Our Wind Rivers Hikes. All 42 miles.

Day 1

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Miller’s Lake, Upper Sweeney Lake, Photographer’s Point Loop. 11.5 miles. 1407 ft elevation gain. Date hiked: July 5, 2021

Basically, up until a few months ago, I had never heard of the Wind Rivers. What a hidden gem! Letizia and I were one of the few day hikers on the trails. Most people backpack. As you can see from the above picture, the Wind Rivers are vast and so beautiful. We are fans! And, if you want to get into the real beauty, you have to be willing to put in several miles. This fact we learned rather quickly. I gave this four trees out of five. It was beautiful, but the mosquitoes and downed trees were less fun. 

Our first hike of the day was quite beautiful and seemingly flat. In theory, it had 1400 feet of elevation gain. I think there was that one spot that was steep, but for the most part this felt like a completely flat hike. As we hiked along, we noticed that the trail had been cleared of lots of trees. Apparently, recently, there was a violent wind storm that took out a lot of trees. We found this out as we hiked toward Miller Lake. We couldn't see a lot of the trail because of all of the downed trees. There were so many! The storm must have been somewhat recent because the downed trees were still green. I was grateful I wasn't around for all the falling trees.

We ate at Photographer's Point, pictured above. It was basically the first clearing of the hike. Here you could literally see for miles. We also heard of a bear sighting here. Some other hikers had stopped to eat in relatively the same spot. Apparently, the woman hiker of the group walked right past a bear and didn't see it, but her husband did. This is where I wonder about backpacking. You are camping with your friendly bear neighbors. That does not comfort me. 

We left Photographers Point and headed to Miller Lake. This is the part where we climbed over a lot of downed trees. So many downed trees. 

Leti on the trail to Miller Lake. 

Lots of trees down here. So many horizontal trees, rather than vertical trees. 

We made it to Miller Lake after about a bazillion tree crossings. We were the only humans there. It was rather beautiful. The only downfall was the mosquitoes. No bueno. One really could be eaten alive by them. I swatted one in the act of stealing my blood. It wasn't pretty. 

Me at Miller Lake.

After hiking back to the car, we decided to hang out there for a few hours because of the lightning storm and rain that came. It was a beautiful storm to witness from the car. :) Then, we hit the trail again, this time going on the Sacred Rim trail.

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Sacred Rim. 4.2 miles. 636 feet elevation gain. Date hiked: July 5, 2021

This was more like three miles and 5 feet elevation gain. Just beautiful! We hiked this after the rainstorm. So lovely. You cross a little stream and head through the forest to an edge. Literally. Yikes! 

Me at the literal edge of Sacred Rim. Yikes! 

Leti on the edge. She looks so calm.

It was a super quick hike with really stunning views. You get a lot of bang for your buck in a very short hike. :) I was surprised by how many lakes we saw. Just so many.

Day 2

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Big Sandy Lake, North Lake, and Arrowhead Lake to Jackass Pass. (That's really the name.) Length: 16 ish miles. Elevation Gain: 2,227 feet. Date hiked: July 6, 2021

Wowza! This was a beautiful hike with majestic views, something akin to our hikes in Banff. This I did not totally expect. You see, it's in Wyoming. When I think of Wyoming, I think of desolation. :) No offense to my Wyoming friends. Anyway, I gave this hike a five out of five. It was just so beautiful. 

Leti at the edge of Big Sandy Lake. So beautiful! 

The first few miles of the hike were not exceptionally beautiful. After Big Sandy Lake, things became even more and more beautiful! We went up in elevation and into the mountains. 

Here we are in the beautiful mountains! Look at those rugged rocks. 

This was on our way back down. Some nice hiker offered to take this picture. Big sky. Big mountains. Slightly awkward hiking pose. 😬

The trail goes up a boulder field. So pretty. 

We hiked and hiked and hiked. It was 8 miles one way. We got past our last lake, across a patch of snow, and up to this beautiful bowl. We ate some snacks as quick as we could. The mosquitoes were fierce. :/

Here's Leti at the end of the trail (for us). It's so beautiful. All around us are high mountain peaks.

We are headed back. This was the last lake we passed to head up to the bowl of mountain peaks. The trail is on the side of the lake. Goes across a boulder field. Sketchy a bit. But, very pretty.

Here's the last bit of snow hanging on for dear life. Leti and I were surprised that it hadn't fallen in the lake. Persistence in action.

We really enjoyed our way back down the trail. The last three miles felt like seven. My feet were ticked off. (I did get blisters on this trip.) And then, Leti spotted a bear! We got out the camera and took pictures, unhooked the bear spray from the backpack, and then Leti yelled at the bear when it turned up the trail toward us!We also may have prayed at that point, eyes open, that the bear would go up mountain side, which it did. Yay! During the bear encounter, my feet did not hurt at all! For the win! You just need to be scared for your life and some of your problems go away!

Bear sighting!

This is the bear coming to meet us. We weren't interested. I think Leti yelled right after this photo. That worked out.

This sighting was about a mile and a half from the car. We kept our eyes peeled for other sightings, but didn't see anything. It was another great hike in the books! 

Day 3

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Scab Lake Trail (We didn't make it that far.) Distance: 12 miles ish. Elevation gain: 2,378 ft. Date hiked: July 7, 2021.

This was the kind of hike you do when you are hoping to get somewhere good in a limited amount of time. That almost worked. 😑 You can see off in the distance some beautiful mountains. It's pretty far in the distance. So, three pine trees out of five. 

This hike was as dry as a bone. And, the map we downloaded wasn't lined up with the trailhead for a good half mile (or more). So, at first we started off down the road and in the completely wrong direction! I digress. We finally got on the trail. We hiked and hiked and hiked and hiked and saw two people on horseback. We kept hiking. We ended up at Divide Lake, which is on the way to Scab Lake. The lake was so big. And the view was not quite what we hoped, but we lived! Divide lake is pictured above. We ate at Divide Lake, which surprisignly had few mosquitoes. Probably not enough humans to entertain them. 

A lake with lots of lily pads! 

I felt like a pioneer child on this hike. You know that song. Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked... You get the picture. That's what we did with this hike. This hike ended well. We were rained on a little bit, which was just perfect because it was so hot and dry. Another successful hike in the books.