Throughout the report, you'll see small photographs from our trip. You can see larger versions of the photographs by clicking on them. In addition, most of the links buried within the text will bring up photographs from our trip.
Following the success of a trip to Ansel Adams Wilderness
in August 2000, I started to contemplate another expedition. The
destination I chose was the Wind River Range. As with the Ansel Adams trip, a
Backpacker
magazine article provided the inspiration.
Besides the internet, I used the FalconGuide book Hiking Wyoming's Wind River Range by Ron Adkison. The book provides detailed descriptions of all trails in the Wind River Range, grouping them by trailhead. Unfortunately it's a little out of date, but it is still a great resource. The guide book only includes simplified maps, a real topo map is essential. The best maps I could find are published by Earthwalk Press. There are two maps: one for the northern half and one for the southern half. The maps are waterproof and are very detailed, but they are HUGE. For our trip, we only used the northern map. Our trip spilled off the map for only a mile or so on the first day, so we didn't bother carrying the southern map.
While I was researching information about the trip, I was also pulling together a group of people who were interested in going on the expedition. The final quartet ended up as myself, Tom, Fletch, and Josh.
After pouring over all the web pages, books, and maps, I came up with a
proposed route through the heart of the Wind River Range. I proposed we
start at Elkhart Park Trailhead and hike along Pole Creek Trail and Seneca
Lake trail to Hobbs Lake for our first night's sleep (7 mi). On day two I
planned for us to junction with the Highline Trail and hike north towards
Freemont Crossing. We would sleep at Big Water Slide on our second night
(6.2 mi). Day three would take us to our highest elevation (11,050') and
back down to Elbow Lake for our third campsite (5.1 mi). On the fourth
day, I planned for us to reach Pine Creek Canyon Trail and Borum Lake two
miles later. We would sleep at Borum Lake after a hike of 6.3 miles. Day
five would take us to our campsite at Glimpse Lake and the junction with
Glimpse Lake Trail (5.5 mi). We would stay on Pine Creek Canyon trail and
our final day would plunge us deep into Pine Creek Canyon and back up the
far side, reaching Elkhart Park after 6 miles and 4000' of elevation change
(2000' down, 2000' up).
The trip was about 36 miles in total length, but the last day promised to be a killer. Plunging 2000' in the morning with the knowledge that you'll have to climb all the elevation in the afternoon is not the most fun experience. Especially in the steep and rugged terrain of the Winds. The trail is so strenuous that it is one of just a handful of trails in the range not recommended for livestock. Any trail that's hard for a horse is really hard for a person. At least for me. But when I saw the guide book state that the section of the Highline Trail we'd be traversing was perhaps the most spectacular place in the park, I was convinced it was worth the extra effort.
As it turns out, we ended up hiking the loop a little faster than planned and reached the end of our trip in five days instead of six. You'll find out why later in the report.
I quickly realized the problem: I had decided to carry on my camping stove
to protect it from getting crushed in my baggage. I didn't have any fuel
so I thought it would be ok, but clearly it wasn't. When they asked to
manually search my bag, I told them to go ahead but that it was a camping
stove they were looking for. "Ok" they said as they continued to empty by
bag full of camping food and equipment. Once the stove came out, they kept
looking. Finally, they get to the bottom of the bag and pull out my Swiss
Army knife. Needless to say I had thought I had packed it in my checked
bag, but clearly that wasn't the case. Given the recent events
(9/11/2001), I knew I was in for some problems.
After a long delay, the security agent allowed me to exit the secure area with my knife, run to the American ticket counter, and try to check the knife as my second bag. Luckily the counter had a cardboard box and I checked both the knife and stove just to be safe. I then ran back to security and made it through just in time to board.
While all of this was going on, my friends had passed through the checkpoint without any problems and were waiting for me to follow along. However, they quickly saw that something wasn't right. When they saw what was happening, they decided to take a picture of my ordeal. As they took out a camera, some idle policemen quickly came over and threatened them with jail time if they even thought about taking a picture of security. (Despite the fact that pictures are allowed. Ever see footage of airport screeners on TV? I have.)
Moral of the story: try to take a knife on board a plane and you'll be just be told with a smile to put the knife in a checked bag. Try to take a picture of the event and you'll go to jail.
After the security incident, our flight went very smoothly. We arrived in
Salt Lake City on schedule and took a shuttle to
Thrifty car rental where we had
reserved a standard size SUV. Because we had a six hour drive, I had my
friend Tom sign up as a second driver. As it turned out, that was a great
move. When filling out the rental paperwork, the Thrifty employee tried to
sell us on an upgrade to the next level SUV. After we declined, he noticed
that he and Tom had identical birthdays (including the year). As a sign of
goodwill, the employee gave us a free upgrade to the larger SUV: a Dodge
Durango. When we finally went to load up the car with our gear, we saw
that it was a good thing we got the upgrade. We almost filled up the
Durango. There's no way we could have fit into the Jeep Liberty we had
reserved.
Once we were all loaded up, we drove across the city to the Salt Lake REI to pick up some fuel, fuel bottles, and some other last minute items. We then began the long drive along I-80, WY-189, and WY-191 to Pinedale, WY. Pinedale is a nice little mountain town at the foot of the Winds and serves as a gateway to the mountains. We arrived in Pinedale around dinner time and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Best Western Pinedale Inn, a nice budget motel with a pool and hot tub that we were really looking forward to for the night after our trip. We spent the evening walking around town and going out for dinner. We also visited the local trail shop and heard that black bears had been seen recently on our trail. We then headed back to the hotel to sleep and make our last phone calls before our hike. For a map of Pinedale's city streets, click here.
We woke up early at the hotel, checked out, and drove across the small town
to grab a big breakfast. After stuffing ourselves with pancakes or french
toast, we stopped by
Falers General Store
for some bottled water and cheese for our evening meal on the trail. We
then drove up Freemont Lake Rd (becomes Skyline Dr) to Elkhart Park. The
drive is spectacular as you pass enormous Fremont Lake and approach the
Winds.
After less than 30 minutes of driving, we got to the trail head, spoke with the ranger on duty, and signed ourselves in at the trailhead. Finally, after months of planning and hours of traveling, we got started on our hike.
(Interesting side note: even at the remote Elkhart Park Trailhead, NPR comes in loud and clear on the radio. You can't use cell phones or listen to much else, but in the middle of a remote portion of Wyoming, you could get a crystal clear NPR signal! Who would have guessed that your only two choices on the radio would be right-wing extremists on AM or NPR on FM.)
We started off at about 10:00 am or so and marched steadily up the Pole Creek
Trail through forest that by Wyoming standards was quite dense. After a couple
of miles, we made our first rest stop.
We thought that when we stopped we had only another 30-60 minutes of hiking
before entering the
Bridger Wilderness.
But it turns out we were just a few feet shy of the
signed wilderness entrance
that was just around the corner. We kept hiking and soon reached the
first hint of the views that were to
come as the trees momentarily broke to reveal a small clearing along the
trail. While we were straining to see over the trees, we were passed by a
group leaving the wilderness. They told us that what we saw was just the tip
of the iceberg. With that as motivation, we started
moving again on our way
up the trail.
The Pole Creek trail has a nice gradual grade, so we made
good time along the way to
Photographer's Point where we
stopped for lunch just after noon. While we were eating, I took out my
tripod and took a few more photographs of the mountains with a zoom lens.
Here's one and
here's another. I
made a panorama from four individual photographs that I took by rotating my
camera on the tripod. It's a big JPG (almost 1MB), but take a look at the
great panoramic view.
After lunch we got moving again as we attempted to make our first campsite early in the afternoon. After a short time, we reached the junction with Seneca Lake Trail at Eklund Lake. We turned left onto Seneca Lake Trail and almost immediately reached beautiful Barbara Lake. Climbing a rise to the top of a small ridge, the valley spilled out beneath us showing our hiking trail as it crossed the valley to the ridge just before Hobbs Lake.
After climbing the next ridge, we descended to Hobbs Lake where we set up camp for our first night. As dusk approached, a few scattered rain storms blew across the sky, but only one actually dropped anything on our campsite (the one that hit us included some hail). We scrambled to put on our rain gear just in time for the storms to move past us and see the sky open up once again. After Tom prepared a group dinner, we got ready to watch the sunset on our first night in the Winds.
Luckily for us, the first night of our trip coincided with the peak of the Leonids Meteor Shower. Unfortunately for us, the first night of our trip was also absolutely frigid. It dropped well below freezing even though we were in the winds during the warmest time of year. We stayed up watching the stars for as long as we could, but eventually we all gave up and returned to our tents to get some sleep.
We woke up at daybreak on our second day to find all of our gear coated in
a thick layer of frost. It had clearly dropped deep below freezing
overnight and it was tough to get out of the sleeping bag in the morning.
As the sun came up, I managed to capture a photograph of
Hobbs Lake with a thin layer of fog
hovering on the surface. We dusted the frost off of our bear canisters, ate
breakfast, and started to break down camp.
After a slow start because of the cold morning, we started moving around ten in the morning. We crossed the inlet to Hobbs Lake and hiked back into the forest. We soon reached the edge of the forest and entered some rocky terrain at the shores of Seneca Lake. A group of hikers going in our direction were resting on the rocks and took a group picture with Seneca Lake in the background. From our resting point, we could see the rocky shores of Seneca Lake which make it a bad spot to find campsites. After a short break, we started the traverse along the steep shores of the lake.
After crossing the inlet to Seneca Lake, we hiked around Little Seneca Lake, just a short distance to the north. At the north end of Little Seneca Lake, we reached the trail junction with Highline Trail and turned left to head north into the heart of the Wind River Range.
The Highline Trail began with a short but strenuous climb to traverse a rocky ridge. The trees at this point had long since given way to open vistas overlooking rocky slopes that at best are dotted with small green bushes and grass, or at worst just barren rock. Towards the top of the climb, we meandered across the rocky terrain on the well-worn trail. After cresting the ridge, the horizon opened up with spectacular views into the valley where we could see the Indian Pass Trail climbing high into the peaks. We descended the valley, turned left at the junction with Indian Pass Trail and continued on the Highline Trail. Soon after passing the junction, we took a break for lunch and some well earned rest.
After lunch, we continued hiking among the rocky peaks and along grassy valley
floor. We passed by a number of
alpine lakes as we approached
Freemont Crossing, a bridged
crossing of Freemont Creek. Just a tenth of a mile past the crossing, we
turned left onto an unmaintained trail leading to Lost Lake. We circled
around a small pond just downstream of the crossing and left the trail to
follow the edge of the pond. Continuing around the pond, we reached the
pond's outlet, the continuation of Freemont Creek. The outlet of the pond
is a huge rocky slope with thunderous rapids streaming down the rocks.
The rapids are known as the Big Water Slide.
Looking down the Big Water
Slide from the top, the reason for the name is clear. We dropped our
packs at the edge of the slide and started setting up or camp for night
number two.
As we were setting up camp, a number of other people we hiking into camp, including the group that took our photograph earlier in the day. It turned out that the people were all in one large group: a number of kid with some chaperones. While I was putting together my tent, I joked about putting something on the trip web page when we got back home. At the very same time, a few of the chaperones from the big group were walking right past our campsite. Out of the blue, one turned towards me and said, "Are you Dave Gotz?" What?!? I'm on the other side of the country from my home, two days from the nearest road, and a stranger knows my name? I thought maybe it was a ranger who got my name from the trailhead register. But no, Josh signed in, not me. How could he know who I am?
"Yes," I told him with a surprised look. "That's me." How did he know my name? Well, out of his pocket comes a print out of a web page I put together while planning my trip to share the details with the rest of my group. When he was planning his group trip to the Winds, he stumbled across my web page and decided to hike the very same route! What are the odds? I didn't put any dates on the web page, so he stumbled upon my humble website, ended up using our exact itinerary, and came on the exact same dates! Then, even more unlikely, he walks by our campsite at the exact moment that I mention a web page, then make the connection is his head. After getting over the shock, we talked a little bit with this man from Salt Lake City that printed out my web page, then got back to setting up camp.
After camp was set up, we waded in the water, washed ourselves in the
creek, pumped some fresh drinking
water, and watched the kids from the big group go down the water slide.
We then ate dinner and Fletch and Tom went to bed early while Josh and I
stayed up for a while and watched for some more shooting stars. While we
stayed up, we came up with plans to start getting ahead of our planned
schedule.
As I mentioned at the start of this trip report, our last day was going to be tortuous. During dinner we decided that instead of camping at Glimpse Lake and going up and down on our last day, we would get a little ahead and reach Long Lake by night five, leaving just the up part for our last day. Josh and I decided that instead of stopping at Elbow Lake, we would continue on to Pass Lake, another 2.8 miles. Before too long, Josh and I joined the others and went to sleep.
We woke up at daybreak and quickly got breakfast going as we knew we were
in for a long but spectacular day. After breaking down camp, we got off
to an early start on our approach to Freemont Pass. We continued across more
wide open terrain as we hiked
across a minor ridge. We continued past a
small pond before cresting a hill and seeing
another pond nestled
between the mountains ahead. We continued hiking around the minor ponds until we
reached Lower Jean Lake.
We paused long enough to take a few pictures of us in front of the lake, then continued up past smaller Upper Jean Lake, all in the shadow of 13,000'+ peaks. We stopped here to rest for a few minutes, then started hiking again, finally reaching our highest elevation of the trip where the trail tops out at over 11,000 feet. We dropped our packs and spent a while scrambling up the slopes on either side of the pass, enduring some high winds and cool air. We then reluctantly picked our packs up again to head down to some sheltered land to have lunch. We passed the junction to Shannon Pass Trail, turned left to stay on the Highline Trail, and descended towards Elbow Lake. We stopped for lunch where the Highline Trail first meets the lakes and rested for an hour or so. We felt pretty good at this point. Because we had left early, we had nearly reached our originally planned campsite for the night and it was only lunch time. We had plenty of time to make it all the way to Pass Lake.
After lunch, we continued hiking along the Highline Trail and
skirted around Elbow Lake,
until the trail veered west away from the lake. It is at this point that
our views drastically changed. Instead of looking up at the 13,000'
continental divide, we turned away from the tall mountains and looked out
over a much less jagged but still rocky landscape. We crested a ridge and
peered out across the
landscape, visually surveying the land across which we were about to
travel.
We hiked for another couple of miles, enduring a steady descent for much of the way. Finally, after a long day, we collapsed into camp on the banks of Pass Lake. After setting up camp, we went to the edge of the lake and soaked our tired feet in the water for what seemed like hours. I then put on my surgically repaired sandals and walked back to camp for dinner. After dinner we watched the sunset, then went to bed early. After the long day of hiking, we were all wiped out.
We recovered from our disappointment and continued across Pine Creek and
down into the valley of Summit
Lake, the same valley in which we saw the "wild" horse. At the edge
of the valley, we came to Summit
Lake, nestled underneath the surrounding peaks. Just to the west of
Summit Lake is the junction
with Pine Creek Canyon trail where we turned left and south, towards
Trapper Lake.
After another two miles, we reached Borum Lake, our planned campsite for night four. However, because we were able to get ahead the night before, it wasn't even lunch time yet. But it was time for break. We stopped at the south shore of Borum Lake to drink some water and perform some medical work. Once we were moving again, we approached Gottfried Lake. Between Gottfried and Heart Lakes, we passed the junction for Heart Lake Trail and continued on towards Trapper Lake. Along the way, we passed a number of wild flowers of various colors scattered throughout the open plains.
At length, we reached Trapper Lake, passed the junction for a trail to Section Corner Lake on the western shore, and stopped for lunch along the southern shore. We made such great time so far, we decided during lunch that we would continue all the way to Glimpse Lake and arrive there a full day earlier than called for in my original plan.
We started up again after lunch and hiked through the trees for the next couple of miles to the junction with Glimpse Lake Trail just above the lake itself. Unfortunately, the sign is positioned in such a way that it's easy to miss. In fact, Fletch and I were a little ahead at this point and we missed the sign, hiking a little further along Pine Creek Canyon Trail. While we were ahead, Josh and Tom missed the sign and turned without knowing it to down Glimpse Lake Trail. When we realized our mistake and turned back, we saw the junction and waited. And waited. And waited. Josh and Tom were waiting at the same time, but down by Glimpse Lake instead. It took nearly an hour for Josh to get curious enough to hike up the hill and find us sitting at the junction.
But it wasn't all wasted time. Fletch and I got to look out over the cliff
to see the deep canyon we
would be climbing down and up the following day. We finally could see the
tough descent and climb we had read about as being too steep and rough for
livestock. We also had enough time to take pictures of
each other with the canyon in the background:
here's me and
here's Fletch.
After Josh returned to the junction, we descended to Glimpse Lake to meet Tom and set up camp for the night. After camp was set up, we found some old fishing line lying on the ground and Fletch carved a fish hook out of some wood. Tom rigged up a lure with some weeds, and we used our hand-made fishing gear for a long, long time. Not only did we not catch any fish, we didn't see any fish. I think our lure just scared them away. But along with watching dragonflies mate while flying around the lake, it passed the time until dinner. Then once it got dark, we all crashed out early again after a second straight long day of hiking.
Just as we got started, I realized that I had packed my sunglasses at the
bottom of my pack and wanted them the exposed portions of the trail. So I
told everyone else to go on ahead and that I would catch up. After fishing
out my glasses, I hiked back up the hill to the Pine Creek Canyon trail
and turned right towards the descent into the canyon. I quickly caught up
to Tom and Josh, but Fletch was nowhere in sight. We waited for a while,
then a little while longer. Finally, I told Josh and Tom to get started
and said that I would wait for Fletch.
Josh and Tom started the descent,
and I sat down to enjoy the view and see when Fletch would show up.
After a while, I started calling out Fletch's name a few times. Eventually, I heard him call back from far away. Finally, he caught up to me and started to hike down the hill. "What happened?" I asked. It turns out Fletch decided to get lost right from the start and began hiking the wrong way around the lake. I wasn't until he was well on his way down the wrong trail that he realized that he needed to turn around.
Now that Fletch had found his way, we started our descent and caught up to Tom and Josh. After crossing over a ton of downed trees and struggling to find the trail, we could tell that the trail had less traffic than the rest of the trails we had used. At time it seemed as if the trail had just vanished. The trail quickly became a series of steep switchbacks plunging downward for almost 2000 feet. Here's a picture I took from one switchback looking down on Josh on the next switchback. The switchbacks were so terribly eroded that we often had to skate down steep trails of loose rock and dirt for many feet at a time. The footing was awful, especially when trying to balance with 60 pounds on your back.
After a couple of hours of sliding down the trail, we reached the bridge
over Pine Creek, the low point of our entire trek. At this point, we were
at 7,550 feet, about 3,500 feet below our highest point at Freemont Pass.
Just before the bridge there was
a curious sign posted
on a tree. In case you have trouble reading it, it says, "Trail Not
Recommended for Stock. Trail Abandoned. Not Maintained." The sign
explained a lot. Now we knew why this part of the trail was in such poor
condition. If only they decided to put a sign on the other end of the
trail we wouldn't have been so bitter!
After laughing about the sign and crossing Pine Creek, we began to climb, gaining 325 feet in 0.6 miles to Long Lake. We stopped at Long Lake for lunch and to gather our strength for the final climb back to Elkhart Park. We pizza and hot tubs dancing in our minds, we began the final push up the trail. Some of us pushed ourselves and actually made it up the 2000' in less time than it took to get down. The entire climb was brutal, but the final few yards were the hardest of all. Just as you saw the parking lot high above you, the trail turned from hard-packed dirt to loose sand, making your already tired feet almost useless. Finally, after struggling up the final few feet, the first of our group made it to the car by 12:20 in the afternoon.
As each of us crossed the finish line, we took victory pictures to prove that we made it. I still need to develop these, but I'll do it soon.
As we had sped up our plans by a day, I had to change our reservations at the Best Western. When I walked into the lobby, the hostess had no problems changing the reservation, but she asked if we had changed our plans because of the fire. "Fire?" I asked. "What fire?" I forgot about it for a while and we all moved back into the hotel and showered, shaved, and called loved ones.
We then set out for some pizza and when driving to town, we saw a billow of smoke rising above the horizon. Now I knew what the hostess meant. Luckily the fire had been a number of miles off from us, and the wind kept the smoke blowing in the other direction. We never knew it, but we were just a dozen or two miles from an uncontained forest fire that started from lightning during the storms we saw on our first night in the wilderness.
We went back to the hotel room, which we now noticed smelled ridiculously bad, and changed into shorts to get into the hot tub. After a week of hiking, it felt incredible to relax our muscles and joints. We then showered and went to bed, making up for our lost sleep during our trip.
The next morning we woke up and drove to Salt Lake City where we walked around town, went our for dinner, and saw XXX, the perfect brain-dead action movie to end the week. The next morning we woke up, returned the rental car, and flew home to North Carolina. All in all, it was an incredible week and certainly a trip of a lifetime.
