nice, and a full moon was setting over Hallett Peak. It was fairly breezy at the TH but still comfortable. In about an hour, we got our first views of the Fern Creek Gorge with Notchtop capturing the morning sun. By two hours, we were all at Odessa Lake having a short snack break.
The next leg of the hike was new terrain. We followed the trail around the west shore of the lake until we reached the inlet stream from Tourmaline Lake. From there, we followed a climbers trail leading up into the woods along the north side of the inlet stream. It was quite steep but easy to follow at first. The woods were fairly thick and eventually the trail became a little harder to follow. At one point, we could see three sparse trails and decided on the middle route. It shortly petered out and we ended up bushwhacking most of the rest of the way to the Tourmaline Lake area. We didn't end up following the route discussed Foster's book. However, you can't really get lost because you're in a gorge. The Little Matterhorn was on our left, and The Gables were on our right. Our route was closer to Little Matterhorn, and when we cleared the woods we realized Tourmaline Lake was off to our right (north). On the map, you can see that the lake is closer to The Gables. We didn't actually look at the map during our trek up from Odessa, but I still think our route was good and enjoyable. Although we didn't get close up views of the lake, we probably cut a little time and distance off the total hike. It took us about an hour to get from Odessa to our view point of Tourmaline.
When we topped out of the woods, we were on top of a small cliff band the stretched from near Tourmaline Lake south towards the base of Little Matterhorn. Ali and Sandy found an easy down climb close to the south end of the cliffs. Once off the cliffs, we were out of the woods. The rest of the climb was rock and a little tundra that gradually steepened into all steep talus and slabs. The wind was still with us, and at times we had to lean into the mountain to avoid it's strong hand. I didn't feel unsafe in the wind, but you definitely needed to maintain a secure stance or hand hold when the wind was blowing or you heard it coming.
By 10:15AM, four and a half hours after starting, we all reached the top just south of Gabletop. Other than the wind, it was very nice. The views are great. There was unanimous agreement that summitting Gabletop would be unsafe, as would be a trek out onto Knobtop or Ptarmigan Point along our return route. So we headed back towards Flattop keeping our distance from the edge of the gorge. After a bit of meandering across the Bighorn Flats, we picked up the Tonahutu Creek Trail and followed it to the summit of Flattop. In hind sight, it probably would have saved us some time, and effort against the winds, to immediately contour to the southwest and connect to the trail. Of course if it wasn't windy, following the rim of the gorge would have been the desired route.
Once on the trail, the remainder of the hike was fairly routine. There was one spot where the trail neared the edge and offered a view down to Odessa Lake and Lake Helene. I braced myself with a solid stance and snapped a few quick pictures. I caught up to Ali and Sandy at the Flattop-Tonahutu trail junction. I stopped and ate while they started their final descent. Once around the other side of Flattop, the winds finally started to die down. We finished up around 1:30PM. Although we didn't reach the planned summit, or hike the shores of Tourmaline Lake, it was still an excellent hike. One I think we'll do again with hopes of less wind.
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