We drove to the end of the West Fork Road in the Gallatin National Forest to hike the West Fork Rock Creek Tail to Quinnebaugh Meadow and back, 8.5 miles round trip with 1,000 ft of gain. Beautiful hike with mountains, fall color, cascading falls on the creek, some wildflowers and wildlife. We saw 6 other hikers on the trail when we were hiking back. Bull Moose along the creek today.
View looking up West Fork Rock Creek area from the parking lot.
View of a rocky mountain from the start of the trail.
Golden aspens along the trail with a distant mountain peak.
The trail soon enters the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness.
We saw many large boulders along the trail.
The first mile or so, is through an old burn area, which allows for great views of the mountains along both sides of this valley.
Some of the cascading falls along West Fork Rock Creek
More open views as we continue up the trail.
zoom of some of the rocky peaks
We loved seeing the golden aspen trees along the sides of this peaks.
The west fork rock creek as both wide calm areas,
as well as narrow channels with rapid cascading falls.
One of many large boulders
Further up the trail, one of the rocky peaks seemed to have a large rock protuberance on it.
zoom of the rocky protuberance
Lots of interesting rock features along this trail.
Water coming down along the side of the trail.
More golden aspens
View at Quinnebaugh Meadow
zoom of one of the peaks
It was very windy at Quinnebaugh Meadow, so we hiked back down the trail for a while and enjoyed the views near this calm area of the creek.
We sat back from the creek near the edge of the trees for our lunch break, when a large bull moose came out of the trees right by us. We quietly stood up and moved back into the trees and took photos when the moose walked away from us.
zoom of the moose, once we saw he was not paying any attention to us, we headed further down the trail for a different break spot.
Along the trail we also saw a pike (zoom),
a snake,
and butterflies.
More views along the trail on or way back in the afternoon light.
some of the wildflowers, fungi and fall color seen along the trail today:
We drove down the West Fork Road near Red Lodge Montana to hike up to Basin Lakes in the Custer Gallatin National Forest, 8 miles round trip with 2,100 ft of gain. We saw 5 other hikers when we were coming back down the trail.
There are several cascades along the creek next to the trail.
Most of this trail is in the forest, but there is an open area near the beginning of the trail.
Another cascade where a low bridge crosses the creek further up the trail.
Lower Basin Lake
A small pond between the two Basin Lakes
Our first view of Upper Basin Lake
Another view at Upper Basin Lake
An old cabin near the trail, we didn't see the boot track to the cabin until we were hiking back down the trail.
