We made it back to Lander without incident, checked into the Pronghorn Inn, and walked over to the Lander Bar for burgers and beers.

Overnight, significant cloud cover came over the Winds and Lander. We couldn’t see too far into the foothills from town.

Having some fun with some of the decorations at the Pronghorn Inn before the drive back to Denver. On the long drive back to Denver, we drove through an impressive thunderstorm that darkened the skies, dumped buckets of rain, and blew a fantastic wind. We were sure that our flight would be cancelled, but after reaching a crescendo, the storm passed, and our flight home was just a bit delayed.

While we hadn’t completed the route we originally planned, and had skipped most of the North Fork of the Little Wind River, we had certainly had a great adventure. In this section, I’ll talk a little bit about each of the areas we visited, including passes, trails, and specific off trail sections. But I probably won’t get too detailed into this.

The Bears Ears approach trail was pretty nice. After some miles through the forest, it gained a good deal of elevation and the views opened up nicely. The views from the plateau near Mount Chauvenet were fantastic and made for a great first day on the trail.

The South Fork was a beautiful area of high mountain scenery, especially the upper reaches of the creeks that drained the area. Each of the high lakes and basins that we visited offered fantastic views and solitude. We explored this area pretty thoroughly and found beautiful lake after beautiful lake. Baptiste Lake was especially impressive.

We found Tepee Pass more difficult than we assumed based on the map. The trail through this area disappears shortly after leaving Onion Meadows. I would consider this a cross country route. The upper lakes of Raft Creek (Lake 10455) looked like they offered good camping, and the views across the South Fork Basin from the top of the pass were awesome.

The high route between Baptiste Creek and Roberts Lake was basically what we expected, exposed, covered in talus, and quite slow. But the views were great, especially over the Grave Creek drainage from the west Roberts Pass.

The trail sections through the East Fork drainage, Washakie Creek drainage, and the Cirque of the Towers were pretty straightforward. This area of the Winds is relatively heavily used, so travel is easy and we ran into several other parties here. The Cirque of the Towers was just as impressive on our second visit.

Our return route down the North Fork doesn’t need much commentary either, it was a pretty straightforward hike on trail the whole way.

While I probably wouldn’t recommend retracing our exact route, I would encourage experienced hikers seeking adventure in the Winds to create their own routes, and for this purpose Beyond Trails in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming is a great resource. You can certainly stick with the routes recommended in the book, or use the included photographs and annotated topo maps to craft your own adventure. Either way, it’s worth the thirty bucks.

That’s all I have to say for this one, hope you enjoyed it!