Watch the full video for the trip here:
This 63 mile light-weight backpacking trip through the Wind River Range of Wyoming started and ended at the Big Sandy trailhead, near Pinedale Wyoming. The main focus of the trip was to hike a loop including Grave Lake and Wind River Peak’s summit and enjoy early Fall in the Winds. The trip was planned to include a camp at Grave Lake in particular, as this was a favorite area I passed through on a prior trip. And if the weather permitted, one camp on the summit of Wind River Peak was also on the itinerary.
The clockwise loop included parts of the Fremont Trail, Hailey Pass Trail, Bears Ears Trail, Lizard Head Trail, North Fork Trail, Pinto Pass Trail, Ice Lakes Trail, Tayo Creek Trail, Little Sandy Trail and Big Sandy Trail. About a quarter of the loop was cross-country travel through trailless areas near Wind River Peak and Coon Lake, but the majority of travel was on designated trails.
Below is a link to the CalTopo route map showing the route followed for this trip. The map DOES NOT show a GPS track – the lines and routes on the map were made from Google Earth and Caltopo for reference only – the actual route I hiked varies from these lines and routes.
The map includes a couple different variations that were not used on this trip. Rather than hiking through the Cathedral and Smith Lakes area, I went over Lizard Head Trail instead. And the weather was good enough to permit summiting Wind River Peak (but not spending the night on the summit), so I didn’t hike the Ice Lakes trail.
Below is the LighterPack.com gear list (approximately the same gear as my 2022 Central Winds loop):
https://lighterpack.com/r/92a5lz
Trail and Route Conditions
Big Sandy Trailhead to Meeks Lake
The heavily used trail from Big Sandy Trailhead to Meeks Lake was virtually deserted at my 7PM start time on a September Tuesday evening. It was a very short hike with a pretty sunset, ending at a decent campsite in the forest upstream from Meeks Lake in under 40 minutes.
Meeks Lake to Grave Lake
The Fremont trail, Hailey Pass Trail and Bears Ears Trail were all in good condition, well marked and signed, and easy to follow. The trail gets rocky and convoluted around lower Twin Lake just south of Hailey Pass, but it’s easy to follow. The East side of Hailey Pass has very steep switchbacks and is a little loose, which might be intimidating to the less experienced backpacker.
Grave Lake is one of the nicest places to camp in the Southern Winds, with great views, good campsites and an excellent beach.
Water levels in the Winds were the lowest I’ve seen them in the last 5 years for early September, which made stream crossings easier than usual. Washakie Creek was simple to hop across on small rocks with shallow water.
Grave Lake to North Fork Trail
Bears Ears Trail and North Fork Trail were in good condition and well signed. There was no water after passing the snowfield near the junction of Bears Ears Trail until the descent of the Lizard Head Trail above Bear Lake. There are a few spots on the east side of Lizard Head Plateau where the trail peters out and where the trail has multiple branches, but it’s pretty easy to stay on trail nonetheless.
North Fork Trail to Coon Lake
The North Fork Trail and Pinto Pass Trail were in good shape and well signed. The Ice Lakes Trail is steep in a few places below Lower Baer Lake, and campsite trails at Lower Baer Lake are easy to confuse with the main trail, but overall it’s pretty easy to follow.
The cross-country route up the NE ridge of Wind River Peak was pleasant as usual, with lots of easy tundra and good water sources up to 11,800′ feet. There was also water at 12,500′ and also 12,960′ just below the summit area, thanks to lingering snowfields on this side of the mountain. The final 1/2 mile or so to the summit has lots of talus. On the decent of the South ridge, there’s no water between 12,960 at the snowfield and Tayo Lake and intermittent talus to negotiate until you get below 12,100′ or so.
The original goal was to camp on the summit of Wind River Peak, but the weather was a little too unsettled to make that a prudent option. On a similar trip two years earlier, I was blessed with good weather and moderate wind that allowed for a night on the summit. That was an ultralight trip with no video camera, but below are some shots that I took with the phone.
The short segment of Tayo Lake Trail I hiked down was hard to find starting at Tayo Lake, but became obvious again a few hundred yards down from the lake. The cross-country route from below Tayo Lake to Coon lake was pleasant as usual and fairly easy to navigate.
Coon Lake to Big Sandy Trailhead
The cross-country route from Coon Lake to Little Sandy Creek/Trail is pleasant and scenic at the start as it rounds the south side of Coon Lake and climbs to a small pass west of the lake. From there you connect a series of 4 or 5 small benches, each one downward and leftward from the last, progressively working to the northeast. Once you reach the low point or drainage of this bench system, there’s an open area of talus and small ledges that leads down to a steep, wet brushy bushwhacking crux of about 10 feet in length to descend through a thicket of large willows. This short, steep willowy funnel is the only non-technical way I’ve found to pass from the benches through the cliffs below them to the main valley floor.
Once on the main valley floor, travel is fast and easy to the crossing of Little Sandy Creek and the Little Sandy Trail. The upper part of the Little Sandy Trail is one of my favorite spots in the Southern Winds, with pretty meadows and steep towering cliffs on the East side of the valley. The trail peters out as you pass treeline, but bits of trail remain visible if you stay high and left (West) before crossing Little Sandy Creek, not far below lake 10839.
Just above lake 10839 you’ll hit the nicely constructed switchbacks of the Little Sandy Trail as they climb toward the south side of Temple Peak Pass. The trail peters out again as it levels off near the pass, but if you stay high and Right (East) you’ll avoid most of the talus. The trail becomes obvious again as you start descending the north side of Temple Peak Pass.
On this trip I finally found the most efficient trail around Temple Lake. This higher trail option is obvious on maps and on Google Earth, but it’s tricky to find unless you know where it starts. On two prior trips I’ve always resorted to the lower tail near the lake shore, which is easier to find and it works, but it’s more convoluted. As the trail descends steeply on the north side of Temple Peak Pass, it passes through an area of small landslides on the grassy slopes to the left (South). At the bottom of those landslides at just about 11,000′, a spur trail can be seen cutting right and contouring across the talus toward the North – that’s the high trail. Finding the high trail is one thing, staying on it is another. There are a few places where the high trail gets close to the low trail, or where spurs connect the two, but staying high and right worked well.
Once you hook up with the main trail again after passing the cutoff trail to Deep Lake, it’s a smooth, straight-line trail most of the way down to Big Sandy Lake. The trail from Big Sandy Lake to Big Sandy Trailhead was busy as usual and one of the few Trails in the Winds where I can keep up a 3 mph pace for two hours.
Water
Water was fairly abundant for most of the trip with no extended dry sections of more than a few miles. If you plan ahead and fill up your water bottle before heading over a pass, you should have no issues staying hydrated. As mentioned earlier, water levels in streams was unusually low for early September, making stream crossings easier than expected.
There was no water after passing the snowfield near the junction of Bears Ears Trail until the descent of the Lizard Head Trail above Bear Lake. And the South Ridge of Wind River Peak is dry too.
Bugs
I saw maybe a dozen mosquitos total on the entire trip. There were some biting flies at Grave Lake.
People and Wildlife
By far most of the people were along the Big Sandy Trail, followed by the Fremont Trail and Hailey Pass trail. Traffic was moderate on Bears Ears, Lizard Head and North Fork trails, and also moderate on Little Sandy Trail north of Temple Peak Pass. I saw nobody on the Ice Lakes Trail or the southern part of Little Sandy Trail.
The most notable wildlife was a bull moose along the North Fork Trail. There were a few grouse, deer and elk too. No bear or bear scat was seen, although I was not specifically looking for it.
Gear and Equipment
The principles of lightweight backpacking were employed. The base weight for this trip, including all gear minus food and worn/carried items, was 13.9 pounds, which included nearly 4.5 pounds of camera gear. The total pack weight on day one, including all food for the trip minus worn items, was 21 pounds.
Much of the gear used on this trip is MYOG (Make Your Own Gear), including the backpack, front packs, hiking pants, bug bivy, gaiters and rain jacket/pack cover combo. For more information on the custom ultralight backpack called the Talaria, please see the link below:
The Talaria Backpack https://olympicul.com/product/talaria-backpack/
For camera and video gear, the goal was to achieve very good video quality with the lightest gear possible. For video, a Fuji X-T4 mirrorless camera with 18-55mm lens was used. I also carried a MYOG tripod adapter to turn three trekking poles into a tripod. Also included were four camera batteries, a polarizing filter and a Rode VideoMicro hotshoe microphone for the camera.
Trip Statistics
Note: distances and vertical feet stats are approximate and based on route profiles created in Caltopo. In most cases, Caltopo routes are more smooth and shorter than the real life routes hiked on real trails or routes. I typically multiply mileage values derived from Caltopo profiles by 1.15, to add 15% to more accurately gauge real life mileages hiked. Vertical feet values tend to be less accurate than distance values, with routes drawn in Caltopo introducing many small ups and downs that do not exist in real life. So all vertical feet values derived from Caltopo profiles have been multiplied by 0.7, to subtract 30% to more accurately gauge real life vertical feet hiked.
Route
63 miles
4 nights
+10100 vertical feet
-10100 vertical feet
Day 0: Big Sandy Trailhead to Meeks Lake
2 Miles, +230 -40 Vertical Feet
Big Sandy Trail #099
Fremont Trail #096
Day 1: Meeks Lake to Grave Lake
17 Miles, +2600 -2000 Vertical Feet
Fremont Trail #096
Hailey Pass Trail #111
Bears Ears Trail #716
Day 2: Grave Lake to North Fork Trail
15 Miles, +2100 -2200
Bears Ears Trail #716
Lizard Head Trail #714
North Fork Trail #710
Day 3: North Fork Trail to Coon Lake
14 Miles, +3600 -3100
North Fork Trail #710
Pinto Pass Trail #708
Ice Lakes Trail #706
Tayo Lake Trail #707
Day 4: Coon Lake to Big Sandy Trailhead
15 Miles, +1500 -2800
Little Sandy Trail #098
Big Sandy Trail #099