EmmaG - Oct 8, 2014 4:15 pm Date Climbed: Aug 29, 2014
An Adventure!
What an amazing backpacking experience! I was a part of a group of three hikers. We took a side by side to Lily Lake in the late afternoon(the trail starts just below Battle Park) and picked up the hiking trail from there (Trail #66). It's much shorter and more deserted than the trail from West Tensleep Lake. I definitely recommend it. We camped just above Paint Rock Waterfalls for the night. The next morning we woke up with the sun. It took my group of somewhat inexperienced hikers 5 hours to reach the summit with breaks and picture opportunities included. We only ran into one other group on our way up. WHAT A VIEW!! So worth the boulder hopping (maybe...haha). On the way back down the mountain we saw that there were about 5-6 new tents set up with people planning to summit the next day. We packed up our tent and grabbed our backpacks and headed back down the trail. Now looking back, we all wish we would have stayed another night. I would suggest doing this hike over 3 days and 2 nights unless you are an experienced hiker. It was a great adventure and we are already planning on doing more backpacking trips next year! Cloud Peak rocks!
SarahThompson - Aug 4, 2014 6:59 pm Date Climbed: Jul 31, 2014
Overnight
Backpacked to Painted Rock Creek falls after a great morning of sport climbing in Ten Sleep. Hiked up the standard route on Cloud the next morning and then backpacked out and enjoyed two more great days climbing at Tensleep. Awesome little combo!
wyozach14 - Aug 25, 2013 4:10 pm Date Climbed: Jul 17, 2008
One of my favorites
The first 13,000 mountain I ever summited.
mountainhare - Feb 13, 2013 9:59 pm Date Climbed: Aug 19, 2012
Top of the Big Horns
The highest mountain I have climbed, and it rewarded me with the beautiful views of Glacier Lake and the Mistymoon Trail on the way.
irchrisbrown - Feb 13, 2013 8:13 pm Date Climbed: Sep 1, 2012
Last years climb
oops. deleted log with date I climbed. Sep 1st is a guess at the date climbed.
WyomingSummits - Nov 9, 2012 9:22 pm Date Climbed: Aug 11, 2012
Beautiful Cloud Peak Trip
Was a gorgeous climb. Started hiking in from West Tensleep trailhead at 6:30pm on Fri and started the 8 mile hike to Misty Moon lake. Arrived at 8:45pm through some snow squalls, by headlamp, and set up camp. Overnight got down to 27 degrees with a 35mph wind....nice sleeping weather. Got up at 6am the next morning and summited by 10am. Was a cloudless summit day and was in the 50's for the whole hike back. Was my 4th trip in this Bighorns this year....3 without mosquitos. If only every year were pest free! ;)
Took the 66 trail, which I highly recommend since it's beautiful and deserted, but I'll camp closer to the bog by the waterfall at the base of the climbers trail next time. Thought this would be a walk up a big hill, but I was wrong. The patches of snow were evil - firm one minute then you sank to your belly. Anything to escape from the never ending rock/scree, which went from mildly interesting to downright nasty as you get towards the summit. Nice summit view and best of all I got back to camp before the thunderstorms rolled in. This is one of those mountains that is a much bigger and much longer hike than it looks, even as you approach the summit.
Kessler - Nov 5, 2011 11:56 pm Date Climbed: Sep 4, 2011
Cloud
9-4-11
Scott - Sep 9, 2011 1:38 pm Date Climbed: Sep 4, 2011
Cloud
Since I hadn’t climbed anything in the Bighorn Mountains yet, Cloud Peak seemed like a logical choice for Labor Day Weekend 2011. Kessler, Shaylee and Kimberly would join me for the trip.
We had a rough start to the trip. We stayed in a hotel in Thermopolis and they were supposed to leave a key for us, but when we got to the hotel there was no key. After waiting an hour and after several phone calls we were finally let in, but the hotel was noisy and we didn’t get to sleep until 4 am.
September 3
After a noon start (we visited the Dinosaur Museum in Thermopolis before heading for the mountains), we headed for Mistymoon Lake. The guidebook made it sound like the trail to the lake was really rugged, but it wasn’t so bad and we made the six miles to the lake in a relatively quick four hours. We spent the evening reading some books and some church articles before going to bed. The scenery was quite nice along the way, but it was a cool and breezy day.
September 4
After a cold morning with frozen water bottles (a nearby party said they recorded 10F [-12C]), Kessler and I set off for the summit of Cloud Peak. Because of the rough night before this one, at 7:45 AM, we got a later start than we wanted to. The weather and weather forecast was great through, so we pushed on over the ridge and down to Paint Rock Creek where the work began.
We steadily made it up the slopes of the mountain and about half way up we passed another group who had camped nearby to us the previous night. When we learned that they had started over an hour before us, we felt good about our speed, but were wondering if they were going to make it up.
The boulderhopping got more strenuous as we pushed up the mountain, but the views more than compensated for the effort. After 3 hours and 53 minutes after leaving Mistymoon Lake we found ourselves on the summit of Cloud Peak. We made pretty good time considering the one way distance was 5.5 miles most of which was strenuous boulderhopping.
Cloud Peak was more like “Perfectly Clear Peak” today and there was not a cloud in the sky so we kicked back and relaxed and spent 45 minutes on the summit just soaking up the views and scenery and chatting with other climbers on top.
After enjoying the summit, we headed back down the mountain. We passed several of the parties that we had passed on the way up and let them know how far it was to the summit. We made our way down the mountain and back over the ridge to Mistymoon Lake without any problems. It had taken us until 3:45 to arrive back at the lake (3 hours 15 minutes to climb all the way back), so it wasn’t that much faster going down and up.
After waiting for three hours we were a bit worried about the other parties on the mountain who were still not down yet. I had debated heading back up the mountain, but just before dark they arrived back at camp. Since some of our fuel leaked, we barrowed a little fuel from them to make something hot before going to bed.
September 5
In the morning we packed up and headed back down to the trailhead. The trip back went rather uneventful, but we did see a cow moose on the way back and stopped to photograph it. It was a great trip, but the drive back home was long.
I left the West Tensleep trailhead at 4:15am, reached the summit at 10:45am and was back at the trailhead at 5:15pm. Beautiful weather. On my way home, I stopped in Buffalo and ate a whole pizza.
phillinley - May 21, 2011 12:49 am Date Climbed: Aug 19, 2011
One day craziness
Started quite early at tensleep and fortunately I had good weather and summited around 1 pm. Got back down around 8 pm with incredibly sore legs and passed out in the car.
vetmike - Feb 4, 2011 10:49 am Date Climbed: Aug 7, 2007
My first 13er!
Climbed Cloud Peak via the normal route on a beautiful August day with my friend Joel. This climb is what began my journey into the mountains. What a great memory! Trip report here: http://intheexpanse.com/mountaineering/bighorns-cloud-peak-2007
wyozach - Nov 13, 2010 1:54 pm Date Climbed: Jul 18, 2008
weekend trip
solo trip and climb over a weekend back in 08. came in the long way from coffeen trail head.
Glorious morning, with Josh, Tom Mulholland, David Nimmer, Julie, Goat, etc etc
storlyt - Sep 3, 2010 1:18 pm Date Climbed: Aug 25, 2010
August 2010
Camped in trees of rocky hip in Paint Rock Creek watershed area. Seemed fairly well camped in the past. Left early. Started up by the waterfall, and had easy route finding initially. When it came to the area where you pass between two small rocky cliffs, I made a wrong turn and ended up bouldering hopping/scrambling my way along the southern edge of the mountain. Fairly exhausting. Adequate water available the entire trip. Emergency water could come from snow and ice between boulders, etc. Bring your iodine tablets. I prefiltered water from streams with my PlanetBuff.com neck gaiter. The summit was awesome! Disappointed that there is no summit register. The view gave me a better idea of route down. I found several flatter areas with alpine-like ground cover that saved a lot of energy. Next time I climb, I will stay high and to the left on the route up, looking for flatter grassy areas. I look forward to taking my children there when they get older.
Hiked in from Tensleep T.H. and spent the night at Helen Lake. The next day I left solo at 6:00 am for the summit. An hour and a half to paint rock creek and nearly 4 more up the mountain. It's a long scramble most of the way, but I would continually crest each boulder pile only to find a large, deep, very soft snowfield that I'd have to go around. The first few could be crossed with micro spikes and trekking poles but by 10:00 am the snow became far to soft and the risk of falling threw the large gaps in the boulders became too much. All the snowfields could be walked around or crossed by carefully poking around until you found a rock under the surface to step on, but it took forever. The crossing was pretty perilous near the narrow part of the ridge below the false summit.
Hiked up from a camp near the waterfall of Paint Rock Creek. A great peak on a great day. Saw quite a few people including some air force guys who were throwing rocks off of the top. The view of Black Tooth is memorable. I did it in 2000 while spending a week in the awesome Bighorns.
I hiked up Cloud Peak a couple of times, in '92 and '96.
musicman82 - Sep 7, 2009 3:07 am Date Climbed: Sep 6, 2009
Perfect Day
Camped at Mistymoon Lake with my wife and we got on the trail at 6:00 a.m. Great rock hopping and scrambling - no snowbanks that couldn't be bypassed easily. Not buggy at all! Hiked out to the TH by 7:00 p.m.
GrantMyers - Aug 25, 2009 1:21 pm Date Climbed: Aug 12, 2009
Last of 57 Ultras list
Hiked into tarns beyond Mistymoon Lake (the day after hiking out of Gannett). Nice reflections of Cloud on the tarns but kind of buggy. Up early the next morning, took a trail up Paint Rock Creek to where its lost in talus. Boulder hopping to the top. It was great to get this one, the last on the 57 ultra list for me.
EmmaG - Oct 8, 2014 4:15 pm Date Climbed: Aug 29, 2014
An Adventure!What an amazing backpacking experience! I was a part of a group of three hikers. We took a side by side to Lily Lake in the late afternoon(the trail starts just below Battle Park) and picked up the hiking trail from there (Trail #66). It's much shorter and more deserted than the trail from West Tensleep Lake. I definitely recommend it. We camped just above Paint Rock Waterfalls for the night. The next morning we woke up with the sun. It took my group of somewhat inexperienced hikers 5 hours to reach the summit with breaks and picture opportunities included. We only ran into one other group on our way up. WHAT A VIEW!! So worth the boulder hopping (maybe...haha). On the way back down the mountain we saw that there were about 5-6 new tents set up with people planning to summit the next day. We packed up our tent and grabbed our backpacks and headed back down the trail. Now looking back, we all wish we would have stayed another night. I would suggest doing this hike over 3 days and 2 nights unless you are an experienced hiker. It was a great adventure and we are already planning on doing more backpacking trips next year! Cloud Peak rocks!
SarahThompson - Aug 4, 2014 6:59 pm Date Climbed: Jul 31, 2014
OvernightBackpacked to Painted Rock Creek falls after a great morning of sport climbing in Ten Sleep. Hiked up the standard route on Cloud the next morning and then backpacked out and enjoyed two more great days climbing at Tensleep. Awesome little combo!
wyozach14 - Aug 25, 2013 4:10 pm Date Climbed: Jul 17, 2008
One of my favoritesThe first 13,000 mountain I ever summited.
mountainhare - Feb 13, 2013 9:59 pm Date Climbed: Aug 19, 2012
Top of the Big HornsThe highest mountain I have climbed, and it rewarded me with the beautiful views of Glacier Lake and the Mistymoon Trail on the way.
irchrisbrown - Feb 13, 2013 8:13 pm Date Climbed: Sep 1, 2012
Last years climboops. deleted log with date I climbed. Sep 1st is a guess at the date climbed.
WyomingSummits - Nov 9, 2012 9:22 pm Date Climbed: Aug 11, 2012
Beautiful Cloud Peak TripWas a gorgeous climb. Started hiking in from West Tensleep trailhead at 6:30pm on Fri and started the 8 mile hike to Misty Moon lake. Arrived at 8:45pm through some snow squalls, by headlamp, and set up camp. Overnight got down to 27 degrees with a 35mph wind....nice sleeping weather. Got up at 6am the next morning and summited by 10am. Was a cloudless summit day and was in the 50's for the whole hike back. Was my 4th trip in this Bighorns this year....3 without mosquitos. If only every year were pest free! ;)
iquest4it - Jul 4, 2012 1:35 pm Date Climbed: Jul 2, 2012
Rock Hopping ExtravaganzaTook the 66 trail, which I highly recommend since it's beautiful and deserted, but I'll camp closer to the bog by the waterfall at the base of the climbers trail next time. Thought this would be a walk up a big hill, but I was wrong. The patches of snow were evil - firm one minute then you sank to your belly. Anything to escape from the never ending rock/scree, which went from mildly interesting to downright nasty as you get towards the summit. Nice summit view and best of all I got back to camp before the thunderstorms rolled in. This is one of those mountains that is a much bigger and much longer hike than it looks, even as you approach the summit.
Kessler - Nov 5, 2011 11:56 pm Date Climbed: Sep 4, 2011
Cloud9-4-11
Scott - Sep 9, 2011 1:38 pm Date Climbed: Sep 4, 2011
CloudSince I hadn’t climbed anything in the Bighorn Mountains yet, Cloud Peak seemed like a logical choice for Labor Day Weekend 2011. Kessler, Shaylee and Kimberly would join me for the trip.
We had a rough start to the trip. We stayed in a hotel in Thermopolis and they were supposed to leave a key for us, but when we got to the hotel there was no key. After waiting an hour and after several phone calls we were finally let in, but the hotel was noisy and we didn’t get to sleep until 4 am.
September 3
After a noon start (we visited the Dinosaur Museum in Thermopolis before heading for the mountains), we headed for Mistymoon Lake. The guidebook made it sound like the trail to the lake was really rugged, but it wasn’t so bad and we made the six miles to the lake in a relatively quick four hours. We spent the evening reading some books and some church articles before going to bed. The scenery was quite nice along the way, but it was a cool and breezy day.
September 4
After a cold morning with frozen water bottles (a nearby party said they recorded 10F [-12C]), Kessler and I set off for the summit of Cloud Peak. Because of the rough night before this one, at 7:45 AM, we got a later start than we wanted to. The weather and weather forecast was great through, so we pushed on over the ridge and down to Paint Rock Creek where the work began.
We steadily made it up the slopes of the mountain and about half way up we passed another group who had camped nearby to us the previous night. When we learned that they had started over an hour before us, we felt good about our speed, but were wondering if they were going to make it up.
The boulderhopping got more strenuous as we pushed up the mountain, but the views more than compensated for the effort. After 3 hours and 53 minutes after leaving Mistymoon Lake we found ourselves on the summit of Cloud Peak. We made pretty good time considering the one way distance was 5.5 miles most of which was strenuous boulderhopping.
Cloud Peak was more like “Perfectly Clear Peak” today and there was not a cloud in the sky so we kicked back and relaxed and spent 45 minutes on the summit just soaking up the views and scenery and chatting with other climbers on top.
After enjoying the summit, we headed back down the mountain. We passed several of the parties that we had passed on the way up and let them know how far it was to the summit. We made our way down the mountain and back over the ridge to Mistymoon Lake without any problems. It had taken us until 3:45 to arrive back at the lake (3 hours 15 minutes to climb all the way back), so it wasn’t that much faster going down and up.
After waiting for three hours we were a bit worried about the other parties on the mountain who were still not down yet. I had debated heading back up the mountain, but just before dark they arrived back at camp. Since some of our fuel leaked, we barrowed a little fuel from them to make something hot before going to bed.
September 5
In the morning we packed up and headed back down to the trailhead. The trip back went rather uneventful, but we did see a cow moose on the way back and stopped to photograph it. It was a great trip, but the drive back home was long.
WyoOtto - Jul 31, 2011 1:28 pm Date Climbed: Jul 30, 2011
2nd TimeI left the West Tensleep trailhead at 4:15am, reached the summit at 10:45am and was back at the trailhead at 5:15pm. Beautiful weather. On my way home, I stopped in Buffalo and ate a whole pizza.
phillinley - May 21, 2011 12:49 am Date Climbed: Aug 19, 2011
One day crazinessStarted quite early at tensleep and fortunately I had good weather and summited around 1 pm. Got back down around 8 pm with incredibly sore legs and passed out in the car.
vetmike - Feb 4, 2011 10:49 am Date Climbed: Aug 7, 2007
My first 13er!Climbed Cloud Peak via the normal route on a beautiful August day with my friend Joel. This climb is what began my journey into the mountains. What a great memory! Trip report here: http://intheexpanse.com/mountaineering/bighorns-cloud-peak-2007
wyozach - Nov 13, 2010 1:54 pm Date Climbed: Jul 18, 2008
weekend tripsolo trip and climb over a weekend back in 08. came in the long way from coffeen trail head.
DougHemken - Sep 7, 2010 1:26 pm Date Climbed: Sep 5, 2010
Gorgeous hikeGlorious morning, with Josh, Tom Mulholland, David Nimmer, Julie, Goat, etc etc
storlyt - Sep 3, 2010 1:18 pm Date Climbed: Aug 25, 2010
August 2010Camped in trees of rocky hip in Paint Rock Creek watershed area. Seemed fairly well camped in the past. Left early. Started up by the waterfall, and had easy route finding initially. When it came to the area where you pass between two small rocky cliffs, I made a wrong turn and ended up bouldering hopping/scrambling my way along the southern edge of the mountain. Fairly exhausting. Adequate water available the entire trip. Emergency water could come from snow and ice between boulders, etc. Bring your iodine tablets. I prefiltered water from streams with my PlanetBuff.com neck gaiter. The summit was awesome! Disappointed that there is no summit register. The view gave me a better idea of route down. I found several flatter areas with alpine-like ground cover that saved a lot of energy. Next time I climb, I will stay high and to the left on the route up, looking for flatter grassy areas. I look forward to taking my children there when they get older.
midwestcoast - Jul 17, 2010 10:40 pm Date Climbed: Jul 15, 2010
snow snow snowHiked in from Tensleep T.H. and spent the night at Helen Lake. The next day I left solo at 6:00 am for the summit. An hour and a half to paint rock creek and nearly 4 more up the mountain. It's a long scramble most of the way, but I would continually crest each boulder pile only to find a large, deep, very soft snowfield that I'd have to go around. The first few could be crossed with micro spikes and trekking poles but by 10:00 am the snow became far to soft and the risk of falling threw the large gaps in the boulders became too much. All the snowfields could be walked around or crossed by carefully poking around until you found a rock under the surface to step on, but it took forever. The crossing was pretty perilous near the narrow part of the ridge below the false summit.
wyopeakMike - Dec 13, 2009 9:01 pm
Paint Rock CreekHiked up from a camp near the waterfall of Paint Rock Creek. A great peak on a great day. Saw quite a few people including some air force guys who were throwing rocks off of the top. The view of Black Tooth is memorable. I did it in 2000 while spending a week in the awesome Bighorns.
utclimber - Nov 24, 2009 12:27 am
ScenicI hiked up Cloud Peak a couple of times, in '92 and '96.
musicman82 - Sep 7, 2009 3:07 am Date Climbed: Sep 6, 2009
Perfect DayCamped at Mistymoon Lake with my wife and we got on the trail at 6:00 a.m. Great rock hopping and scrambling - no snowbanks that couldn't be bypassed easily. Not buggy at all! Hiked out to the TH by 7:00 p.m.
GrantMyers - Aug 25, 2009 1:21 pm Date Climbed: Aug 12, 2009
Last of 57 Ultras listHiked into tarns beyond Mistymoon Lake (the day after hiking out of Gannett). Nice reflections of Cloud on the tarns but kind of buggy. Up early the next morning, took a trail up Paint Rock Creek to where its lost in talus. Boulder hopping to the top. It was great to get this one, the last on the 57 ultra list for me.