Photo album here
link to the Hillmap page showing our route
For years Becky has been talking about the Wind River Range in Wyoming. She'd be out there to visit Cirque of the Towers before we started dating and thought the area was amazing. When brainstorming destinations for our end of the summer backpacking trip, this seemed like a good option - supposedly similar to the Sierras, but way fewer people, no permits and by late summer we'd likely miss the bugs and afternoon thunderstorms.
We took two days to get out to Pinedale, the small town at the western base of the central Winds. The weather had been cold and wet on the drive out. We hoped that was the 'late summer snowstorm' the various guidebooks mentioned and that we'd have nice Indian Summer weather and no mosquitoes for our trip. The weather cleared out on the day before we drove to the trailhead and we could see the alpine was shellacked with fresh snow.
Day 1 was all on-trail, heading from the Elkhart Park trailhead to Cook Lakes. It ended up being a little confusing though with the multitude of trail intersections and signage that was either absent or tilted at 45 degrees. By early evening we were camped near Cook Lakes, looking forward to our first stretch of off-trail travel on day two.
Day 2 was almost all off trail from Cook Lakes to Indian Basin. While researching various routes, we thumbed through the Falcon brand hiking and climbing guidebooks for the Wind River range and found them to be sorely lacking in the usual kind of trips that we like to do. Fortunately, I stumbled on to the 'Beyond Trails in the Wind River Mtns of Wyoming' by Nancy Pallister. This was what we needed. A former NOLS instructor created a book with a ton of cool off-trail routes. We used her book to string together a couple off-trail sections with on-trail travel and came up with a 60 mile loop that was low commitment enough that we could get back to the car in two days or less if something went sideways on the trip.
Traveling from Cook Lakes to Wall Lakes, over Wall-Island Pass and into the base of Indian Basin was fun...albeit slow going. Lots of boulder hopping and a little lakeside scrambling. By dinner time we were at Lake 10,813. Finding a flat tent-site was a little challenging amidst all the boulders and hummocks.
Day 3. We hiked up into Indian Basin proper, ditched some of our overnight gear and day hiked up to Indian Pass to get a glimpse over the Continental Divide. Tons of wonderful lakes in the basin...well worth the trip! After lunch, we gathered up our cached gear and headed on-trail into Titcomb Lakes Basin, allegedly one of the most popular destinations in the Wind River mountains. It wasn't at all crowded, but after yesterday and not seeing anyone, it was still a bit of an adjustment to see other parties every twenty minutes or so. It was really windy that night and our poor lightweight tent did not fare too well until we lashed it down with some additional parachute cord.
Day 4. Up early to tackle Knapsack Pass. We knew this would be the worst of the off-trail travel on our loop. Fortunately, the day before we met two nice fellows who'd just descended from the pass and they said there wasn't any snow travel involved...no need for our microspikes and self-arrest grip ski poles after all. The travel was easy until the last 200 vertical feet to the pass. The smaller talus and scree on the left provided a thin covering on top of rock-hard, old glacial ice (very slippery), and the boulders to the right looked somewhat precarious, but we scrambled up the boulders and were safely on the pass in no-time.
Off the west side, there was a faint trail that made for easy travel down towards Peak Lake. We stopped early that day though when we found an idyllic campsite next to a small teal-green tarn and a perfect windbreak of small scrubby trees. The afternoon was spent napping in the sun and reading.
Day 5. A few boulders to hop down to Peak Lake and then on-trail over Shannon Pass. We were now on the home-stretch of the loop and were well ahead of schedule. By lunchtime we dumped our packs at lower Jean Lake and spent another lazy afternoon in the sun.
Day 6. About half the parties leaving the trailhead listed 'Island Lake' as their destination. We had yet to see Island Lake, so we detoured off-trail from Jean Lake over to Island Lake for lunch. It was pretty, but so were all the other destinations we'd see the past few days (we were so spoiled!) Fortunately, the labor day weekend crowds were long gone and it was rather peaceful. We figured we'd put in a few more miles and camp near Seneca Lake for the night as our weather radio had said the next day would be cool and rainy.
As we neared Seneca Lake though, we decided to put in a few more miles and make our rainy 7th day hike back to the car a little shorter. Funny thing was that shortly after leaving Seneca Lk we started to smell smoke, and then see plumes of it rising from the valley below us. This was the hottest, windiest day yet that week and it was clear a wildfire had started. Without having any details on it, we were reluctant to set up camp, so we kept on hiking towards a viewpoint called Photographers Point to see if we could suss out what was going on.
When we arrived at the Point, we met several in-bound parties who'd stopped and called 911. We had a clear view below to an uncontrolled fire, crowning in the canopy a couple miles away. Helicopters were orbiting regularly and Becky and I decided it was time to head for the car. Just earlier in the day we'd been joking about how we only liked doing high-mileage days when backpacking in our comfy, lightweight sneakers and now here we were, walking seventeen miles that day in our heavy, stiff, high-topped leather hiking boots. Oh well.
We arrived at the trailhead around 7pm, just as a ranger was stapling up a 'trail closed' sign. A few local wildland fire fighters were milling about and we all got a good laugh that Becky and I were scooting out just as the trail was being closed. The next challenge of the day was whether we could make it to Pinedale in time to score a motel room and a meal on a late Sunday night. Fortunately the Sundance Motel had a vacancy and the Wind River Brewery stays open late, so burgers, beers, a shower and a clean bed were all found Sunday night.
Monday was drizzly and cool, as expected and we heard that the fire had died down overnight and they were able to reopen the trailhead. We spent the day doing laundry and figuring out the rest of our trip. Tuesday it was off to Jackson and up into Grand Teton NP for some sight-seeing and day hiking. Wednesday through Friday was spent in Yellowstone seeing all the sites - Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Yellowstone Lake, Old Faithful and a million small to large geysers, thermal pools and mud pots plus a bunch of bison to boot. I can't imagine what the summertime crowds must be like. Fortunately the crowds had died down somewhat by the time we were there and it wasn't too much of a zoo. Friday morning we got up early and did a little more sightseeing in the north part of the park before hitting the road and barreling through Montana, Idaho, and Washington to arrive home that night.
