Wind Rivers 2002 Trip Report

Juen 29 - July 3, 2002
Who: Dawn DuPriest, Jason Gugelman, Trent Venneman, Michelle Venneman, Oakley, Sadie

We had originally thought of hiking another section or two of the Colorado Trail over the 4th of July, but the drought conditions and the closure of the San Juan National Forest made us want to get out of the state. After some research, we decided on a four-day loop in the Wind River Range - a remote, rugged and high mountain range to the southeast of the Tetons. Wyoming's highest peak and some of the best technical climbing in the state are in this range in between Lander and Pinedale. We chose a trip in the southern half of the range, which was less glaciated around the Continental Divide and thus easier to make a high, scenic loop. We also really wanted to see the Cirque of the Towers. I had first heard of this area in an issue of Climbing Magazine from last year. The scenery and technical climbing would be spectacular - and even though I wouldn't be doing any technical climbing, I was very interested in checking the area out.

We left Fort Collins at noon on Saturday. We made a couple of LONG stops.. one in Laramie, one in Rock Springs. We took the most direct route to the Big Sandy trailhead, heading east from between Boulder and Pinedale. The dirt road was not terribly rough, just a little steep in spots. It weaved through pastures and sagebrush to subalpine forests. On the way we spotted quite a few antelopes and jackrabbit, along with the resident cows and sheep. We also spotted a plume of smoke coming from the mountains on this side of the Continental Divide. It really looked like it was coming from the area we would be hiking in. As we got closer, the smoke plume died down and we couldn't tell if it would be in our path or not. We hoped that we'd be able to find out more info in the morning.

The Big Sandy campground is pleasant enough, and there were still plenty of campsites left. We chose a couple next to the parking lot, where we hoped our dogs wouldn't bother anybody. We arrived at 8:30pm, MUCH later than we thought it would be. Very long drive! As dusk settled into the campground we really started noticing the mosquitoes. We quickly put on some more layers and DEET, but it didn't prevent us from getting bitten on faces, hands, ankles, foreheads.. anywhere we hadn't smeared bug dope, we got bitten. We were in the tents by 10:15 - For once, I slept great. Jason slept terrible, because Oakley was by now wide awake and constantly sniffing out the tent door. Neither one of them got more than a couple of hours of sleep... it should be an interesting day tomorrow!

Day One

On our first day of hiking, I woke at 5:45 - but Jason couldn't muster the energy to get out of the tent until 6:30. He slept very poorly! It took us quite a bit of time to pack our bags and secure the rest of our gear in the car. We were able to hit the trail at 8:30. We got some info from hikers coming out, that the high passes still had snow on them. With that in mind, we decided to bring the ice axes. We weren't able to find any information about the smoke we saw on the drive up, and we didn't see the smoke this morning. We set off north toward Meeks, Dad's, and Marm's lakes.

It's a very quick hike to Meeks Lake. From there, the trail winds uphill rather steeply through a lush and forested area. I still think the mosquitoes here were the worst of the whole trip - or was it because we just weren't ready for them? We were wearing shorts and T-shirts. The mosquitoes descended upon us, biting everything and everywhere. We couldn't see, we could barely breathe. I walked with the bug repellent stick in my hand, swatting and swiping with every step. Sometimes they were so bad, all I could do was try to outrun them. The dogs were suffering badly. We kept moving for about an hour of this, hoping for some relief.

We were pleasantly surprised to find relief in Fish Creek Park! It was an open, meadowy area. On the map, it's marked to look like a marshy area, but we found it to be dry, pleasant, breezy, and best of all - mosquito free! We saw a coyote crossing the meadow below us. It ran off quickly. We had bear-bells on the dogs, so we honestly didn't expect to see much wildlife on this trip - the coyote was a pleasant surprise. We did a rock-hopping cross of Fish Creek, then stopped at the end of the meadow at Mirror Lake - for snacks, checking the map, and chilling out.

It was a quick walk from Mirror Lake to Dad's Lake. Dad's Lake was absolutely beautiful - big and blue, with tree-covered islands and a great view of surrounding peaks.

Oakley and Dad's Lake.
Another quick hike took us to Marm's Lake, where the view was obscured by trees. There was a trail fork just past Marm's Lake, and we headed west on the Shadow Lake trail. This took us up a narrow, steep, and VERY HOT gully. We were sweltering and the trail was dusty and loose. A trickle of runoff in the gully provided just enough water for the dogs. The saddle at the head of this gully was a welcome sight, and we knew we were done gaining elevation for the day.

This brought us into another pretty meadow just above Washakie Creek. We hiked past a few small tarns to the creek crossing, passing the final fork to Shadow Lake. We were now on the Hailey Pass trail. The ford across Washakie Creek was boots-off, but fairly easy. The rocks were grippy and the current was not too swift. Past the creek crossing, we found a few nice camping spots just uphill on the north side of the creek. Or so they seemed!

We arrived at camp at 2:45 - six hours for about 9.5 miles, including two long stops at Mirror Lake and Marm's Lake. As we settled into our camp, the mosquitoes once again descended on us. We would forever affectionately refer to this camp as "Mosquito Central"! There was nothing we could do to help it; snowmelt had made the area all around the creek just a bit wet and marshy, prime breeding grounds. We had to wear raingear and gloves around camp, and smear our faces with DEET. Even then, the little bloodsuckers would find every fleshy spot that was not covered. Wrists. That spot in between the eyes. Earlobes. Inside the mouth or nostril. Unbearable! When we cooked, every time we took the pot lid off, mosquitoes flew in our dinner. A little extra protein. When we bear-bagged, we lost the use of our swatting hands - using both hands to tie knots - and we got terrorized by the little vampires. Fortunately, the inside of our tent was wonderfully mosquito-free. Before the sun even set, we settled into the tent and watched them buzz angrily at the mesh. Ahhh!

Day Two

The morning of July 1, we awoke at 5:30 but weren't on the trail until 8am. Slow as usual! We had brought one filter and one stove for the four of us. The filter was painfully slow, evidence that we really should have thought of bringing an extra cartridge. Our first mile or so of trail was forested with a lot of mosquitoes - then we came to a saddle. Below us lay Skull Lake, and to the east of us was the faint trail heading to Washakie Pass, which we took. The trail led us to another pretty open meadow, with fabulous views of the peaks at the end of the valley. The hike up to Washakie Pass was steep, rocky, and a bit loose. The snow had melted off enough that we didn't have to cross much of it. At the top of Washakie Pass, we couldn't believe the wind!! My guess was it was blowing between 60 and 70 miles per hour - enough to knock you over if you stood up, enough to blow away gear if you set it on the ground. Enough that we couldn't hear each other until we settled into a wind shelter. From here we noticed two prominent obstacles. One was a snowfield descending out of sight to the east. We would likely have to glissade this - it shouldn't be a big problem, but neither Trent nor Michelle had ever used an ice axe before, so we would have to show them how. The second obstacle was a big plume of smoke to the northeast! We weren't sure if this was the same fire we saw on our drive up here. The fire was clearly blowing up - huge billows of black smoke were rising up from it and smoke extended for miles to the east. We couldn't tell exactly where it was - was it in the valley of the South Fork Little Wind River? If so, we would be camping tonight close enough to this river to worry. If the wind shifted to be from the north, we may be in danger. What to do?

Macon Lake and Washakie Lake from Washakie Pass.   Note the smoke on the horizon.
Fortunately Trent saved the day with his cell phone. He actually got cell service there on top of Washakie Pass and was able to call the forest service office in Lander. The wind shelter on Washakie Pass made it actually possible to hear him! The officer on the phone informed us that the fire was near Washakie Dam, which was well to the north and east of us. We would be camping at Valentine Lake, so for the fire to reach us there, it would have to leap over 12,000 foot peaks above timberline. We didn't think that was a likely scenario, so we decided to push on to our destination.

Feeling a little more secure, we talked Trent and Michelle through the use of their ice axes, and we all glissaded down the snowfield to its terminus. The snowfield was a mellow angle, maybe just slightly over 30 degrees. It was easy to control our speed and we had a wonderful ride down! From here we got to enjoy views of the contrasting colors of Macon Lake and Pass Lake. Pass Lake is fed by the Washakie Glacier, and so it's cloudy from glacial silt. Macon Lake is fed by regular snowmelt, so it is clear blue. The two lakes feed into the HUGE body of water called Washakie Lake. We enjoyed our walk down to Washakie Lake, where we snacked and sat mesmerized by the continued blowup of the fire. We would later learn this fire grew to 13,000 acres and became known as the South Fork II fire.

Smoke from the South Fork II fire over Washakie Lake.


On the way to the lake, we saw the first two people that we had seen on this trip. We had complete solitude up until this point! They were doing our exact loop in reverse, and they informed us that we had a wonderful, scenic day ahead of us. We couldn't wait.

From here we eased down to the South Fork Little Wind River, which we forded with no problems - only about shin deep. The views up the valley from here were just outstanding. A peak which is marked as "Payson Peak" rose out of the meadow like something in Yosemite Valley - amazing! We climbed up to Valentine Lake; by now it was getting late and we were looking forward to making camp. We had a little difficulty finding camping spots at Valentine Lake - the best spot we could find had a "No Camping Here" sign posted. We were finally able to pick a couple of flat spots just uphill from the lake. The mosquitoes were not too bad here, allowing us to actually enjoy sitting outside cooking dinner, relaxing, filtering water, bear-bagging, and getting ready for sleep. It had taken us NINE hours to get here today - from 8am to 5pm - to hike about 7.5 miles. What was the deal? We attributed it to a lot of long stops - including about an hour on top of Washakie Pass, another 45 minutes at Washakie Lake, another 45 minutes at the Little Wind River ford, and various smaller breaks throughout the day. Ah well - it is not a race! At Valentine Lake, we came across two separate NOLS groups out for extended trips. We had forgotten that NOLS is based in Lander - what a wonderful location for the school.

Day Three

REALLY slow today - awake by 4am, but not on the trail until 7am! We thought we'd be able to get a headstart on any storms with an early start... but we couldn't deal with the early wake-up call, and sat in the tent for nearly an hour! Oakley must have needed some more sleep badly - I'd never seen her do this before, but she wouldn't open her eyes! As we sat in the tent getting ready, she was laying there with her head up, her ears perked, and her eyes shut for the full hour we were awake in the tent. We were worried she went snow-blind the day before or something! But, as soon as we hopped out of the tent to make breakfast, she opened her eyes and was ready to go.

We hoped we didn't run into any storms... today would be almost a full day above treeline. I wasn't feeling good from the get-go, for some reason - altitude, perhaps, and a touch of asthma. We did hit treeline pretty quickly on the Bears Ears trail. We reached a fork with the Lizard Head trail, and enjoyed the great views that surrounded us in a 360 degree panorama. These views would be with us nearly all day! At this saddle, the wind was picking up again - we would fight with the optimal layers for the wind pretty much all day. We never had storms - actually, never a cloud in the sky - but the wind was relentless. I eventually found solace in a T-shirt and rain jacket.

Breathtaking views (and wind) on the Lizard Head trail.


The folks we ran into yesterday were right; the scenery was incredible all day. We couldn't believe it. We had breathtaking views of Washakie Pass and the peaks north of there; then a close-up view of Lizard Head Peak - with a glacier and half-frozen lake in a gorgeous cirque. We stopped for lunch in the middle of alpine tundra and felt like we were on top of the world. As we got closer to the end of the ridge, we caught views into the North Popo Agie river below us; and a rock formation called "The Monolith" with two picturesque lakes below it. Finally, as we neared the start of our descent, we got our first views of the Cirque of the Towers and our hair stood up on end. It was awesome! We took several minutes snapping photos; the Cirque was impressive even from this distance. Pingora, the Watch Tower, and Warbonnet were visible and amazing.

Our first glimpse of the Cirque of the Towers.


The descent down into Lizard Head Meadows was very rough and loose. We had been keeping Oakley off leash in meadows where we could always see her, but on-leash in the trees where we worried about bears and other wildlife. As the trail re-entered the trees, it was tough going to keep my footing stable while being tugged along by a leashed Oakley. Lizard Head Meadows seemed pleasant enough; we wondered if it would get mosquitoey later... probably would. We decided to continue on to Cirque of the Towers, and go as far as we could today to shave time off tomorrow... and have a hopefully lightly mosquitoed camp.

There is no camping within a quarter mile of Lonesome Lake, but we weren't sure why you'd want to - even at this hour, in the heat of the afternoon, the bugs were relentless. We crossed the North Popo Agie River just west of Lonesome Lake; it would be a tough boulder hop or an easy boots-off crossing, so most of us went boots-off. I don't know why we didn't filter water; past Lonesome Lake, we all ran out of water and lost the trail trying to find a campsite a quarter mile uphill and to the south. We bushwhacked uphill, running low on energy and desperately looking for a flat spot to camp. We found several social trails that turned out to not be the main trail to Jackass Pass. We were definitely getting grumpy and exhausted. Finally I volunteered to drop my pack and look for a campsite. Within ten minutes I came across a nice spot. There were three adjoining flat spots; one big enough for one tent, one big enough for two, and a third big enough for two or three tents. There was already a small Bibler tent in the two-man site. I really hoped they wouldn't mind having neighbors; I was elated to finally find someplace to call home.

We fetched our packs, went to the site, and started setting up tents. As we just finished putting the tents up, the owners of the Bibler came back from climbing - a man and a woman. The man took one look at us and proceeded to throw a tantrum. Something along the lines of - you come all this way to get away from it all and... you inconsiderate people, this is ridiculous, couldn't you find ANYPLACE else to camp? You just come over here and make yourselves at home, no consideration for others... and a few other choice words directed at us. I pleaded our case to him just long enough to realize that his ranting wasn't just a surprised outburst - he was genuinely angry and was going to genuinely be a jerk about this and make our lives miserable until we left. So we left, and as we packed our things he warmed up to us. I was angry enough to be speechless - I had nothing to say to these people. Granted, we didn't use good backcountry etiquette in choosing a campsite right next to theirs - even if they did take a six-tent site with their little Ahwahnee in one of the most popular backcountry areas in the entire Wind Rivers. However, he could have been more adult about confronting us with our bad manners - there is NEVER an excuse for a tantrum. Ahhh... whatever. We moved about a hundred feet uphill and found a marginally flat spot that might be able to squeeze two tents in there. Not comfortable, but better company. We tried to forget our experience from the previous site.

Finally we got a chance to filter some water and cook dinner. As we were filtering, we saw another pair of climbers coming off of Mt. Mitchell. They were from Boulder and were heading back to their camp, downhill and east of where we were. I remembered that my friends Rick and Mark from work were going to be in the Cirque doing some climbing this week. I asked the Boulder-ites if they had seen them. They had! Mark's tent was pitched next to theirs. They agreed to relay a message from us, and we headed back to our camp area to make dinner.

Mark meandered up to our camp as we were cooking. We had put both dogs in the tents... despite our valiant efforts to find a mosquito-free campsite, the little vampires were back. They were not as bad as our first night out, but worse than Valentine Lake. As tired as the dogs were today, all they wanted to do was sleep... and we didn't want the mosquitoes to make them miserable, so we put the dogs in their tents where they napped. The four of us and Mark swapped stories. Mark had also seen the big forest fire and was hoping it didn't impede us. Mark was there for technical climbing, inspired by last year's Climbing magazine! He and Rick climbed Pingora on their first day, the Overhanging Tower today, and planned to do Wolfs Head tomorrow. We saw wispy clouds coming in - clouds at night usually portend a change in the weather, and we wished Mark the best of luck as they spent a long day on the exposed climb.

Mark headed back down to his camp and Jason and I prepared to bear-bag. We knew bears were a problem in this area - we had a bearproof food canister, and we put everything we could in there. We peeked at Oakley in the tent; this woke her up, and she whimpered a bit as we walked out of sight to our bear-bagging tree. We hoped she wouldn't freak out in there. We hung our bags using counterbalance; our first attempt wasn't good, and the bags only hung about 7 feet off the ground - well within a bear's reach. As we thought about re-doing the bear-bags, Oakley trotted up to us! We looked at each other, then at her, and muttered, "How did you get out of the tent...??" We completely forgot about the crummy bear-bag and raced back to the tent... Trent and Michelle were just arriving there after doing their bear-bag. Trent was zipping our rainfly. We asked, "What happened to the tent?" Trent looked at us sadly and said, "It's destroyed."

Destroyed it was! Oakley had turned the regular door into her own personal doggie door. She had torn a large hole in both the fabric and mesh. Now that we were back there, the pup actually crawled back in and went to sleep, leaving us with her handiwork! Hundreds of mosquitoes got in the tent with her. Jason and I set to work with repair tape and duct tape. A little nylon repair tape fixed the fabric; for the mesh, we duct-taped a trashbag to the screen. We were quite proud of our repair job when we were done; it looked sturdy and mosquito-tight... now to kill the army of insects that were already inside! Jason bravely went in and started swatting. I stayed outside to pack and cover our bags. Every couple of seconds, Jason would shout and laugh "ha! Look at that one, that's disgusting! Blood everywhere!"

Our tent after cosmetic surgery, with Jason inside swatting mosquitoes.


By the time I got in the tent, it looked like a war zone - utter carnage! Blood spattered all over the inside and dead mosquitoes everywhere we looked. I had to laugh, the whole situation was so ridiculous! Oh, and we stank - did we ever! With our tents so close together, it was hard to ventilate the tent... and after three hard days we wanted every ounce of ventilation we could get. Phew! It's a good thing I was so exhausted, or I may have never gotten to sleep! :)

Finally we could sleep, after an eleven mile day, two campsites, one stream crossing, two grumpy climbers, a visit from a friend, a psychotic dog, a bad bear bag, and a holey tent!  What an epic day.

Day Four

Our last day! There was definitely a change in the weather today. On all of the past three days, we'd had barely any clouds - and certainly no rain or thunder. Today, clouds were already starting to blow in at 6am; it was cooler and windy. We thought we even felt a rise in humidity. We worried about Mark and Rick on Wolfs Head today, and we hoped that if the rain did come, it would come while they still had time to bail off the climb.  Oh, and our shoddy bear bag from the night before was about the only thing that didn't go horribly wrong.  Our food was still there!

From right to left: Pingora, Wolfs Head, Overhanging Tower, Sharks Nose, and Block Tower.


Today was also Trent and Michelle's third anniversary, so we helped them celebrate with some breakfast brownies I had made last night. MSR brownies are not bad, even though I had burned the first batch! We were able to leave about 9am for our last climb of the trip, or so we thought. We found the trail to Jackass Pass quickly (why was it so hard yesterday afternoon??).. and it was a short hoof up to the high point on the pass. We took celebratory pictures in increasingly threatening weather.

The map shows a small downhill followed by another quick uphill, but it fails to show the scale of the two. Already exhausted, we didn't realize we'd have to climb above the elevation of Jackass Pass on the east side of Arrowhead Lake! We were already nervous about the weather, and we had to spend even more time on exposed rock above treeline... but what could we do? The true high point of the day was right above Arrowhead Lake. But we weren't done climbing yet! After a steep descent to the small lake below Arrowhead (North Lake?) - there was another very steep climb up and over a rocky outcrop. The clouds gathered, sprinkled on us for just a moment, then thinned out and became haze again. That was a huge relief.

Our REAL high point of day four.  This is looking back (and down) toward Jackass Pass.


We could finally tell we were done climbing when we went down a gully to an overlook with views of Big Sandy Lake. Here the clouds gathered again and started raining in earnest. We put on our raingear, which of course made the rain stop! Big Sandy Lake had some nice views of the surrounding peaks. There were quite a few groups camping and fishing here. We actually enjoyed the company on this day, and we stopped every so often to swap stories with a group and ask how the fishing was. One group told us we just missed a mama and baby moose - the dogs' bear bells scared them off. One consequence of the bear bells is scaring off wildlife you actually want to see!

We really hoofed it down the easy trail back to the Big Sandy trailhead. We stopped only once for a snack. Everybody was hurting, especially our feet. We were ecstatic to reach the cutoff to Meeks Lake, and within a half mile we were back at our car! For the third time this day, it started raining. At this point we didn't care! We had survived our trip - it was longer and tougher and more mosquitoey than we ever imagined, and we felt very proud of ourselves. We were relieved that the storms never really manifested themselves... perhaps Mark and Rick were successful on Wolfs Head (we found out later that they were).

The Wind River Range is the most amazing place I have backpacked in the USA. We all agreed we loved the solitude, the scenery, and the rugged character of the place. After we drove out to Pinedale, we celebrated at Wind River Rendezvous pizza - we all agreed it was some of the best pizza we'd ever had. For the next several days, we stayed in a hotel in Jackson and did the tourist thing in Yellowstone and Grand Teton. It was a wonderful and lazy finish to a very hardcore week.

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