July 17, 2022
- Start: Cold Spring Trailhead
- End: Echo Lake
- Distance: ~ 8 miles hiking (+ 65-mile drive to the trailhead)
After packing up all our gear at the NOLS headquarters last night, we returned to the Pronghorn Hotel in downtown Lander, WY, for one more night in a real bed before departing on our 8-day expedition into the Winds.
Personally, I wasn’t sure how I was going to carry all the gear they’d given to us. I spent a solid hour back in the hotel room repacking my 65L backpack just to try to get everything to fit better. It was a futile task though. There was simply too much stuff, and I could barely get my pack closed, even after strapping a bunch of things on the outside of my pack.
My only hope was to get through the first few days and pray that my group ate lots of food so we could whittle the volume and weight down a bit. There was nothing else I could leave behind. I was already packed about as minimally as I could manage while still having some warm layers for our ascent up Gannett Peak.
HEADING OUT
At 5:30 am this morning, I driving over to the NOLS building in the dark. Those of us with cars would be able to park in one of their open parking lots this morning, and then we needed to meet up with our three leaders – Judd, Matt, and Evan – to lock up anything we weren’t comfortable leaving behind in our cars (i.e., wallets, car keys, or other valuables).
Our breakfast this morning was excellent too! It was catered by the NOLS team that cooks for the resident courses in Lander. I’d been expecting something simple. Maybe muffins or oatmeal, and some fruit, but this was legit restaurant quality food to get us fueled up for the day! It was much better than the typical fare I’d come to expect on my backpacking trips.
Before loading up our bags and piling into the big 15-passenger van, we broke out the maps to go over our hiking route for the next few days. This trip wasn’t just a stroll through the Winds. Three days into the hike, we were also going to attempt to summit Wyoming’s highest mountain – Gannett Peak.
There are two primary routes that most people take when attempting to climb this remote, glaciated 13,810-foot mountain:
- Elkhart Park Approach – This ~ 40-mile roundtrip route begins near Pinedale, WY. Hikers depart from the Elkhart Park trailhead, and hike north through the Titcomb Basin and over Bonney Pass before approaching Gannett Peak.
- Glacier Trail Approach – This ~ 50-mile round trip route begins near Dubois, WY. Hikers depart at the Trail Lake Trailhead, and hike south on the Glacier Trail through the Fitzpatrick Wilderness before approaching Gannett Peak from the east.
This trip with NOLS was going to be slightly different though. We would be heading into the Winds on a third, less often used route – the Ink Wells Trail – which began on the Wind River Indian Reservation east of Gannett Peak, and then we would departing via the Glacier Trail after we finished our climb.
Using this less-traveled path from the reservation meant the local tribe would get a cut of the fees that each student was paying to climb Gannett. And we’d also get the opportunity to see the Winds via two different routes over the next eight days. A win-win in my book!
WIND RIVER RESERVATION
The Wind River Indian Reservation is home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes, and the reservation covers 2.2 million acres of land in Wyoming, making it the seventh-largest reservation in the US (and larger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island). Despite this considerable size though, I suspect few people outside the state have ever heard of it.
After a short van drive north on US-287 to Crowheart, we met up with our Native American counterparts and loaded up their pick-up trucks with our backpacks, ice axes, ropes, and climbing gear. They’d be transporting us the rest of the way up the rugged, bumpy ride to the Cold Springs Trailhead.
I opted for one of the seats in the bed of a truck, eager to get some fresh air and sunshine on my face. It was a beautiful July morning and ripe for a drive in nature, even if I felt like I was going to bounce out of the old pickup truck as we navigated one of the gnarlier sections through a boulder-filled wash.
The downside to this seating arrangement presented itself as soon as we got to the trailhead though. While riding backwards, I’d been starting at the land dropping away behind us for so long that I had a minor case of vertigo. And it felt as if ground was still moving even after we stopped moving.
I’m certain the high altitude was compounding these odd physical symptoms. We’d driven up to a trailhead above 9,500 feet elevation, which was no joke for a someone who lives below 500 feet elevation for most of the year! So to it took me a few minutes to get my bearings as everyone else made final adjustments to their gear and packs.
GETTING TO KNOW MY TEAM
Once at the trailhead, the NOLS instructors broke us down into our respective three-student groups, with each instructor joining a group to go over our maps and intended course.
It was already 11 am, so nearly half our daylight hours were already gone. I wasn’t overly worried about the time though because today’s mileage would be pretty short. We were heading uphill toward a pass near Dinwoody Peak, then dropping down toward Echo Lake where we intended to set up camp for the evening. All told it we’d only need to hike about 8 miles.
The other two students in my little group were Emily and Prashant, and I looked forward to getting to know them better as we would remain in the same group for the entirety of the trip.
Emily was in her late 20s, single, and worked as a teacher Asheville, North Carolina, but was soon moving east to the Raleigh-Durham area to begin her Masters degree. I spent a fair bit of time in Asheville during the three years my family was traveling full-time, and then thru-hiked the AT back in 2019, so we immediately built our rapport over hiking destinations we both knew in Blue Ridge Mountains.
Prashant meanwhile, couldn’t have been more different from Emily. He was in his early 40’s, married with two kids, and worked in the IT field in Philadelphia. Yet, I still had something in common with him too. My in-laws live in central New Jersey and I’d spent a good bit of time in Philly as a result. And I knew I really liked Prashant as soon as he revealed his preference in the great Wawa vs. Sheetz rivalry (which only people in Pennsylvania can truly understand).
So the three of us were in this Wind River hiking adventure together, and would be heading into the mountains with Matt (one of the NOLS instructors) until everyone regrouped in camp this evening!
INK WELLS TRAIL
Our happy little group departed the Cold Springs Trailhead in a single file, heading up the Ink Wells Trail under the weight of our enormously heavy packs. The next four miles would be uphill, taking us from 9,500 feet elevation up to a pass at 11,400. And even with a relatively easy pace, it was arduous work.
I hadn’t hiked at high elevation very much this year. The only thing I really had to compare it to was my climb up Mt. Hood (11,249’) in late May and my subsequent attempt of Mt. Rainier, which was curtailed at 10,000 feet due of bad weather.
And while both of those hikes required a pack, climbing gear, and some challenging conditions, none of them entailed carry a backpack filled with anywhere near this much weight. My shoulders immediately began to hurt from the burden, and I tightened my waist belt over and over in an effort to shift as much weight as possible to my hips.
After about a mile and a quarter, we made it to the boundary between the Indian reservation and the Fitzpatrick Wilderness. From here on out, our hike would be on public lands as we navigated through the Shoshone National Forest.
Our pace uphill continued to be slow and I could feel the elevation with each breath. My head hurt too, but I was fairly sure it wasn’t from the altitude. This headache was more akin to a sinus pain and it spread down from my forehead, behind my eyes, and into my sinus cavities. I wondered if this emerging pain was from the lack of sleep last night or whether I might be allergic to something in my surroundings.
I surveyed each side of the trail and didn’t see much allergy-triggering foliage. We were in a mostly alpine environment, with lots of wildflowers near the ground. Whitebark pines with magenta-colored pine buds lined the trail for part of the way. And soon I nearly forgot all about my headache as I got lost in the magnetic charm of our backcountry route.
The landscape was absolutely quiet other than the labored breathing and occasional snippets of conversation amongst our little group. Each small group had departed the trailhead with a 10-15 minute buffer between the next. So this gave us the illusion that we were 100% on there our own, as we could neither see nor hear the other students ahead or behind us.
Poor Emily found herself struggling during our first few uphill miles, and I felt so bad for her. She has such a slender build and was carrying at least 50 pounds in her pack, which far exceeded the recommendation not to carry more 20% of your body weight. Add in the high altitude, and our first day was absolutely kicking her butt!
After four miles of constant exertion though, we finally crested the pass beside Dinwoody Peak and got our initial glimpse of the Wind River Range.
Oh. My. God. The Winds were beautiful!!
I’ve visited Wyoming at least a dozen times in my life, and I knew the state was filled with beauty. But the mountains ahead of us were something else! My heart simply soared as I took in the images unfolding before of us.
GRIZZLY COUNTRY
Once we made it over the scenic pass, the second half of our day was mostly all downhill as we headed down the trail toward Echo Lake. I don’t think any of us was complaining about that perk. And it would be nice to sleep at a lower elevation, even though we were really only dropping down to about 10,600 feet.
Up ahead, the trail took us along the west side of two lakes, and that’s where we encountered something that both thrilled and frightened me in equal parts. The muddy trail captured a line of freshly-made grizzly bear prints walking up our trail in the same direction we were now headed.
We’d later learn that one of the groups ahead of us actually saw a grizzly bear this afternoon – possibly even the same one that made these prints in the mud.
The bear was on the opposite side of Echo Lake, so they were never all that close to it. Nonetheless, the interaction served to remind us all, we were in grizzly country now and we needed to make sure to pay attention to our surroundings!
ECHO LAKE
We made it to our campsite near Echo Lake well before dusk and got busy setting up camp. Unlike my solo backcountry treks, we’d be sharing tents for this adventure and sleeping in pairs. Emily would be my tent mate, while Prashant would be paired up with one of the guys from another group.
So I set about trying to figure out the shared tent NOLS issued us. It was nothing like the small semi-freestanding backpacking tents I’m accustomed to using. These tents were like little square teepees. A tall carbon fiber pole held the center of the tent aloft in the air, and then we had to stake out and tighten guy lines on all four corners to it make a pyramid-shaped shelter.
This funny little tent could be set up completely by itself – essentially just forming a basic tarp-like shelter to get out from the elements. Or it could be set up with an inner tent (like THIS) made of an insect-proof mesh attached to a bathtub floor. Unfortunately for us, NOLS hadn’t provided us the inner insect barrier, and we’d be sleeping on the ground in bug bivies instead.
This omission meant we had absolutely NOWHERE to hang out without the hordes of mosquitoes swarming us. And I’m not being hyperbolic when I say this tent situation amounted to a ton of unnecessary misery.
Our campsite sat directly beside the lake, and was one of the buggiest places I’ve ever set up a tent in my life. It was worse than the Porkies in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Worse than the Oregon section of the PCT. The mosquitoes were utterly insane and no amount of bug spray was keeping them at bay. What I wouldn’t have paid to have my small self-contained tent on hand in the moment.
Suffocating in a sOFT COFFIN
After cooking dinner with the group, Emily and I retreated back to our tent in hopes that maybe the mosquitoes would die down when it got dark, but there was no such luck.
What’s more, the one piece of gear NOLS issued us to protect us from the bugs (a bug bivy) was my worst nightmare!! I’ve never slept in a bivy sack before, but it’s like a protective sleeve that goes around your sleeping mattress and sleeping bag/quilt to provide a minimal amount of shelter in lieu of a tent. It’s essentially a half-step between cowboy camping and tent camping.
Our bug bivies were fairly similar to a normal bivy sack, but instead of a being made of a nylon-polyester waterproof bag with a mesh head covering, ours bivy was made almost entirely out of mesh.
The idea behind it was you could put you sleeping pad and bag inside the mesh bag and then zip the head covering (which has some sort of metal hoop to keep it off your face) and you’d be safe from mosquitos and other biting insects. But how it worked in theory was NOTHING like the reality of the situation.
First off, the bug bivy had so little volume that my inflated air mattress took up almost the entire inside of the bivy sack. And once I got inside with my quilt and tried to adjust myself, I felt like I was wrestling in a straight jacket. I couldn’t move at all!
Moreover, the hordes of mosquitoes were literally stinging my body through the mesh bivy sack. But the absolute worst part of this bug bivy was the head area. It was like wearing a burka. I was finding it hard to breathe through the mesh fabric and I felt like the walls were constantly closing in on me. It was all I could do not to have a panic attack while I was in the vise-like bivy sack from hell.
I felt like I was laying inside a soft coffin with mosquitoes stinging my arms and legs, and the whole experience was quickly becoming the most miserable and cramped thing ever. Even after I took my quilt out of the bivy sack and draped it over my body (on the outside of the mesh) to give me more space inside, I was still 100% miserable. I missed my damn tent, and I was mentally on the verge of just quitting the trip altogether!
