A Week in Wyoming's Wind River Range

• Introduction

• The Wind River Range
  • New Fork Lakes trailhead
  • Sojourn at Peak Lake
  • Return via Summit Lake

• Epilogue

Geographic primer

The Wind River Range is an eighty mile-long mountain range that forms part of the Continental Divide. Aligned in a NW - SE disposition, the centre is located approximately 100 miles to the south-east of Grand Teton National Park. The entire range is set aside as wilderness, according to the confines of the Wilderness Act of 1964, inluding the Bridger Wilderness, the Fitzpatrick Wilderness, the Popo Agie Wilderness, the Wind River roadless area and the Wind River Indian Reservation. All of these wilderness area are located within the Bridger-Teton and the Shoshone National Forests. Unfortunately, Wilderness designation affords only marginal protection to this beautiful and fragile region. The borders of the Wind Rivers are literally being eaten away by grazing cattle.

Geologic profile

The highest peak in the Winds, Gannet Peak, 13,804', is also the highest in the state of Wyoming. As far north and as high as the range is, it is shaped by rain and ice. There exist well over 1,000 lakes within the Winds, many of them glacial remnants. For this range is highly glaciated, containing seven of the ten largest glaciers still remaining within the continental US.

There are five prominent glacial cirques within the range, Mammoth, Dinwoody, Titcomb Basin and Peak Lake cirques in the North and Cirque of the Towers in the south.

Cirque of the Towers has the distinction of containing some of the finest alpine granite in the World, the Chamonix of North America without the crowds. Yosemite Valley has the crowds. Further to the north, the Canadian equivalent is the Bugaboos, although the weather in the "Bugs" is consistently worse than in the "Winds".

The itinerary of this backpacking trip was inspired by Joe Kelsey. We had for some time been planning to undertake two week-long backpacks into the Winds, one of which was going to be to the Cirque of the Towers. We were unsure of where to go for the other week until, just two weeks before we were to depart, I picked up Summit magazine and there was this article on the Wind Rivers by Joe Kelsey. Pay dirt!

Pinedale resources

• Bridger-Teton Forest Service Office
  Pinedale Ranger District
  Box 220
  Pinedale
  WY 82941
  (307) 886-3166

• The Great Outdoor Shop