Trip Report Wind river range 8-18-19 to 8-28-19
Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2019 2:21 pm
I just completed my fourth annual trip to the Wind River Range. The first couple of times I was just learning the ropes of a new range.
Now I know some of the range reasonably well, although I confess I have only done trips in the middle..nothing south or north.
This year's trip was a loop trip, starting at St. Lawrence trailhead on the Indian Reservation ( east) side of the range, hitting some lakes just east of the range, crossing the divide at Kagevah and Photo Passes, and returning over Windy Gap. 11 days. We had great weather, which is a little unusual I suppose for the winds...no rain. The only real issue we had was it was extremely windy for a couple of days toward the end of the trip. More later.
I went with my friend Mike from Colorado, same as the last three times. We had good results cutthroat fishing two years ago, and poor results trying for goldens last year, so we decided not to have two bad years in row by returning to some lakes we visited in 2017.
We went over Entigo Pass..a pretty easy straightforward climb from the trailhead and got good views. Our goal was to make it to Lake Heebeecheeche, where we had stayed in our trip 2 years earlier. Nice area. We didnt quite make it the first day, but made it with a short hike the next day. We visited a variety of lakes. We decided to have a couple of layover days at the start so as to work off some of the food weight prior to tacking the passes and some more difficult cross country. Here is just one of the lakes we visited.
Some wildflowers along the lakes..
As with our trip two years ago, we had horrible problems with black flies. (aka buffalo flies?). They are smarter than mosquitoes I think and their bites are much worse. We found that they could not bite thru socks, but they crawled up the open space between the socks and pants and did their damage there. We tucked our pants into our socks. DEET worked, but the crafty devils found their openings...
After a couple of days of leisure we decided to go over the divide. Here is a shot of Sonnicant Lake, where we camped one night.
And a shot of Kagevah Lake and Mount Kagevah.
We made it over Kagevah Pass ( pretty easy). The views were fine.
Here is one looking north toward Photo Pass which we would go over the same day.
Photo Pass was very easy from the south. We met a party of four here who were doing the Wind River High Route. While we saw several groups in the Heebeecheeche/Sonnicant area, these folks were the last people we would see for the next 5 days.
The view from Photo Pass was outstanding. And in thinking of where to go the next year, the Bonneville area is definitely in play.
While Photo Pass was easy from the south, the north side was difficult. There was lots of loose rock and each of us fell once.
We were glad to get to the bottom of descent. A view looking up toward the pass.
We saw tons of elk sign in this area, but no elk. We headed over to the Headwater Lakes. We made it to a beautiful lake. This is lake 10563. OK, at this point, I made a major navigation error. I pride myself on "just give me a topo map and I can figure out anything". After leaving lake 10563,
we went down the canyon and around and up to the north. I knew we had to get to a lake above. I misjudged how much we descended and I saw a lake on the left. We went by it and up the canyon. I know this is going to sound really dumb, but we went by lake 10563 again. I am sure some of you will read this and say, "how could you be so dumb?" Well, whatever. We went up the gully in the right of the above picture, thinking we were on track and only when we got to the plateau above did we realize that we were off track. This is the worst navigation error I have ever made in 50 years of cross country travel and I was totally embarrassed. It turned out to be very easy to correct, and it may be a new route and goes..class 2! We only lost like an hour due to the error.
Back on track, we went over Europe Col. A view from Europe Col toward Milky Lakes, our next destination. End of part 1. Will be parts 2 and 3 coming.
Now I know some of the range reasonably well, although I confess I have only done trips in the middle..nothing south or north.
This year's trip was a loop trip, starting at St. Lawrence trailhead on the Indian Reservation ( east) side of the range, hitting some lakes just east of the range, crossing the divide at Kagevah and Photo Passes, and returning over Windy Gap. 11 days. We had great weather, which is a little unusual I suppose for the winds...no rain. The only real issue we had was it was extremely windy for a couple of days toward the end of the trip. More later.
I went with my friend Mike from Colorado, same as the last three times. We had good results cutthroat fishing two years ago, and poor results trying for goldens last year, so we decided not to have two bad years in row by returning to some lakes we visited in 2017.
We went over Entigo Pass..a pretty easy straightforward climb from the trailhead and got good views. Our goal was to make it to Lake Heebeecheeche, where we had stayed in our trip 2 years earlier. Nice area. We didnt quite make it the first day, but made it with a short hike the next day. We visited a variety of lakes. We decided to have a couple of layover days at the start so as to work off some of the food weight prior to tacking the passes and some more difficult cross country. Here is just one of the lakes we visited.
Some wildflowers along the lakes..
As with our trip two years ago, we had horrible problems with black flies. (aka buffalo flies?). They are smarter than mosquitoes I think and their bites are much worse. We found that they could not bite thru socks, but they crawled up the open space between the socks and pants and did their damage there. We tucked our pants into our socks. DEET worked, but the crafty devils found their openings...
After a couple of days of leisure we decided to go over the divide. Here is a shot of Sonnicant Lake, where we camped one night.
And a shot of Kagevah Lake and Mount Kagevah.
We made it over Kagevah Pass ( pretty easy). The views were fine.
Here is one looking north toward Photo Pass which we would go over the same day.
Photo Pass was very easy from the south. We met a party of four here who were doing the Wind River High Route. While we saw several groups in the Heebeecheeche/Sonnicant area, these folks were the last people we would see for the next 5 days.
The view from Photo Pass was outstanding. And in thinking of where to go the next year, the Bonneville area is definitely in play.
While Photo Pass was easy from the south, the north side was difficult. There was lots of loose rock and each of us fell once.
We were glad to get to the bottom of descent. A view looking up toward the pass.
We saw tons of elk sign in this area, but no elk. We headed over to the Headwater Lakes. We made it to a beautiful lake. This is lake 10563. OK, at this point, I made a major navigation error. I pride myself on "just give me a topo map and I can figure out anything". After leaving lake 10563,
we went down the canyon and around and up to the north. I knew we had to get to a lake above. I misjudged how much we descended and I saw a lake on the left. We went by it and up the canyon. I know this is going to sound really dumb, but we went by lake 10563 again. I am sure some of you will read this and say, "how could you be so dumb?" Well, whatever. We went up the gully in the right of the above picture, thinking we were on track and only when we got to the plateau above did we realize that we were off track. This is the worst navigation error I have ever made in 50 years of cross country travel and I was totally embarrassed. It turned out to be very easy to correct, and it may be a new route and goes..class 2! We only lost like an hour due to the error.
Back on track, we went over Europe Col. A view from Europe Col toward Milky Lakes, our next destination. End of part 1. Will be parts 2 and 3 coming.