I’m three years behind on blogging about my Wind River adventures. Thought I’d start with the most recent trip, just wrapped up less than two weeks ago. Scott, Erik, and I did what ended up being quite an elegant loop. We saw a lot of new country and hardly any people. Seemed kind of unusual for the Winds to hike all day for days on end and see nobody; I loved it.
We started in Elkhart Park, took the Pole Creek Trail toward Cook Lakes then caught the Fremont Trail climbing into Bald Mountain Basin where we left the trail and crossed the divide at Angel Pass. We dropped forever from Angel Pass to just below Upper Golden Lake where we spent two nights and did a day hike over Camp Pass between the Snowbank Lakes and got a view of Camp Lake and beyond. Then we followed the Hay Pass Trail from Golden Lakes over Hay Pass and down to Lake Victor. Next we took the Fremont Trail from just below Victor north over Hat Pass, past the Timico trail and caught the rugged Bell Lakes Trail dropping steeply to Chain Lakes where we took the Highline Trail back to Pole Creek. The photos are presented in chronological order.
We were on the trail eight days and spent seven nights in the backcountry. Long enough to really get into the rhythm of the place. Thankfully the weather held for us for the most part, until the final day we had really only hiked in the rain for about an hour total and the sun kept coming out so we could dry our gear. On the last day we woke up in the rain, we packed up in the rain and we hiked our last six miles in the rain; I kept thinking how lucky we were.
