5 nights in the Wind River Range! Trail suggestions?

Beautiful place to backpack. The following bpl post has some good suggestions:

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/advice-needed-for-wind-river-range-in-early-sept/#post-3382393

Highly recommended – this is written by a NOLS instructor who hikes in the Winds a lot.

http://www.mcreynoldscpa.com/BeyondTrails

Thanks for the replies! Beyond trails is on the way :) August can’t come soon enough!

So right now I’ve got two main contenders

1. Starting at Big Sandy, heading up over Hailey pass to grave lake then looping down via lizard head plateau, through the cirque and back to big sandy.
2. Starting at Green river and hiking down to elkhart via the highline trail.

Any thoughts?

I responded to the last Wind River question about two weeks ago. Come on, guys, we need to take turns and get different perspectives :).

Both are fine routes. It is hard to miss even if you were to randomly poke your finger at a spot on the map.

If you go over Hailey Pass be sure to take the short side trip to Baptiste Lake and Mt. Hooker. Also be sure to observe the camping restrictions near Lonesome Lake; there are good camp sites east of the lake along the stream. I’ve also seen tents pitched above and ~SW of the lake outside the exclusion zone.

If you do the Highline Trail the must visits are Titcomb Basin and Indian Basin. Another highlight in the area would be Wall Lake which is an easy off-trail walk from Cook Lakes if you get that far.

Mid August is a little earlier in the year than when I usually go. There could be some mosquitoes, would like to hear from someone else on this topic.

I hope you get some more advice.

Another comment. Do you have transportation from Elkhart to Green River Lakes figured out? Presumably that is where your car would be. Hitching a ride could take some time. I have been to GR Lakes only once and there was not much traffic. There is a shuttle car service for a fee run by the Great Outdoor Shop in Pinedale IIRC.

Thanks so much John! Unfortunately we couldn’t do any later so we’ll have to risk the mosquitos… I’ll let you know how it goes. I’ll do a proper write up and post it in trip reports as well.

There’s a few routes in the Beyond Trails book that look great, having done a decent amount of off trail stuff in the more forgiving landscapes of my home (Snowdonia, Wales) I’d love to do some in while I’m in the Winds.

As far as transport goes, we were planning on using the shuttle service if we end up doing green river to elkhart :)