Pinedale, WY and the Wind River Range

After a breakfast of donuts, coffee, banana and yogurt, we tried our luck at hitching. An hour later, we were picked up by a guy heading to Jackson. We stopped at Lava Mt. Lodge for gas and to buy him a coffee, and we were warned about grizzlies in the area. We were dropped off at Togwotee Mt. Lodge, then started our roadwalk on the highway. After about three miles, we found the old FS30010 along Blackrock Creek. We followed this to a 4WD road, then to an established jeep road. We met a horse group who said they just saw a grizzly the way we were heading. We never saw it, but saw a very spooked horse tied to a trailer. We climbed through Squaw Basin, somehow missing our route. We stumbled and worked our way to Hareford Creek and Larkspur Creek, floundered through Beauty Park trying to find the jeep trail along Fish Creek. We followed this to a crossing with Squaw Creek and 'shwhacked to a pack trail heading east. We took the trail about 3.5 miles before finding a campsite just short of a meadow, where we met NoBos Sunflower and her husband (can't remember his name!)

We moved out, passing the meadow, heading east. We took a drainage up to the Divide, passing a spring and coming upon a jeep trail. We followed this along the ridge, following orange snowmobile markers. We eventually came to a meadow and Leeds Creek. We had a choice of routes, and hearing NoBos talk about new tread on the "purple" route, we headed south. We were able to follow new CDT markers until Dead Horse Creek, and then lost the trail. We didn't see or find any new trail, so the lesson is: never trust anyone going the opposite direction. We had to bushwhack uphill before finally finding a jeep track that lead to the official route, near Fish Lake Mt. We followed the trail to Lake of the Woods, where we took the alternate to Union Pass, walked north to the trailhead for Flat Lake, and took the 4WD road over the Divide and to the lake. A storm came in, so we camped behind some trees for cover just past the lake.

We got going early because we knew we would be going slow. We headed up the jeep track to the Divide then headed south. Some thunder showers were coming our way, so we hunkered down hoping it would pass. It did and we followed the road to Granite Lake. Keeping south and 'schwhacking our way through trees, we came upon boulder fields littered with ponds, with Shale Mt. leaning to the east. This area was so beautiful, we didn't mind going slow. Eventually getting to the south side of Pinto Lake, we found a pack trail that went straight to the Divide. We contoured east toward a lake below Dads Lake, when we got hit by a storm. We set up the tent to wait it out; sleet, snow, hail, wind, thunder and lightning. We decided we wouldn't be able to do the ridgewalk, and started towards a bail out point at Faler Lake. On. Our way down we saw a small herd of big horn sheep. We got down to and crossed Roaring Fork, only to climb rather easily to an unnamed pond. We made our way to Crescent Lake, finding a pack trail to Faler Lake, seeing a bald eagle along the way. We made dinner and thought we could make it to Clear Lake with no problems. We headed down the "trail" to the outlet stream. The trail disappeared and we had to wetfoot across the waterfall that was the creek. Our map noted that we should be able to follow cairns, but trying to find a pile of 1-3 rocks in the woods in failing light was near impossible. We decided it would be easier to go straight to Clear Lake. What the notes didn't mention, was the cliff sides went straight into the water with no shore. We had to climb back the way we came, up steep slopes, in the trees and keep going. The light was gone and we had to use headlamps. As we crossed a boulder field, DP fell and really hurt his ankle. We had to keep moving, and found the one flat spot to make camp.

We still had about two miles of 'schwhacking to do, with the added difficulty of going over burnt blowdowns. We eventually got to the point of just walking on the logs. I took the tent from DP and gave him my poles to protect his ankle, but the going was slow anyway. We followed Clear Creek until we reached Natural Bridge, then hiked another mile on flat, clear trail to the junction with Slide Creek. We took a midday break, and all in all, it took us five hours to go three miles! We were running out of food and DP was in pain, so we decided to take the shortest route into Pinedale. We came out in the middle of the Green River Lakes, and headed south on nice flat trail. We had marvelous views of the White Rock Cliffs and Squaretop Mt. We did have to stop briefly to wait out a thunder storm. We passed Beaver Park, looked up to Tourist Creek, which was our other option for coming off the ridge. It looked impressive, and we were looking forward to seeing it and Knapsack Col, but we had to pass. We left the Green River and climbed up to Trail Creek Park, took the Highline Trail, then found a great place to camp about 0.5 miles further.

We got going early over Green River Pass to Summit Lake. We took the Pine Creek Canyon Trail to Trapper Lake and Glimpse Lake. From Crows Nest Lookout, we took an unmaintained trail to Pine Creek. Of course, we didn't know it was crap until we reached the bottom and found a sign by a brand new pack bridge to nowhere telling us so. We kept going toward Long Lake and up to Elkhart Trailhead. We were able to get a ride immediately by two climbers who just bagged Gannett Peak. They dropped us off in Pinedale, we got a room at Sundance Motel, went out for Chinese food, resupplied, picked up a map of the Range and a water pump, then retired for the night.