August
2 – 7, 2006
Wind River Range –
Wyoming
This was my second
visit to Wyoming’s Wind River Range. The first was made in the
summer of ’98 and even before finishing the trip I knew that I’d be co
ming
back. The Winds are a remarkable landscape that I wanted to spend
more time exploring; they’re also difficult to photograph well.
The sheer magnitude of the topography can make sunrise and sunset
lighting quite a challenge, and my first trip yielded a few – but not
many – decent photographs. Search the internet for quality images
of the Cirque of the Towers and even Google will have trouble turning up
more than one or two good images. Ever since that first
backpacking trip, I’ve wanted to return for another opportunity to
better photograph what I found so remarkable back in ’98.
Accompanied by friends
Scott Bacon and
Jack
Brauer, we set out on a 6-day, 5-night trip into the southern part of
the Winds, each of us carrying our large format 4x5 cameras. While
the Winds very much deserve to be captured on large film, the effort to
carry that kind of equipment to the two destinations we had settled on
is not at all trivial.
The Destination:
The Wind River Range
The Wind River Range lies in western Wyoming,
approximately 2-3 hours southeast of the Tetons and ~90 minutes north of
Rock Springs, WY. The ranges defines part of the Continental Divide,
spanning two National Forests (Bridger-Teton National Forest on the west
side of the Divide and the Shoshone National Forest on the east side of
the Divide) and three Wilderness Areas (Bridger, Popo-Agie and
Fitzpatrick Wilderness areas).
The Winds are
probably best known as a climbing destination, but the same topography
that makes for great climbing makes for equally challenging
backpacking. The Winds’ lush meadows are complimented and contrasted by
severe granitic topography that possesses remarkable relief; something
that would become immediate in our minds as we made our way to both of
our destinations: Deep Lake and the Cirque of the Towers.
Glaciation has left its marks all over the Winds, but another 10 or 20
thousand years of ice and weather scraping away at this landscape would
be necessary before lugging 70-pound packs across it could be considered
“leisurely”. But we weren’t looking for leisure, we were eagerly
looking forward to experiencing the rugged and beautiful mountains that
make up the southern portion of the range.
Our trip would
start at the southern end of the Winds, at the Big Sandy Trailhead in
the Bridger Wilderness Area. After a short hike and a night at V Lake,
we’d make our way past Big Sandy Lake on our way to Deep Lake where we
would spend a couple of nights exploring the Temple Peak area. Plans
were to then head over into the Cirque of the Towers for a couple of
nights before returning to the trailhead and heading home.
If
you're interested only in the images, you can see the
best of them here.
