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The original was posted on /r/Ultralight by /u/bornebackceaslessly on 2024-10-28 15:13:40+00:00.
WRHR Trip Report, 7/28-8/1
Intro:
For anyone that hasn’t heard of the Wind River High Route, thanks for coming out from under your rock. The Andrew Skurka version is a roughly 97 mile route featuring 65 miles of off trail travel as it follows on or near the Continental Divide through the range. You climb a few mountains, cross numerous high passes, ford creeks, rock hop endlessly, and traverse glaciers. It is a now a fairly “popular” route, but we barely saw any people along it, and only happened across three others hiking it once we left the trailhead (two had taken the shuttle with us).
I’d first earmarked this route about 5 years ago and had planned for it to happen about 3 years ago but my hiking partner at that time had some injuries that made him nervous about doing it, so we opted for the Uinta Highline Trail that summer instead. This trip had been a long time coming for me and I was excited to say the least.
Day 0
My hiking partner and I drove up from Denver to the Trail Lakes trailhead, about a 7-hour drive, the day before starting our hike. We planned to stop in Lander to grab our Wind River Indian Reservation trespass permits and eat dinner. When we got to One Stop Market for the permits the clerk told us they didn’t have permits and would need to have his manager come in to provide more, we purchased a few snacks and planned our dinner stop while waiting. Unfortunately, when the manager arrived, she informed us that she didn’t have permits and wouldn’t be able to get more until Monday, unhelpful for us.
We left hoping that we would be able to snag permits somewhere else on the way back through tomorrow as it was already after 6pm and all the other listed options were closed. We had chosen Gannett Grill for dinner, and it turned out to be a pretty good choice. The food was good and reasonably priced, but a little slow although that’s to be expected on a lovely Saturday night. It worked out fine, my hiking partner had a little work left to finish up anyway before we left for the trailhead.
We arrived a little late, the sun was just dipping below the horizon, so we scoped out the trailhead before heading for some nearby campsites. The trailhead was relatively empty, so we didn’t have any hesitations driving the car to our site for the night. We fell asleep quickly thanks to the comfortable car camping setup we brought.
Day 1 – 21.11mi, +6,873’, -3,274’, 9:50 Trailhead to camp
We are both early risers by nature so we were up and about shortly after 5am. We quickly packed up camp and made our way back to the trailhead. Like everyone else that does this hike we started off with the Wind River High Route Shuttle which was scheduled to show up at 8am. We ate breakfast and made final preparations as some more groups slowly rolled in, we made small talk with them but none were planning to do the WRHR.
We knew of one other group that would be on the shuttle with us, they somehow found my hiking partner’s lost sunglasses on the Pfiffner last year in the middle of perhaps the worst bushwhack, and without planning happened to be on the same shuttle as us this year. They rolled in around 7:45 and the shuttle showed up shortly after. A group of two and a solo hiker came out of the woodwork, making seven total on the shuttle. As we departed I asked our driver if we could stop for permits and he obliged, recommending a stop along the way that I hadn’t seen listed online anywhere. It’s a good thing we asked, because the other duo and solo hiker also needed permits.
We arrived at Bruce’s Bridge trailhead shortly before 10am, did our final final preparations, and appreciated the luxury of a pit toilet one last time before setting off around 10:30. We hiked briefly with the duo that found the sunglasses but soon found our pace to be slightly faster and were quickly alone. After the first mile or so the trail was pretty empty and we only saw a few people on the 14 or so miles to Deep Creek Lakes. This section of trail is nice, but compared to what lay ahead it’s fully boring so that’s all I’ll say about it.
We reached Deep Creek Lakes around 4:30pm, the weather forecast was calling for sporadic afternoon storms and we had heard rumbling thunder in the distance on the hike up but never hit rain. We usually start our days around 5am, so the “late” start and relatively short and easy miles left us itching to continue. We took a break at the lake which included a brief nap, a few snacks, and plenty of hydration. We checked the weather again and started making dinner as the sunglasses duo arrived at the lake. They made camp before coming to join us, but we had decided if the weather held we would push over Wind River Peak that evening.
The weather held and we left the lakes around 6:30pm. I expected the climb of Wind River Peak to be long but relatively straight forward, though it turned out to be a little more tedious than I expected so we didn’t end up reaching the summit until about 8:30. The wind had picked up and the sun was setting so we didn’t linger long.
Everyone who has looked at this route has the West Gully earmarked, it’s the first technical section and is often called the most difficult (why it’s not always considered the worst section of the route is beyond me). We expected steep and loose, which it was, but I did not expect the rocks to be as large as they were. It made for slow travel as we tried not to send rocks careening downhill onto each other. Luckily we had just enough light to see 95% of the route to the bottom before we pulled out the headlamps. At some point a fairly sizable rock shifted under my uphill foot and hit my downhill shin, it quickly swelled and had a small scrape but nothing was broken or bleeding profusely so we continued on. It turned out to be a bone bruise and the worst injury of the trip for either of us, all in all not that bad. The firm lump lingered a few months but has now receded.
In hindsight, the guide briefly mentions starting the gully from its head rather than traversing into it lower down as the map details. I was tempted to do that at the time and wish I trusted my gut, the traverse was also steep and loose, not fun to side hill across. I much prefer going straight up or straight down on loose rock.
As the grade leveled out we could breathe a little easier, but travel was still slow. We were still rock hopping and without light it was tough to tell if we were on the right track. We found some flat tundra, and given the clear night skies we easily called that good enough. Its was about 10:30pm and we were ready to call it a day, so we made camp. I decided to cowboy camp and was quickly in bed. After the trip we both said we were laying in our sleeping bags wondering if we really wanted to do this whole thing, with New York Pass and Douglass Peak Pass considered similar in stress and difficulty to the gully neither of us were feeling good. Nonetheless I slept soundly that night.
Day 2 – 15.59mi, +3,845’, -4,816’, 12:45 camp to camp
We had agreed to “sleep in” following our late night but I was still up and moving shortly before 6:30. In the morning light we both agreed going over Wind River Peak the previous day was the right call, it put us ahead of schedule and would make for a relatively easy day if we wanted to stay on schedule and meant pushing ahead wasn’t too much of a burden. Reviewing the map we decided to head for Black Joe Lake and eat breakfast there.
As we started off it quickly became apparent we had chosen the wrong side of the lake in the dark last night. The moraine we had to cross was made up of mostly car sized boulders that made for frustrating and slow travel. We reached slabs below and were finally able to pick up the pace, following an occasional use trail as we went. Reaching Black Joe Lake we continued on to the outlet before plopping down for a much overdue breakfast and more importantly coffee.
Big Sandy Lake, Jackass Pass, and the Cirque of the Towers lay ahead of us before lunch. I assumed this would be the most popular section of trail by a wide margin, it is noteworthy for beauty and rock climbing. We crossed paths with a few groups as we headed up Jackass Pass, but less than I expected. In the Cirque we only saw two groups with camps set up and a few people passing through. Less people than I expected to see but still the most of the hike by quite a bit.
After our lunch and siesta we headed for New York Pass, somewhat apprehensive of how it might go. The climb was mostly straight forward, but it was the descent I was most worried about. However, it turned out to be far better than expected, the short section of talus was mostly stable, then gravel and packed dirt offered much better footing. We descended quickly and in our high spirits stopped for a swim in the lake below the pass.
Passing Shadow Lake we came across a campsite with a father and his three sons out for a week long trip, it had been 35 years in the making and the dad was clearly ecstatic it was finally happening. We stopped and chatted for quite some time, both parties interested in what the other was doing and excited to share. From there the trail got stronger, it was fast and easy travel all the way to Skull Lake where we stopped for dinner.
Our original i...
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