Advice Sought on ten day Wind River Range or Teton/Washakie Wilderness

I can only give a few thoughts on the winds. When I have been there (3rd week of August) the bugs were not too much of an issue at all. In a normal snow year, I only found snow on the lee side of ridges where it piles up all winter. (there was a good sized snowdrift at the top of the east side of Knapsack Col)

I have not been to the tetons for comparison.

If I had 10 days I would hike the winds from north to south.

Ben

Thanks a lot Ben. I saw Reynold's virtual tour of a Wind river trip that started on the Northeast side and worked its way cross country to the Elkhart Park area. I saw that and thought maybe instead of leaving there I could just follow the CDT north to the Green River Lakes and go cross country across some of those ridges to my original starting point.

Well I spent a lot of time on google earth and playing with maps today. It really seems to boil down to this. Winds win for scenery. Teton Wilderness is better if I want to see more big game. The Winds look very appealing but I don't get to hike with wolves and grizzlies that often so the chance to see more critters is a big factor.

How good is the wildlife viewing in the Teton Wilderness? I hear there are lots of bears and wolves but no one seems to see them in the trip reports I've read through.

Luke, I'm not hugely familiar with the Teton Wilderness, but will say what I can.

The lower areas (still 7-9k) are remarkably gentle. Big vallys, rolling passes, thick forests alternating with big meadows. Great griz terrain. I've never been in the summer, but off-season it is easy to see that the main trails get a massive amount of horse use. Other trails, like the south boundary in Yellowstone between the Thorofare and road, get little use. The high plateaus probably see little traffic outside elk season, and often have easy walking on tundra. A route which sticks to those areas would probably give you wildlife and few people.

Forrest McCarthy would be the person to ask, but he's skiing in Mongolia at the moment.

Thanks for trying David. I liked your trip report on that area but since I wont' be skiing things will be different.

I've had relatively little trouble finding resources on the Winds. The Teton Wilderness is much more obscure. No Trails Illustrated maps, no guidebooks in print and very few trip reports. I'm guessing that means the area sees relatively few hikers. I'm pretty sure I can avoid the worst of the horse packer crowd by avoiding certain trails and going cross country as much as possible.

Glad you mentioned thick forests. I like cross country but not through dense woods (especially full of bears). I'll keep most of my cross country hiking up high.

Stay on trails below 9k or so and you should be all set.

Luke, I did a Wind River trip 3 years ago in late August Early September. No bugs to speak of and very little snow, that will vary depending on the winter of course and that was a dry year, but I'm under the impression that mostly by August its pretty decent around there. I went in at Elkart Park, up over Knapsack Col and then on down to the Cirque and out at Big Sandy hitting lots of other stuff along the way. I did some time on the Highline/CDT and quite a bit of cross country. The trip report is here in the index. Took me nine days and I didn't see many people, just camp away from the handfull of hotspots.

Thanks Andrew, I'll check out that trip report. Right now it looks like I'll be doing something around YNP/Teton Wilderness with a quick trip to the Winds at the end if everything goes smoothly.