Winds2008Best

Wind River Hiking 2008

Colleen F. Moore

Trip narrative:

12 days and 11 nights of natural grandeur mostly in the Wind River Indian Reservation, Wyoming. (Thanks to the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes for continuing to sell the permit to non-tribal members.) First over a pass at 10800' and into the Wilson Creek chain of lakes for a few days of relaxed fishing and flower photography. The flowers were great as spring was late. The fragrance when walking through a meadow was lovely. Then two challenging days traversing Windy Ridge at approximately 11600', ultimately down the Windy Gap trail, a vertical drop of approximately 2000'. Overnight in the long valley of Deadman Lake. Then some tough navigation through heavy timber and deadfall to an off-trail lake that turned out to have nice cutthroat trout spawning in the stream between lakes. Then back to Deadman Lake to pick up the trail to some famous fishing lakes. The fishing action was sometimes slow because the fish were more interested in each other than in feeding. Sometimes I fished with camera instead of rod, as you'll see below. I partially soaked my camera on the 4th day by falling in at a creek crossing, but the camera came back to life after I baked in the sun for a few hours, lucky me. Had problems with dirt on the sensor of my Pentax SLR digital as the pine trees were shedding loads of pollen. So if you notice some fuzz in the sky of some shots, we'll call it pine pollen.

(Click a photo to see the larger size)

Shooting stars, my favorite, with a lovely fragrance	Pasque flower, an early bloomer	Tigee Lake
Ice on Elk Lake	Spawning cutthroat trout, Tigee Lk	Cutthroats in the stream, Tigee Lk
Tigee Lake	Elk Lake from Windy Ridge, 11900'	On Windy Ridge, 11900'
Jim on Windy Ridge	Hard freeze overnight	Cutthroat trout -- set free, not eaten
1920 survey marker; Indian reservation lands were surveyed	Rest stop at Deadman Lake
Spawning golden trout	Golden trout	Male golden trout
Moonrise over Big Golden Lk	Reflections on 3rd Golden Lake	Bull Lk Creek high water
Old wickiup at Alpine Lake--these structures were found in Yellowstone, circa 1870 and up to the 1950s	Alpine Lake	Alpine Lake 17" cutthroat trout -- dinner for two
Looking up at Windy Ridge traverse route from Steamboat Lk, 10000'	Elk antlers in Paradise Basin	Sunrise in Paradise Basin
Lupine	Parrot's beak lousewort	Littleflower penstemon
Silky phacelia	Columbine	Indian paintbrush
Indian paintbrush	Lousewort