Wind River Traverse: Green River Lakes to Big Sandy

[Kris Sherwood]

We just arrived back home from a great 8 day trip traversing the Winds north to south. We ended up doing roughly 90 miles, about 30 off trail. Here are a few details. If anyone is interested in doing this trip, definitely go for it and feel free to ask me any questions as far as logistics, off trail route details, etc.

This was a really fun and challenging trip. Being from the deep woods of Washington, this was my first extensive off trail multi-day trip. It was grueling, painful, lonely, beautiful and totally amazing!

Day 1 – Green River Lakes TH to Trail Creek Park on trail

Day 2 – Trail Creek Park to Peak Lake on trail. Leave trail up and over Knapsack Col in to Titcomb Basin

Day 3 – Titcomb Basin to Island Lake on trail. Leave trail over Wall-Island Pass, through Wall Lake basin back to trail at Cook Lake. On trail from Cook Lakes to Baldy Lakes

Day 4 – Baldy Lakes to Pipestone Lakes on trail. We took a wrong turn and ended up off the Fremont trail on to the Highline trail and ended up doing and extra 10 miles to get back on course

Day 5 – Pipestone Lakes to Middle Fork Lake on trail

Day 6 – Leave trail at Middle Fork Lake. Head up and over Col in to Bonneville Basin. From Bonneville Basin up over Raid-Bonneville Col to Pyramid Lake. All off trail

Day 7 – Pyramid Lake to Shadow Lake on trail. Leave trail (kinda) and head up and over Texas Pass in to the Cirque of the Towers

Day 8 – Cirque out to Big Sandy TH

Apologies for all the pics. Had trouble choosing which to include.

[Steven Paris]

Kris,

Looks like an amazing trip! Thanks for posting the report.

[Andrew G]

Hi, thanks for your post. I'm heading to this area on Friday and have a quick question. How was knapsack pass? Open? We are doing an out and back from Elkhart and going over the pass would reduce some of our backtracking.

ps. your post made me subscribe as a forum member.

[Kris Sherwood]

Andrew, Knapsack Col was snow free with the exception of one easily avoidable snowfield on the Titcomb side. It is a straight forward route and pretty obvious as far as where you need to be. However, it is long and steep and big boulder hopping. So logistically easy, physically pretty tough.

Have a great trip!

[John Vance]

That is a great trip. I did basically the same route a few years back although south to north and out the old glacier trail. How were the biting bugs? I am headed to the Winds for ten days on Labor Day but still haven't decided on a route.

[Kris Sherwood]

Bugs were 100% a non-issue. I never pulled out my bug net and I never put on any bug juice.

[John Vance]

Great to hear. I get in the lakes and rivers quite often and they can be bad.

[Randy Nelson]

Kris, great TR. Did you have any smoke coming into the area from the ID fires? I was hoping to get back there in a few weeks but last September the fires burning in the north basically ruined my pics (trying not to be too selfish here and wishing the folks affected by the fire thew best) even though I was as south as I could go. I've actually thought about re-tracing my route to get new pics as the area is spectacular. Thanks.

[Kris Sherwood]

Randy, there was a fire just north of Green River Lakes TH when we started. In fact, the fire teams were using the trailhead as a base. However, they said the day before we got there, the wind shifted and the haze cleared up and they got the fire pretty much beaten. For the remainder of the trip we had only one day that was slightly smokey. And that single day wasnt all that bad, we couldnt smell it, just ever so slightly hazey.

[Steve S]

awesome! great trip and great photos. I'm planning on going in mid Sept, so will be looking forward to some fishing!

[Andrew G]

Thanks, Kris, you've been a big help.

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