Wind River Range – July 2011
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For my first post, i thought I would do a trip report over my first trip to the Winds.
My friend and I made this trip in late July of this previous summer, and it was a blast, with perfect weather.On our way from Kansas to Wyoming, we spent the first night along Highway 14, west of Fort Collins, near Joe Wright Reservoir, as a halfway point, and for us flatlanders to get acclimatized. We had also seen that you could catch Greyling at the Reservoir, so we thought we would give it a shot. We ended up each catching several.
Joe Wright
The next morning we made our way to Wyoming and eventually to Moccasin Lake, on the Indian Reservation, where the trailhead started. We camped for a night there, and got a fresh start the next morning.
Mocassin Lake
On our way out of the lake the next morning, we found fresh bear tracks from the night before.
After hiking a few hours, we decided to stop at Gaylord Lake and try some fishing, but we didnt see any sign of fish, so we just took the evening to rest. It sprinkled on us for about 10 minutes at aroung 5 PM, and that was all the rain we had for the whole trip.
Gaylord Lake
Leaving Gaylord Lake the next morning, we reached Vernal Lake in a couple hours. We had heard this lake had good fishing, and while the fish lacked size and heft, there were plenty. We spent the whole afternoon exploring this area.
Vernal Lake
From the outlet of Vernal.
The next morning, we fished Vernal for an hour or so, and then headed out for Grave Lake. We first made a fairly tough crossing at the Popo Agie River I believe, and then made it to Onion Meadows, where we stopped for a little while to dry off and fish. We eventually made it to Grave Lake, set up camp, and went to explore and fish the lake, which was by far the biggest lake we would hit.
Grave Lake
We spent the whole afternoon and next morining fishing Grave Lake, and caught some very nice fish including a few Lakers. When we decided to leave Grave, we made the same trek back, stopped at Vernal Lake for another hour of fishing, and decided to go off trail to camp at Lost Lake for our last night. I didnt take us long to find Lost Lake from Vernal, and we were glad we decided to hit Lost because it wound up being the best fishing lake we went to. We also hit a small Brook trout pond along the way.
Lost Lake
The next morning we fished Lost Lake for a couple hours, and eventually started the the last 5 miles to get back to the truck. The hike out was pretty uneventful, and while we were happy to be back at the truck, we were dissapointed that we had to leave. We are already planning a more adventurous return trip for next year.
Some random pictures.
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