CARBON COUNTY — On Thursday, Red Lodge Fire and Rescue and the Carbon County Sheriff's Office announced the three-day search for a missing 23-year-old hiker has been put on pause.
According to a Facebook post, authorities believe he drowned in East Rosebud Creek, after he was washed away by fast and high waters. Those same rapid waters are preventing consistent construction to rebuild trails and a bridge that were wiped away in the same area three years ago.
See a wilderness educator explain the dangers of East Rosebud Creek in the video below:
It's been three years since the 2022 historic thousand-year-flood wiped out infrastructure such as a bridge from the Beaten Path outside of Red Lodge.
The two-and-a-half-mile stretch, a part of the 26-mile hike known as the Beaten Path, of the U.S. Forest Service trail #15 between Elk Lake and Rimrock Lake has become a construction zone, as the U.S. Forest Service is rebuilding damaged infrastructure lost from the flood.
"June 12 of 2022, this thousand-year flood, some people call it, came through, and it not just took out the bridge, it took bunches of sections of trails below there, and it took out the road getting to East Rosebud Lake," said Joe Josephson, the executive director of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Foundation.
The foundation, established in 2008, works alongside the U.S. Forest Service as a wilderness stewardship foundation to help spread wilderness education to the public.
Considering the fast rapid waters of Rimrock Lake and the construction in the area, Josephson warns the public about hiking the Beaten Trail until further notice.
"We're recommending that people just stay away. Do not hike south of Elk Lake. Do not try to get to Rimrock or do the Beaten Path, on this side anyway, until the path is complete," Josephson said.
MTN asked Josephson what makes the waters in Rimrock Lake so dangerous this time of year.
He says when the warm weather comes, snow from the mountains melt at a high rate, causing the water to rapidly rise.
"It can go up and down dramatically," he said. "A lot of people come from many states away to pursue these destinations, like the Beaten Path or Granite Peak, and they don't realize that they're still in deep snow across the entire high country."
To educate the public on the levels of high water at Rimrock Lake, Josephson hiked the Beaten Path on June 5, just three days before a hiker went missing in the same area.
In July 2024, the body of Dylan Honnoll, a 20-year-old hiker, was recovered near East Rosebud Creek, the same area that Red Lodge Fire and Rescue, the Carbon County Sheriff's Office, and the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office have searched this month for the missing hiker.
RELATED| Name of missing East Rosebud hiker released, believed to be fatal
RELATED|Body of missing hiker recovered from East Rosebud River
RELATED| Search launched for hiker swept away in creek near Red Lodge
RELATED| Search continues for missing hiker near East Rosebud
RELATED| Search paused in effort to find missing hiker near Red Lodge
"It's just not worth it. No trail is worth it," said Josephson on Thursday over a virtual interview.
Josephson says the Beaten Path from Cooke City on the other side of the construction zone is still open for hikers hungry to explore the area.
He just asks hikers to avoid the two-and-a-half-mile construction zone until operations cease, which he expects will be after Labor Day.
"Give the search and rescue teams, and the Forest Service crews that are breaking their backs to get that trail for all of us, give 'em the space they need to do their job," he said. "It'll still be here this time next year."
