Wyoming 13ers Quest, The Sequel

Day 8: Wind River Peak (1 peak)

I love the sound of rain, but not when I wake up on the morning of a big hike. The big cold front had moved south over Wyoming, reaching the edge of the Winds, and rain showers gave way to fog as we drove up the Sinks Canyon road to the Worthen Meadow Trailhead. I frantically double-checked the forecast, and the rapid refresh models assured me that it was supposed to be cloudy, but convection would be limited by the cold temperatures (keeping lightning at bay), and it wasn’t supposed to rain much until the afternoon. Despite the generally unfavorable weather, I was a lot less anxious about this day since I would have company most of the way: my mom would hike with me to treeline, waiting there while I raced up and back to the summit. So much of this game is mental for me, and it was a real relief to have someone to talk to instead of getting lost in a spiral of unconstrained worries.

There are two main ways to approach Wind River Peak. Eric and Sean both chose to approach from west of the Divide via Little Sand Creek, but so far I’ve only ever climbed Wind River Peak from the east. The west-side route is considerably shorter, but getting to the trailhead requires a serious 4wd vehicle, a bike ride, or a long road walk, and the upper route is mostly off trail, requiring lots of bushwhacking and routefinding. I already knew the east-side route, the east-side trailhead was much more convenient for my wacky driving logistics, and the route itself is just a well-maintained trail to treeline, so it was a no-brainer for me to choose this route once again.

The east-side approach to Wind River Peak starts with the Sheep Bridge Trail, which crosses the Middle Popo Agie River on the pseudonymous bridge after a few miles.

Beyond Sheep Bridge, we follow the Middle Fork Trail for several more miles. Dense fog sat over all the higher mountains.

Foggy forest views characterize the next couple hours. It's mindless hiking, but at least I have someone to share the time with today.

A bit of sun started to break through as the morning wore on, dappling the forest floor.

After hiking the first 12 trail miles together, my mom waited in a patch of forest just below treeline near one of the Deep Creek Lakes while I continued on to the summit. The cloud base was around 10,400 ft., so by now we were enveloped in damp, chilly fog.

Leaving the trail, I climbed up the broad east ramp of Wind River Peak. The visibility was so low, and the terrain so uniform, that I had to keep watching the GPS on my phone to make sure I was on the right route.

Oddly enough, I actually had cell service here, and I checked the weather satellite images to see what I could expect up higher. It looked like the clouds ended right at the Wind River crest, which meant that I had a chance of clear weather on the summit. Teases of blue sky above confirmed my hopes.

It was a cool moment when I finally climbed above the clouds around 12,400 ft., just below Chimney Rock. These clouds were so different from yesterday's: instead of convective thunderheads, these were low-lying fog banks that blanketed the whole Wind River Valley thanks to the influx of cool air.

I wasn't above all of the clouds, but at least I had climbed out of the fog, and I even got some sunlight as I climbed the last few hundred feet up Wind River Peak.

Looking back to Chimney Rock, an oddly named sub-summit around which I traversed. It seems more like a rounded knoll than a chimney...

Through breaks in the clouds, I occasionally had views of the proglacial lake at the base of Wind River Glacier far below.

Soon enough, I scrambled up the last bit of blocky talus and reached the summit plateau. The high point is that pile of rocks in the distance.

The view north from the summit was mostly obscured today, but I could see as far as the Cirque of the Towers, and the low clouds accentuated the sharp ridges of the southern Winds.

I reached the summit of Wind River Peak a little after noon. I had covered the 14.5 miles from the trailhead in just under 7 hours, not terribly fast considering that most of it was on a trail, but good enough for the time being. I called my dad and texted my mom an update from my Delorme to hers. Despite the fact that the peak was completely wrapped up in clouds, I wasn’t at all worried, because these weren’t the sort of clouds that produce lightning. It was actually pretty cool to be up on a remote summit in the midst of the fog–it felt kind of like I was floating in the sky.

I was also becoming increasingly confident that I could finish. The forecasts called for the storm to move out of Wyoming overnight, giving way to clear skies for my last day. My biggest concern now was whether the Tetons had gotten any snow or freezing rain that could make the route dangerously icy. I tried not to imagine slipping in an icy chimney, and I refused to seriously let myself consider carrying a rack of cams in case I needed to French-free my way up any icy cracks. Enough! It’s going to be fine. I just need to hike 14.5 miles back down, try to get some sleep, drive to the Tetons, solo one of the most famous technical peaks in America, drive through Yellowstone, climb the most notorious grizzly-infested 13er in Wyoming (probably in the dark), and do it all in time to beat an arbitrary record. Yeah, this is fine…

Some of them were dreamers, and some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future

And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain

With their hearts they turned to each other’s hearts for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge

Let the music keep our spirits high
Let the buildings keep our children dry

Let creation reveal its secrets by and by, by and by
When the light that’s lost within us reaches the sky ~ Jackson Browne

My mom and I reunited around 2 p.m. when I returned to her waiting spot at treeline. I felt bad making her wait around in the cold fog with not much in the way of views or other entertainment, but she was kind to go along with it. In turn, I think she felt bad for me having to keep climbing–at one point on the way up, she half-jokingly said that she hoped this didn’t make me hate hiking forever. Alas, no such luck. We filled up our water (using a filter now) and headed back down the trail, eager to get to see if there was still a lower limit to the fog.

On the hike down, we spotted this ptarmigan hunkered down just off the trail. Its plumage was still mostly summer-brown, but bits of winter-white were starting to creep in. It was just one more reminder that the Starks are always right in Wyoming: winter is always coming. Pure luck saved me from a different outcome on this project with regards to weather. If the storm had been a bit farther west and dumped snow on the Tetons, or arrived a day earlier in the Bighorns, or if any storms at all had arrived while I was in the northern Winds, my chances of a successful FKT would have been nil.

Winter is coming. ~ Stark house words

Due to some strange quirk of the weather or topography, the light drizzle turns to snow as we reach lower elevations. Normally, if it snows at lower elevations if will also be snowing up high, but I even confirmed with satellite imagery after the fact that it only snowed along the foothills of the Wind Rivers. One way or another, it starts sleeting and snowing lightly around 5 p.m., and by 6:30 the ground is mostly white. The first snowfall of the autumn is always a magical moment, with a light dusting of flakes over the tawny ground and a sense of urgency in the air. I try to enjoy it, even though I’m pretty sore and tired at this point.

Luckily, we only have a few more miles to go by the time it starts coming down more heavily. We were planning on stopping for one more break near Sheep Bridge, but since everything is soaked and we’re getting cold, stopping now sounds miserable. The annoying thing about this route is that it requires 700 ft. of elevation re-gain at the very end, and it seems like forever before we finally crest the last rise. Meanwhile, our thoughts turn to the Tetons–if it’s snowing there too, soloing the Grand would be a dicey proposition. Thankfully, I get a bit of cell service and confirm that the weather maps don’t show any precipitation to the west.

2000 miles, is very far through the snow
I’ll think of you, wherever you go ~ The Pretenders

We arrived back at the Worthen Meadow just after 7 p.m. with a round-trip time of about 13.5 hours, my shortest day so far. My dad had spent the day in Lander and picked up dinner, including the chicken nuggets that I had started dreaming about yesterday. We took a few minutes to dry off and get situated, and then began the next leg of driving. The valleys were completely socked-in by now, and my poor dad could barely see to drive down the steep and windy road into Sinks Canyon. Moreover, there were open range cows all over the road, and it was an interesting game of see-and-avoid to get safely back to the main roads.

Now, the plan got even weirder. It would only be a few hour drive to the Tetons, which meant I’d get there too early to start climbing immediately since I didn’t want to solo the hard part in the dark. Instead, we opted to stop by the ranch, where we’d sleep for an hour or two and swap vehicles. The RV had served us well so far, but for Francs Peak it would be beneficial to have a more capable vehicle, namely the old Chevy Blazer we inherited from a family friend a while back. The ranch just happened to be conveniently located halfway between Wind River Peak and the Tetons, making the funky logistics work out strangely perfect.

I fell asleep as soon as we hit the highway, and continued to sleep in the RV for a bit even after we arrived while my parents kindly unpacked and reorganized gear for our final mad dash to the finish. At some point I moved inside my cabin and set the alarm for an hour or two of sleep. These memories are groggy–but I remember how weird it felt to be at home in my real bed in the middle of a supposed mountaineering speed record. We all got up again sometime after midnight and bundled into the car, where I slept against a pillow on the window for the remaining drive over Togwotee Pass to the Tetons.

The Sunlit Summit

Trip Reports

Wyoming 13ers Guidebook