A Week in Wyoming's Wind River Range

Introduction

We left San Diego early Friday morning for the long drive to Monterey. Along the way, Patsy realized that she had mislaid the directions. A call to her parents confirmed that the directions were not at their house. Oh well, we'd find it. Patsy was one of the three bridesmaids and we were due at the rehearsal by 4.30 pm.

We arrived in Carmel at the beginning of rush hour and traffic ground slowly along, stopping us at every light. Finally at Monterey, we parked the car and hurried along the beach ... only later did we discover that we had set off in the wrong direction. After searching high and low we could find no sign of the wedding party. We were so late by this time that we figured they must have already completed the ceremony. Patsy did, however, recall where the restaurant was. When we ventured inside we found two of Justine's (the bride's) brothers, Bill and Ken, already ensconced inside drinking beer. They weren't much into ceremony and neither am I. Weddings are a girl thing; all flowers and white lace.

It turned out that Bill was also a rock climber, so we sat drinking beers and discussing our climbing plans for Tuolumne later that week. The wedding party arrived soon enough. We apologized for our absence and were forgiven. Justine and Patsy were old friends, after all, so Justine must have known that Patsy was lost and not a flake.

Justine and Bob's wedding turned out to be a lot of fun despite my preconceptions. The wedding turned out to be similar to our own, that is Patsy and my, wedding. Each organized by the bride and groom, plenty of things seemed to go wrong along the way (and Patsy and I put our ham radios to good use helping to coordinate the various parties) but everything fell into place at the last minute. These are the weddings to look back on with fond memories, not the multi-thousand dollar canned weddings.

We spent a thoroughly enjoyable two days with Justine's family, whose parents Bill and Anne were so hospitable that they made us feel like part of the family.

Unfortunately Bill had to fly back to Seattle and couldn't join us in Tuolumne. On Sunday morning Patsy and I bade our farewells, drove to Yosemite and staked our claim on a campsite at Porcupine Flat.

Every day loomed fair and then turned rainy by early afternoon. The next day, we headed over to the Guppie Wall and set up some top ropes. We climbed Achilles Last Stand, 5.10a * and Fairies Wear Boots, 5.10a * without too much difficulty but when it came to Gimme Some Slack 5.10d, I was almost in tears. Razor blade crimpers. Somehow I made it but I stood there for quite a while squeezing my fingers and whimpering like a beaten dog. Awesome rock but serious leads. We drove over to Low Profile Dome with the intention of climbing Golfer's Route a three-starred 5.7 romp but the rain started just as we reached the base of the climb.

On our last day in Tuolumne, we decided to climb West Crack ***, highly recommended by Bill. "You'll love it", he told us, "the only hard move is at the bottom." Since I'm more intimidated by heights than Patsy, I cleverly volunteered to lead the first pitch, the crux pitch. This 5.9 move was protected by the only bolt on the entire four pitch route. Still, it was a little spooky, stepping onto this greasy-looking crystal knob. "What's taking you so long?", came the encouraging call from below. "It's kinda scary". But I made the move OK and the going became easy, maybe 5.3, for a while. Then I came to a bulge, not one of those less than vertical bulges but instead one of those overhanging bulges with poor protection. I slotted in a couple of thin wired nuts and proceeded. Up near the top, the crack started to narrow until I could plainly see that it disappeared altogether. Damn, well it doesn't look like 5.7 to me! I had used my smallest tricam lower down. The only thing I could get into this crack was a precariously balanced 1.5 tricam, the fulcrum of which lay only about 1/8 inch from the edge of the crack. "What am I doing here, 150' straight up, a long way above my last piece of good pro?" If there was ever a time to panic, this was surely it. Eyes as big as golfballs, I sized up the friction ahead. Still didn't look like 5.7 to me. I'm screwed. But I've got to go for it. I scampered up those 15 feet to the security of a large horizontal crack, my mouth as dry as a bone. Shit howdy, I made it!

I clipped into all three belay bolts and belayed Patsy up. No problem for Patsy. Another group is waiting below and one of them starts up. Patsy starts up the second pitch, which begins with a 5.8 move past an overhang. This looks really scary to me and it becomes more so as Patsy struggles to find the solution. Meanwhile the other leader arrives at the top of the crack and starts making strangely reminiscent noises. He reaches me and I offer him a loop to clip into but he's shaking so bad, he can't clip his biner into the loop. I do it for him. He turns out to be another Scot!

Patsy's still struggling, trying to find a way past the bulge, but the sky is beginning to look ominous again. We decide to rap. Forunately (this must be a common occurrence), there is a rap station exactly half way down the wall. We couldn't have made it otherwise. We all rap off. Quite a climb. We'll have to go back for another shot at it one of these days.

Early next morning we headed east, stopping off at Fish Lake Hot Well for a much needed bath. This place is quite something, a concrete jacuzzi in the middle of the desert with a view across the eastern side of the White-Inyo mountains. We enjoyed the water, the solitude and the tranquility for quite a while before heading on toward our next destination, Arc Dome.

We stopped in Gabbs for gas. Well, we tried to find gas in Gabbs. It was dark. We were almost out of gas. We eventually found a group of students emerging from their school. Patsy asked one of them where the gas station was. "It's closed but follow me and I'll take you to the owner's house." We followed along at exactly 25 mph and were introduced to the owner of the gas station, the bar and the grocery store. A very nice woman, she opened up the gas station and turned the pumps on for us. Phew!

We headed east, in the direction of Berlin-Icthyosaur State Park and crashed for the night somewhere in the middle of the Toiyabe National Forest. The next day we climbed Arc Dome, 11,773', a peak recommended to us by Mark Adrian. This turned out to be an excellent hike; somewhere we would never have ventured to without prior knowledge. Weary, we spent the night at Columbine Campground right by the start of the hiking trail to Arc Dome.

Next morning, we discovered that we had picked up a hitchhiker in Tuolumne. A chewed off corner of a granola bar here, a nibble into an apple there. Must be a mouse. We also ate our breakfast then set off. After miles, many miles, of dusty dirt road, we hit Highway 50 and headed to Spencer Hot Springs. Two soaks in as many days. Were we the clean ones! There was one rather self-conscious middle aged man there when we arrived but he took off shortly afterwards and we soon had the place to ourselves. These Hot Springs are another jewel in the middle of the desert. We enjoyed a soak in both the large pool and the metal stock tank with temperature control.

Our final adventure before meeting Carl in Salt Lake City was to climb Ruby Dome, 11,387', another Mark Adrian recommendation. We drove into Elko in the early afternoon. It was swelteringly hot. We sought out all the air-conditioned tourist comforts before eating dinner at one of the Basque restaurants. What a rip-off! Still early evening, we drove into the mountains, seeking a campsite in beautiful Lamoille Canyon but the campground was full. Oh well! We camped instead, in solitude, down by the river.

Next morning we headed over to the Ruby Dome trailhead, the Spring Creek Property Owners' campground, which was overrun by cattle, not property owners. Ruby Dome was quite a hike and we were finally glad to have brought along our ice axes. Such a switch from the heat we had left in Elko. This peak is a subalpine preserve in the middle of the Great Basin desert and to us contrasted more vividly against the searing heat below then did either Wheeler or White Mountain Peak when we climbed those.

On our return to the car, we befriended a Texan couple, travelling with their granddaughter, Virginia. The Texans were so friendly, and Virginia so engaging, that we ended up spending the night there, playing games with Virginia all morning until we had to leave for Salt Lake City.

Back to the heat. Sweating buckets waiting for Carl at the airport. We made haste out of the City and back to the refuge of the mountains.

Part of a Los Alpinistas story. Text and photographs by Richard J. Hughes.