July 18, 2022
- Start: Echo Lake
- End: Edge of Gannett Peak’s terminal moraine
- Distance: ~ 8 miles hiking
Spending the night in my bug bivy while mosquitoes stung me repeatedly was one of the more miserable backcountry experiences I’ve had in a very, very long time. I felt like I was minutes away from suffocating inside my “soft coffin” all night long, and when the sun finally came up, I was on the verge of quitting and going home.
I paid good money to come on this trek in the Winds, and I genuinely liked the (almost) everyone involved this NOLS alumni trip. But I was really struggling mentally with the process. After just one day on this 8-day expedition, I had a growing list of grievences that were compounding my frustration:
- My pack weight. In my opinion, we were all were carrying WAY too much weight for this backpacking trip. Sure, we needed some mountaineering gear and ropes. Those items were essential for our safety, and my beef wasn’t with the technical gear. The thing unnecessarily weighing down our packs was how much dang food we were carrying! Eight days of food is a lot, but it’s not any easier when you’ve packed out the heaviest foods imaginable – like 2-pound blocks of cheese!
- The bugs. The Wyoming backcountry was filled with mosquitoes, and there was nowhere to escape them one we got to camp. The tents we were currently using lacked any sort of bug net, which meant we were exposed 100% of the time. There was simply no respite, and this made reading or hanging out in camp with my compatriots pretty dang miserable.
- Complicated cooking. When I’m out hiking solo, I tend to make simple things that can be cooked by rehydrating an item in a pot (e.g., oatmeal, dehydrated beans, ramen) or foods that are ready-to-eat (like peanut butter in a tortilla, packets of tuna, dried fruit). Meanwhile, NOLS was all about actually “real” cooking in the backcountry and we had large pots, ingredients that took 30-60 minutes to prepare/cook, and we were using liquid fuel instead of compressed gas. This whole process seemed too fussy and time consuming for my taste.
- “That” person. Unfortunately, one of the students in NOLS group was really getting on my nerves! If that happened on another backpacking trip, I’d be free to just leave and could hike faster or slower to make sure I was no longer crossing paths with that annoying person. But out here, I was being forced to remain in that miserable person’s company for 7 more days, and I didn’t know how I was going to keep my sanity.
If I’m being completely honest though, my list of issues all had one thing in common: NOLS was backpacking in a completely different style than I was used to.
MINDSET SHIFT
This morning was the moment where I had to make a mental decision. Was I going to wallow in my misery and dwell on all the things I would do differently out here if I was solo? Or was I going to relax and just go with it?
After all, the “NOLS way” wasn’t wrong. They were teaching many of the students how to be prepared in the backcountry, and how to cook, and developing other skills important to their survival. My way of backpacking might make me more comfortable (for me), but it certainly wasn’t the only way to do things.
I’d made a choice to come out here to climb Gannett Peak with NOLS, and not with a commercial guide who was going to cater to my needs. I could piss all that tuition money away and go home. Or I could embrace a different way of doing everything, accept I was a student on this trip, and maybe even learn a new thing or two in the process.
It’s probably no surprise that I decided tough it out. I really wanted to climb Gannett Peak this year. And I was already out backpacking in the beautiful Wind River Range. I would bite my tongue about how much weight we were carrying, and the tents, and the cooking, and I’d just do my best to avoid that one annoying student.
HORSE CAMP
We packed up this morning amid just as many mosquitos as ever. I probably had 100 bites on my body in the last 12 hours, and I was now wearing my rain pants and my wind jacket to minimize the damage.
Today’s route was supposed to take us up the remainder of the Ink Wells Trail, past a horse camp along Dinwoody Creek, and then up the Glacier Trail to the Gannett Peak’s terminal moraine. We’d go up and down a little bit in elevation as we continued west, but mostly remain in the 10,000 to 11,000 foot range.
As with yesterday, we split down into our small groups again – with me, Emily, and Prashant now being joined by Evan, one of the other NOLS instructors. The hike was just a fantastically scenic as yesterday as we hiked west toward the horse camp.
I knew we were close to the camp when a spotted a lovely palomino horse grazing beside some bushes. And sure enough, three miles into our day, we came upon the seasonal, family-run horse camp in the Dinwoody Basin.
Canvas glamping tents were set up for their guests that would ride in, and a young boy name Garrett was running around having the time of his life. His family owned the camp and he was fortunate enough to spend the summer out in this wonderful place, which barely seemed to have any bugs – at least compared to our campsite near Echo Lake last night.
The best part about the horse camp though was the fact that were were going to off-load some of our gear here!! The next few days we’d be continuing west to Gannett Peak and then (hopefully) climb to the summit. And once we were done with that part of the trip, we’d have several days of hiking north through the Winds toward our extraction point.
This route meant we would be passing this horse camp on our second leg of the trip, so the owners agreed to let us leave behind a temporary food cache. We were going to drop several pounds of provisions here today and then pick them up again after our climb.
Oh thank goodness! My chief complaint about how heavy our packs were was being remedied. We could jettison three days of food and lighten each of our packs by at least a few pounds. What a relief!
And once that was done, it seemed like my spirits buoyed once again. I could focus on the sublime views instead of being cranky jerk for the next few days.
GLACIER TRAIL
After departing the horse camp, we followed the river through the Dinwoody Basin amid views that were simply breathtaking. One of my favorite photos of the entire trip would come from out trek beside Dinwoody Creek and its turquoise water.
The water here was such a spectacular color because of all the glacial silt running through it from the snow melt above. It created a milky opaqueness to the water that was unlike anything you’d ever see in a frontcountry river or creek. My photos couldn’t even do it justice, and I’d say the scenery was a 100 times more stunning in person with the dramatic mountains looming over us!
Further up, we’d encounter another new obstacle. The Glacier Trail crossed over section of the Klondike Creek as it raged toward the main torrent of water cutting through the valley
Luckily someone had already built a hasty bridge from narrow tree trunks. Individually, these narrow logs wouldn’t support anyone’s weight. But collectively, they formed a wide enough cluster to bridge the gap over the water.
My group was in the lead today, so we set about slowly crossing one by one over the catwalk-like span. The trees were slick from the water rushing past, and it was a delicate dance. Luckily we all had trekking poles to provide extra balance as we each gingerly inched across the 15-foot gap with Evan providing a helping hand on the creek’s far bank.
ELEPHANT HEADS
With our sketchy creek crossing behind us, we continued up the Glacier Trail past several more picturesque creeks, streams, and waterfalls. The Winds were filled with so many fantastic things everywhere I turned.
Around 4:30 pm, the tall granite peaks came back into view again and I was blown away by the prominence of the upcoming peaks. These really were some of the most stunningly gorgeous mountains! I’m so glad I didn’t cave to my earlier complaints about this trip, because none of those discomforts outweighed the majesty of what I was currently experiencing.
As we continued up the trail, Evan pointed out the small purple wildflowers lining the trail. Early settlers moving through the Rockies named these flowers ‘woolly lousewort’ based on the mistaken belief that the plant either gave (or alternatively cured) lice. Meanwhile, Native Americans who’d been around the flower for centuries used them as a medicinal and edible herb, and attributed aphrodisiac qualities to it.
But neither use was the reason we were looking at these flowers now. Our interest was in the weird fact that the individual flowers looked like tiny elephant heads. Each purple bloom resembled a round head with two floppy elephant ears and a long curly trunk coming off it.
TERMINAL MORAINE
Although there wasn’t a ton of elevation gain today, we were definitely heading uphill toward the end of the day. My lungs felt stronger and my breathing was definitely less labored than it had been yesterday. These were the little signs I’d hoped meant the altitude wasn’t going to be a problem in the days ahead.
Around 5 pm, the trail rose up and then dropped down again with jaw dropping views of Gannett Peak. This was the mountain I’d come out here to climb and it was simply spectacular!!
We were planning to set up camp in the rocky terrain below the mountain’s terminal moraine. Our spot was essentially at the outer edge where the glacial debris that had been pushed down into the valley before the snow and ice receded.
Everything was now mostly rocks and boulders, amid the alpine terrain. Dinwoody Creek had a gentler, tranquil flow now, but it was still too wide and deep to wade across – especially since the water was barely 40 degrees this close to its source.
And so, we had to climb all the way to a snow bridge that spanned it and cross the creek that way as we made our way toward our proposed campsite on the opposite bank.
Our plan was to set up camp here for the nigh near 11,000 feet, and I was pleasantly surprised that there was just enough wind to keep the mosquitoes (mostly) at bay. I suspected tonight would be a much, much more comfortable night as a result.
We’d keep our camp here for the next few days, and tomorrow morning we’d spend the day going working as group on roped travel technique, moving in crampons, and the detailed plans for our ascent. And then the following day, we’d attempted the nearly 3,000-foot vertical ascent up to the highest peak in Wyoming!!
