Cburton
Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2017
- Messages
- 22
This was my big adventure for 2017. A full week backpacking the Wind River Range, which I researched thoroughly on this site. The on-trail dates were September 9th-15th, 2017. I tried to get by without writing a trip report, but Nick won't give me advice on my upcoming Teton Crest Trail trip until I write up a report for my Winds trip. Here ya go, Nick! Haha
I flew from Houston to Salt Lake City Thursday night after work. I got to the airport around midnight or so, and my buddy Spencer picked me up. He had been hanging out with his girlfriend, so obviously he hadn't packed yet. He had just finished the High Sierra Trail two weeks prior to this trip, so it was easy to find all of his gear and put together some food. We went to sleep around 3 am.
Day 1: SLC to Pinedale, Big Sandy TH to the Cirque of the Towers
Alarm clocks woke us up at 5 am, and we quickly began the drive out to Pinedale, Wyoming. Things weren't looking promising with all of the smoke from wildfires around the West.

We grabbed an early lunch in Pinedale and picked up a few last minute containers of fuel and fishing lures, and then we headed to Big Sandy Trailhead. We situated our packs, hid the keys for our shuttle driver to find, and started off on the trail.
The trail towards the Cirque of the Towers is pretty uneventful. We ate some thimbleberries, which were a treat. We tried fishing a bit at Big Sandy Lake with no luck.
It was pretty obvious the elevation was getting to me, because the climb up towards Jackass Pass nearly did me in. Being a flatlander, it would be nice to spend a couple days acclimatizing, but I'd rather spend that time hiking, even if it's painful. Spencer didn't have nearly the same issue because he had recently finished the HST and frequently road bikes at around 5K' of elevation in SLC. At least the smoke wasn't nearly as bad as it was on our drive.

We descended into the Cirque and found a campsite off trail near one of the main creeks that feeds into the southwest corner of Lonesome Lake. We set up camp as the light began to fade. I was exhausted, so we had dinner and some hot chocolate and called it a night.
Day 2: The Cirque to the East Fork
We awoke to a beautiful, nearly smoke-free morning.

After breakfast and cleaning up camp, we began our trek towards Texas Pass. We stayed up too high along the base of Pingora and spent more time than necessary going through all of the Talus. We were shocked how many wildflowers were still around the climb to Texas Pass in the middle of September.

Once again, Spencer was doing much better on the elevation gain sections. We eventually made it to the top of Texas Pass, which is especially fun as a Texan. It was also the first snow-covered pass I've ever crossed.
Spencer nearly cresting Texas Pass.
View back into the Cirque on the way up Texas Pass.
My sweaty Texan face on top of Texas Pass.
The backside of Texas pass was pretty steep, loose scree and small talus, but there was an easy to follow trail. We made quick time down to the chain of lakes on the other side. No luck fishing, but it sure was a nice place to spend some time.
We had a late lunch at Shadow Lake around 3 pm or so. The view from Shadow Lake to the backside of the Cirque was great.

We continued on after a lunch of refried bean, cheese and taco bell hot sauce burritos. Spencer fly fished some in a stream that crossed the trail and caught a few 4-5" trout. I only brought a collapsible spinning rod, so I didn't bother fishing small streams much. Eventually we made the climb up to Pyramid Lake, which was a nice spot. We met a fifty something year old named Guy there. Retired firefighter if I remember correctly. Guy mentioned he was backpacking solo, but that he preferred when his grown son (mid twenties I think) was with him. I asked for tips on how to encourage my son, who would turn one during this trip, to enjoy backpacking. He recommended not following his example and pushing big trips on them too quickly. Fair enough! But I can see myself needing that advice in about 8-10 years from now.
We decided to push on and drop into the East Fork Drainage. This area was incredible. It was so wild, remote, and beautiful. Really, it's everything you want an off-trail area to be. We fished along the East Fork and the lakes leading up the basin. I didn't catch much besides ten or so 8" brookies in some of the smaller ponds. Spencer did much better with his fly rod in the stream sections that connected the lakes/ponds.
Eventually we settled into camp near the foot of the middle lake - the long and skinny one. It was a beautiful evening, and we'd spent a long day traveling through some gorgeous country.

Day 3:
It rained most of the night, but we awoke to a perfect morning. It ended up being maybe the best lighting of the trip for my easy iPhone pictures to turn out well.


Once we began hiking, I was reminded of the biggest downfall of backpacking in trail running shoes - wet grass. The moisture just soaks right through. Oh well.
I ended up catching about 5-6 nice brook trout in the 12-13 inch range or so near the waterfall feeding into the head of the long, skinny lake. It was a pretty idyllic spot to pass an hour.

Then we hiked up and above to the wide stream/shallow pond that feed into the largest lake near the end of the main part of the East Fork. Spencer caught a few small Golden Trout here, and I even managed to trick one with a spoon on my spinning rod. We could have easily spent another day or two enjoying the East Fork - maybe next time.

After catching a few Goldens between the two of us, we ate some bars and trail mix and headed up towards Raid Pass. It starts off with some glorious, easy, open country off trail walking...

...and then turns into a mile or so of talus scrambling.
We were both pretty new to talus scrambling. Spencer was definitely more efficient at it. I tried using my hiking poles for a while until Spencer made fun of me. I'm glad he did, because it was much easier and safer without trying to use poles in this section. Eventually we made it to the top and had a wide open view towards the western slope of the Winds.

And back towards the East Fork Drainage

Day three felt similar to day two, where we spent seemingly forever just to travel 2-3 miles. So we made quicker work of the way down into Bonneville basin.

We took a kind of precarious route down, but it worked out fine. We were enjoying our first big trip with significant off trail portions and learning a lot at the same time.
We had another late lunch on the shores of one of the Bonneville Lakes. Really great view. I'd be happy to spend more time here as well. I was listening to a podcast by a Triple Crown hiker and she specifically mentioned Bonneville Basin. I can see why.

Our planned route had us going up Bonneville Basin and into Middle Fork Basin passing by Lake Donna. We just didn't have it in us after all of the talus we already traveled through. So we took a shortcut and struck off cross country past Sunrise Lake to Rainbow Lake. We arrived at a good campsite around 5:45 and decided to call it a day. It felt nice to stop and relax around camp earlier than dusk like the last two nights. We even took a little dip to freshen up.
I caught a few brookies that I invited to dinner. These were the only fish we harvested all week. We ate them with a Knorr's cheddar and broccoli rice side. Quite a treat.


Day four:
I felt re-energized by more time in the evening around camp, and more confident in off trail travel given our experiences so far. We made quick work of getting up and out of camp and headed up over the saddle at the north end of Rainbow Lake (the low, grassy spot in the picture above from last night). We descended the hillside to a marshy lake area with a lot of streams running into it. Spencer fly fished and caught several small trout while I found a big, flat rock and took off my socks and shoes for a while. I love the point in a longer trip where you really begin to hit your stride. This was that point. We'd come a long ways through some beautiful and rugged country, and I was finally feeling more acclimatized.
After 45 minutes or an hour, we packed back up and began hiking again. We caught up with the Middle Fork Lake trail for a few hundred yards before heading off trail again towards Halls Lake. Halls Lake felt much higher than the other lakes we had been to, but it really wasn't. There was just a lot more exposed rock and less vegetation. It was a beautiful area though, so we spent an hour relaxing, fishing, snacking and swimming.

And we passed by a little scenic outlet cove on our way out of the area and towards Europe Canyon.

We had lunch just before getting to the mouth of Europe Canyon. I've heard good things about this area, but we didn't have time to go explore up the canyon further. We did enjoy descending alongside a creek with some sporadic use trails, though.
We made it down to Lake Victor, where we saw a group camping near the head of the lake. We chatted briefly and told them we planned to make it to the head of North Fork Canyon. They seemed a bit surprised because it was already closing in on 6 pm and it was another five miles or so. But we trudged on up North Fork canyon anyways! I really enjoyed the North Fork. It had a totally different character than the other drainages we'd passed through so far. It was less rugged, but felt more majestic in a way. Perhaps it was just the evening light, but we enjoyed our hike.
We finally arrived at a great campsite on the lake just below the final lake before Hay Pass. I can't recall the name of the lake, and it's not named on many maps. I caught my first few ever Cutthroat Trout, which was a goal of mine this trip. I'd heard this lake and the lake below Hay Pass both have them.

Day five:
Up and over the Continental Divide again today, this time via Hay Pass. We fished the lake below Hay Pass, where I donated a Jake's Money Clip to a needy rock ledge. No luck with the fish though.
We came across a group of guys on Hay Pass. One of them had a 12" GSI frying pan attached to the outside of his pack that he was packing out since he found it discarded on his first night near Peak Lake. That's one of the things I love about outdoorsmen who you meet this deep in the wilderness - you just rarely meet one who isn't a pleasure to chat with briefly and who isn't doing his part and more to keep the wilderness pristine.
Dropping into Golden Lakes Basin was a treat. Really scenic area.

I didn't catch any fish in any of the lakes in this basin. Spencer caught a few Goldens on some of the streams between the lakes.
We had another late lunch and planned our route up to Cook Pass (I think that's it's name - one pass north of Angel Pass). We decided to follow a cascading creek out of Upper Golden Lake to the west northwest. Really scenic area for sure.

We crossed a snowfield and then had to make our way around a tarn and up an easy crack.

This area felt pretty remote, which added to the fun.

We couldn't take our planned route to Cook Pass, which would have been the easiest to navigate, due to a huge snow wall that blocked our path. So we climbed a bunch of large talus and approached from further south. I was glad at this point that Spencer brought a GPS unit with him. I honestly was starting to get a little turned around with all of the talus and geographic features around us that weren't obvious enough to navigate by.
Eventually we descended down to Cook Pass from the south. We had a snack and some water on the shores of the tarn at the top of the pass.
The descent started off a little tricky. There were a series of steep ledges with a lot of talus. Eventually we made it down to the steep grassy sections. The trek from the Golden Lakes Basin to this area had taken a lot more time than I would have estimated, and it felt like a huge relief to have easy travel again through this beautiful landscape.

We descended to the big peninsula on the northern shore of Spider Lake and set up camp for the night. We had a nice little fire and caught a lot of 8-10" brookies.

Day six:
Today was my son's first birthday. My wife was awesome for letting me go on the trip anyways. We would celebrate his birthday the Saturday I returned, just a few days after his birthday. Her only stipulation was that I couldn't act tired from the camping trip. Easy enough!
We made the easy trek over to the Cook Lake Trail. We took a 30-45 minute break to fish in upper Cook Lake, where I caught a few brookies.

We proceeded on to Wall Lake. I'd heard good things about this area, and it delivered. Very scenic area. We had to set up my rainfly with my tent poles to get out of some rain and hail for about an hour, but it was a good excused to stop and actually eat lunch closer to noon or one for once on this trip!


As we went over Wall-Island Pass another thunderstorm with hail blew through and we took shelter under a large boulder.

After 20-30 minutes we had a break in the weather. We crested the pass across another snowfield.

As we descended to Island Lake and began the hike up into Titcomb Basin we began to see a lot more people, naturally. For some odd reason, everyone else was hiking out. Just a hunch, but I think it was because the sky looked like it wanted to devour the landscape.

We enjoyed the hike into this incredible Basin. As soon as we set up camp we had a pretty heavy hailstorm of dime sized hail, but lots of it. I dove into the tent and let a lot of it in with me in just the five seconds or so the tent door was open. Eventually the weather let up and we had a nice evening.

Day seven, final day:
We woke up to a visual treat of a light dusting of snow on the surrounding peaks.

The light wouldn't cooperate with my meager iPhone photo skills, but it was a pretty awesome sight to wake up to.
We got out on the trail pretty early to begin the 15 miles or so back to the car. Early for us is like 8 am instead of 9, which is more typical for us. We burned the miles since they were all on trail and mostly downhill.


We made it to Elkhart Park TH around 2:15. Just as expected, Spencer's car was waiting for us there. We changed clothes and headed down into Pinedale for some fantastic burgers at The Burger Barn.
All in all, it was a fantastic trip and the biggest adventure either of us have been on to date. The Winds provided incredible opportunities for on trail and off trail travel with a lot of great views and some solid fishing. We'll definitely be back!
And in case any of you were worried, I made it back and pretended to not be exhausted after this trip for my son's first birthday.

Our son gets to come backpacking sometimes as well. Here he is at Hamilton Lake on a small section hike of the High Sierra Trail in July 2017. My wife and I did this trip with him - quite a different vibe having a baby along!

I flew from Houston to Salt Lake City Thursday night after work. I got to the airport around midnight or so, and my buddy Spencer picked me up. He had been hanging out with his girlfriend, so obviously he hadn't packed yet. He had just finished the High Sierra Trail two weeks prior to this trip, so it was easy to find all of his gear and put together some food. We went to sleep around 3 am.
Day 1: SLC to Pinedale, Big Sandy TH to the Cirque of the Towers
Alarm clocks woke us up at 5 am, and we quickly began the drive out to Pinedale, Wyoming. Things weren't looking promising with all of the smoke from wildfires around the West.

We grabbed an early lunch in Pinedale and picked up a few last minute containers of fuel and fishing lures, and then we headed to Big Sandy Trailhead. We situated our packs, hid the keys for our shuttle driver to find, and started off on the trail.
The trail towards the Cirque of the Towers is pretty uneventful. We ate some thimbleberries, which were a treat. We tried fishing a bit at Big Sandy Lake with no luck.
It was pretty obvious the elevation was getting to me, because the climb up towards Jackass Pass nearly did me in. Being a flatlander, it would be nice to spend a couple days acclimatizing, but I'd rather spend that time hiking, even if it's painful. Spencer didn't have nearly the same issue because he had recently finished the HST and frequently road bikes at around 5K' of elevation in SLC. At least the smoke wasn't nearly as bad as it was on our drive.

We descended into the Cirque and found a campsite off trail near one of the main creeks that feeds into the southwest corner of Lonesome Lake. We set up camp as the light began to fade. I was exhausted, so we had dinner and some hot chocolate and called it a night.
Day 2: The Cirque to the East Fork
We awoke to a beautiful, nearly smoke-free morning.

After breakfast and cleaning up camp, we began our trek towards Texas Pass. We stayed up too high along the base of Pingora and spent more time than necessary going through all of the Talus. We were shocked how many wildflowers were still around the climb to Texas Pass in the middle of September.

Once again, Spencer was doing much better on the elevation gain sections. We eventually made it to the top of Texas Pass, which is especially fun as a Texan. It was also the first snow-covered pass I've ever crossed.



The backside of Texas pass was pretty steep, loose scree and small talus, but there was an easy to follow trail. We made quick time down to the chain of lakes on the other side. No luck fishing, but it sure was a nice place to spend some time.
We had a late lunch at Shadow Lake around 3 pm or so. The view from Shadow Lake to the backside of the Cirque was great.

We continued on after a lunch of refried bean, cheese and taco bell hot sauce burritos. Spencer fly fished some in a stream that crossed the trail and caught a few 4-5" trout. I only brought a collapsible spinning rod, so I didn't bother fishing small streams much. Eventually we made the climb up to Pyramid Lake, which was a nice spot. We met a fifty something year old named Guy there. Retired firefighter if I remember correctly. Guy mentioned he was backpacking solo, but that he preferred when his grown son (mid twenties I think) was with him. I asked for tips on how to encourage my son, who would turn one during this trip, to enjoy backpacking. He recommended not following his example and pushing big trips on them too quickly. Fair enough! But I can see myself needing that advice in about 8-10 years from now.
We decided to push on and drop into the East Fork Drainage. This area was incredible. It was so wild, remote, and beautiful. Really, it's everything you want an off-trail area to be. We fished along the East Fork and the lakes leading up the basin. I didn't catch much besides ten or so 8" brookies in some of the smaller ponds. Spencer did much better with his fly rod in the stream sections that connected the lakes/ponds.
Eventually we settled into camp near the foot of the middle lake - the long and skinny one. It was a beautiful evening, and we'd spent a long day traveling through some gorgeous country.


Day 3:
It rained most of the night, but we awoke to a perfect morning. It ended up being maybe the best lighting of the trip for my easy iPhone pictures to turn out well.


Once we began hiking, I was reminded of the biggest downfall of backpacking in trail running shoes - wet grass. The moisture just soaks right through. Oh well.
I ended up catching about 5-6 nice brook trout in the 12-13 inch range or so near the waterfall feeding into the head of the long, skinny lake. It was a pretty idyllic spot to pass an hour.


Then we hiked up and above to the wide stream/shallow pond that feed into the largest lake near the end of the main part of the East Fork. Spencer caught a few small Golden Trout here, and I even managed to trick one with a spoon on my spinning rod. We could have easily spent another day or two enjoying the East Fork - maybe next time.


After catching a few Goldens between the two of us, we ate some bars and trail mix and headed up towards Raid Pass. It starts off with some glorious, easy, open country off trail walking...

...and then turns into a mile or so of talus scrambling.

We were both pretty new to talus scrambling. Spencer was definitely more efficient at it. I tried using my hiking poles for a while until Spencer made fun of me. I'm glad he did, because it was much easier and safer without trying to use poles in this section. Eventually we made it to the top and had a wide open view towards the western slope of the Winds.

And back towards the East Fork Drainage

Day three felt similar to day two, where we spent seemingly forever just to travel 2-3 miles. So we made quicker work of the way down into Bonneville basin.


We took a kind of precarious route down, but it worked out fine. We were enjoying our first big trip with significant off trail portions and learning a lot at the same time.
We had another late lunch on the shores of one of the Bonneville Lakes. Really great view. I'd be happy to spend more time here as well. I was listening to a podcast by a Triple Crown hiker and she specifically mentioned Bonneville Basin. I can see why.

Our planned route had us going up Bonneville Basin and into Middle Fork Basin passing by Lake Donna. We just didn't have it in us after all of the talus we already traveled through. So we took a shortcut and struck off cross country past Sunrise Lake to Rainbow Lake. We arrived at a good campsite around 5:45 and decided to call it a day. It felt nice to stop and relax around camp earlier than dusk like the last two nights. We even took a little dip to freshen up.
I caught a few brookies that I invited to dinner. These were the only fish we harvested all week. We ate them with a Knorr's cheddar and broccoli rice side. Quite a treat.


Day four:
I felt re-energized by more time in the evening around camp, and more confident in off trail travel given our experiences so far. We made quick work of getting up and out of camp and headed up over the saddle at the north end of Rainbow Lake (the low, grassy spot in the picture above from last night). We descended the hillside to a marshy lake area with a lot of streams running into it. Spencer fly fished and caught several small trout while I found a big, flat rock and took off my socks and shoes for a while. I love the point in a longer trip where you really begin to hit your stride. This was that point. We'd come a long ways through some beautiful and rugged country, and I was finally feeling more acclimatized.
After 45 minutes or an hour, we packed back up and began hiking again. We caught up with the Middle Fork Lake trail for a few hundred yards before heading off trail again towards Halls Lake. Halls Lake felt much higher than the other lakes we had been to, but it really wasn't. There was just a lot more exposed rock and less vegetation. It was a beautiful area though, so we spent an hour relaxing, fishing, snacking and swimming.

And we passed by a little scenic outlet cove on our way out of the area and towards Europe Canyon.

We had lunch just before getting to the mouth of Europe Canyon. I've heard good things about this area, but we didn't have time to go explore up the canyon further. We did enjoy descending alongside a creek with some sporadic use trails, though.
We made it down to Lake Victor, where we saw a group camping near the head of the lake. We chatted briefly and told them we planned to make it to the head of North Fork Canyon. They seemed a bit surprised because it was already closing in on 6 pm and it was another five miles or so. But we trudged on up North Fork canyon anyways! I really enjoyed the North Fork. It had a totally different character than the other drainages we'd passed through so far. It was less rugged, but felt more majestic in a way. Perhaps it was just the evening light, but we enjoyed our hike.
We finally arrived at a great campsite on the lake just below the final lake before Hay Pass. I can't recall the name of the lake, and it's not named on many maps. I caught my first few ever Cutthroat Trout, which was a goal of mine this trip. I'd heard this lake and the lake below Hay Pass both have them.


Day five:
Up and over the Continental Divide again today, this time via Hay Pass. We fished the lake below Hay Pass, where I donated a Jake's Money Clip to a needy rock ledge. No luck with the fish though.
We came across a group of guys on Hay Pass. One of them had a 12" GSI frying pan attached to the outside of his pack that he was packing out since he found it discarded on his first night near Peak Lake. That's one of the things I love about outdoorsmen who you meet this deep in the wilderness - you just rarely meet one who isn't a pleasure to chat with briefly and who isn't doing his part and more to keep the wilderness pristine.
Dropping into Golden Lakes Basin was a treat. Really scenic area.




I didn't catch any fish in any of the lakes in this basin. Spencer caught a few Goldens on some of the streams between the lakes.
We had another late lunch and planned our route up to Cook Pass (I think that's it's name - one pass north of Angel Pass). We decided to follow a cascading creek out of Upper Golden Lake to the west northwest. Really scenic area for sure.

We crossed a snowfield and then had to make our way around a tarn and up an easy crack.


This area felt pretty remote, which added to the fun.

We couldn't take our planned route to Cook Pass, which would have been the easiest to navigate, due to a huge snow wall that blocked our path. So we climbed a bunch of large talus and approached from further south. I was glad at this point that Spencer brought a GPS unit with him. I honestly was starting to get a little turned around with all of the talus and geographic features around us that weren't obvious enough to navigate by.
Eventually we descended down to Cook Pass from the south. We had a snack and some water on the shores of the tarn at the top of the pass.
The descent started off a little tricky. There were a series of steep ledges with a lot of talus. Eventually we made it down to the steep grassy sections. The trek from the Golden Lakes Basin to this area had taken a lot more time than I would have estimated, and it felt like a huge relief to have easy travel again through this beautiful landscape.



We descended to the big peninsula on the northern shore of Spider Lake and set up camp for the night. We had a nice little fire and caught a lot of 8-10" brookies.



Day six:
Today was my son's first birthday. My wife was awesome for letting me go on the trip anyways. We would celebrate his birthday the Saturday I returned, just a few days after his birthday. Her only stipulation was that I couldn't act tired from the camping trip. Easy enough!
We made the easy trek over to the Cook Lake Trail. We took a 30-45 minute break to fish in upper Cook Lake, where I caught a few brookies.

We proceeded on to Wall Lake. I'd heard good things about this area, and it delivered. Very scenic area. We had to set up my rainfly with my tent poles to get out of some rain and hail for about an hour, but it was a good excused to stop and actually eat lunch closer to noon or one for once on this trip!



As we went over Wall-Island Pass another thunderstorm with hail blew through and we took shelter under a large boulder.


After 20-30 minutes we had a break in the weather. We crested the pass across another snowfield.

As we descended to Island Lake and began the hike up into Titcomb Basin we began to see a lot more people, naturally. For some odd reason, everyone else was hiking out. Just a hunch, but I think it was because the sky looked like it wanted to devour the landscape.

We enjoyed the hike into this incredible Basin. As soon as we set up camp we had a pretty heavy hailstorm of dime sized hail, but lots of it. I dove into the tent and let a lot of it in with me in just the five seconds or so the tent door was open. Eventually the weather let up and we had a nice evening.



Day seven, final day:
We woke up to a visual treat of a light dusting of snow on the surrounding peaks.

The light wouldn't cooperate with my meager iPhone photo skills, but it was a pretty awesome sight to wake up to.
We got out on the trail pretty early to begin the 15 miles or so back to the car. Early for us is like 8 am instead of 9, which is more typical for us. We burned the miles since they were all on trail and mostly downhill.





We made it to Elkhart Park TH around 2:15. Just as expected, Spencer's car was waiting for us there. We changed clothes and headed down into Pinedale for some fantastic burgers at The Burger Barn.
All in all, it was a fantastic trip and the biggest adventure either of us have been on to date. The Winds provided incredible opportunities for on trail and off trail travel with a lot of great views and some solid fishing. We'll definitely be back!
And in case any of you were worried, I made it back and pretended to not be exhausted after this trip for my son's first birthday.


Our son gets to come backpacking sometimes as well. Here he is at Hamilton Lake on a small section hike of the High Sierra Trail in July 2017. My wife and I did this trip with him - quite a different vibe having a baby along!

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