Wind River Range 2022

The week before Labor Day 2022, Scott and I did a fabulous six day lolly pop loop from the Scab Creek Trailhead into the Bridger Wilderness of Wyoming. We pushed it on day two to get to a private peninsula halfway up the east side of Rainbow Lake where I made my best ever Milky Way images. On day three we moved camp a short distance to near the outlet of Lee Lake and did a most excellent day hike to Noel Lake and the Continental Divide. Well above treeline, at the base of Nylon Peak, Noel Lake was an instant classic and is high on my list of the most stunning alpine lakes I’ve ever seen. The next day we would visit Donna and take an icy dip. We spent night four on the rocky terraces beside Bonneville Lake after a productive sunset photo session. On the hike out we passed stunning lakes and meadows that invited us to stay the rest of the season. The high grassy meadow lands with massive lakes in the Raid Lake/Dream Lake zone seemed worthy of more time than we had. We spent our last night in the vicinity of Little Divide Lake and got a burger and a beer the next afternoon at the brewery in Pinedale before saying sayonara.

Wind River Range 2023

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.