I spent the entire month of July backpacking and fishing the Wind River Range (a benefit of being a teacher). I used mainly the Big Sandy and Elkhart Park (near Pinedale) trailheads. The scenery and fishing was great for brook trout and golden trout. However, this year I encountered some of the most variable and consistently rainy weather I’ve ever encountered in the mountains in the summer. Usually, it just storms or rains in the afternoon. This year I had several hikes of 3-4 days of rain, storms at any time, and even 4 inches of snow and high 20’s at 11 AM. In Desolation Valley, I think that one night I found bear tracks circling my tent and around my ursack. It appears to have pulled at the rope attached to a boulder (tore the white rope a bit), scratched the bag, but the food was fine. See minute 9.42-11.03 in the following video and tell me if you think that it was a bear. Here is a video montage of most of the trip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5rKl_iOkbY
Wind River Range Backpacking Video
On the 1st hike, I went from Big Sandy up the Fremont Trail, to the Pyramid trail, and off-trail into Desolation Valley. This is a pretty pond on the Fremont Trail.
This is Desolation Valley at the Upper East Park Lake:
Nice Brook Trout in awe inspiring scenery along the East Fork River:
I also did several hikes out of Elkhart Park, Pole Creek Trail, and off-trail. Here are some of the better pictures from these hikes.
A pretty fishless lake (Lake 10,488)
Cool reflections in a pretty lake.
Here is one of the moose I saw by the Cook lakes:
In campsites outside of Pinedale and toward Elkhart Park it was fun watching and taking pictures of the antelope.
