I recently went on a quick trip with my wife and my sister up to a Forest Service cabin west of Choteau, Montana on the border of the Bob Marshall Wilderness. We went to the cabin with the intention of hiking to Our Lake, also known as Hidden Lake, as well as just spending some time in the mountains. We had a great time. Since I knew we were going to be doing a lot of hiking, I really paired down my camera gear and only brought with me my Canon RF 100-500 and my Canon RF 24-105 in my camera bag along with my Canon R5 and R6 bodies. I was also using it as an opportunity to test out a new, small, Think Tank BackStory 13 camera bag I bought for another upcoming trip. I did throw a couple of wide angle lenses into my regular bag in case I got the chance to do some astrophotography. I also threw in one tripod and my ball head.
We arrived at the cabin a little after 1 PM. Official check in time was 2PM, but since we didn’t see anyone around and the gate was locked, we assumed they had already left so we went ahead and got our stuff moved in. My sister and I had stayed at the cabin previously a few years ago, when we were also planning on doing the hike, so we already knew what to expect. It is a fairly rustic cabin, but it was still nice.
We did some dutch oven cooking and had a good time just hanging around that afternoon. After dinner we decided we would try to do a little fishing. That was a total bust. We never even saw a single fish. I have to assume there are some fish in the river there, but we never saw anything. We also did a little driving around, including the Cave Mountain area, and around the Teton Pass Ski area. You could not actually go to the ski area as the gate was locked. We did see a lot of wild flowers, deer, squirrels, snowshoe hares and even two black bears. Of course I didn't get pictures of either of them. Once we got back to the cabin we had a campfire and relaxed until dark. I stayed up a little while as I wanted to set up a time lapse of the Milky Way. I knew the moon would eventually be rising, but I was hoping maybe I could still get enough frames in for a time lapse before that happened. As it turns out, that did not work out. I got a late start as I was having issues trying to get my lens to talk to my Canon R6. I had my 14mm 2.8 Rokinon lens, which is one of my favorite astro lenses (and it’s cheap) but it is a completely manual lens. This was the first time trying it on my Canon R6 however, and it just didn’t want to work. I knew there had to be a setting, and I even kind of knew what it probably was, but I couldn’t find it in the menu system… So finally I gave up and put on my old Canon EF 16-35 2.8 version 3 lens with the EF to RF adapter. Once I got home I did solve the issue. It was in the menu under an area that didn’t make sense to me, so I missed it while I was looking in the field. Oh well, I have it fixed now. I was still able to get a series of frames before the moon came up, but not enough for a proper time lapse.
I kept hearing the sound of an owl while we were sitting around the cabin. My hunch was it was a screech owl but I was not 100% sure. I kept looking around in the trees and I could just never find it. Finally I looked up into the eaves on the back of the cabin and there it was. It was a Western Screech-Owl. With my paired down camera kit, I did not have my 70-200 2.8 with me, which would have been my best choice. The owl was perch where it was very dark under the eaves so the 2.8 aperture would have been nice. My other lenses were too short, as I did not want to scare it. I settled on my Canon 100-500, but with the slow aperture of that lens, even at 1/50th of a second I was still at ISO 12800. I went ahead and took the picture, but the quality is not great.
The next morning we got up early, broke camp and headed for the trailhead. I think after everything we got there about 8 AM. Which honestly was already a little late in the morning. As it turns out, we picked the hottest day of the year for our hike. It was 102 back in town, I don’t know what it was in the mountains, certainly cooler than that, but still very hot for a hike. This time we made it all the way to the lake. Our previous attempt a couple of years ago was in June and we made it probably ¾ of the way to the lake and then hit heavy snow and we were not able to get through and had to turn around. So it was nice to finally make it there. The hike is about 3 and a half miles in. So a little over 7 miles round trip. It is pretty much uphill the whole way going in. The trail consists of a lot of switchbacks however, so the trail was never super steep, except for the last little bit up to the lake itself. We were still pretty hot and tired by the time we got back to the vehicle though.