Brevard hikers take on Bridger Wilderness

Wyoming’s rugged Wind River Range and the Bridger Wilderness in particular are not for the faint of heart.

When the weather shines the sharp peaks are glorious, but when clouds and wind and cold rain or worse blow in and you’d best have your hiking game on. You won’t be close to your car so there’s nowhere to run and most certainly nowhere to hide.

Four hikers from Brevard experienced the extremes of the wild Winds in July and August as they packed enough gear for a six night, seven day adventure. Up for the challenge were very experienced hikers Paula and Greg Hunter, Dr. Toby Lindsay and the author.

We plotted a manageable 40-mile clockwise loop out of the Green River trailhead on the northern end of the 85-mile long range. The route shadowed the Continental Divide Trail up to 10,600 ft. Summit Lake then connected northward to the Doubletop Mountain Trail with the final leg on the Porcupine Trail back to our starting point.

By Colorado standards where more than 50 mountains top out above 14,000 feet, the Bridger looks fairly benign. Nearby Gannett Peak is Wyoming’s tallest at 13,810.

I’ve walked all over both states for more than 40 years, but I’d take the Winds over crowded Colorado in a heartbeat. I was hoping my companions would eventually feel the same way.

Day one was a shakedown cruise where we hoped to put roughly 10 miles under our padded waist belts as the path makes a beeline for Squaretop Mountain. It’s the ideal start hikers need to find their sea legs; a scant 400 feet of elevation gain along the Green River, so named as most of its water is glacially fed. Several bridges spared us frigid river crossings.

Yet those might have felt refreshing since it was beastly hot in the 80s. In the first six miles I downed more than 75 ounces of water. My pace slowed accordingly, hence my well-earned trail name, “Caboose.” Comparatively speaking, Greg, Paula and Toby were thoroughbreds. When Greg found a flat, pine needled covered campsite, we dropped our packs in an instant.

The real work began our second day. Virtually every step was uphill, but unlike sections of the steeply uphill Art Loeb Trail at home it was a more gradual and welcomed, ascent to Summit Lake.

Our bear spray was at the ready since we were in grizzly country, but while we never saw anything beyond heaps of old scat we did encounter plenty of something else: a few dozen through hikers on the 3,200-mile Continental Divide Trail.

These men and women are a different breed. To a person, 25 to 40 miles per day underfoot was the norm and they all carried 14 to 18 pounds compared to our 30-plus pounds including mandatory bear barrels from the ranger station in Pinedale. They all seemed cheery.

The concentration of such dynamic walkers owes to the Winds are about two thirds of the four-to-six month ordeal. Maybe the scent of the finish line was behind their happiness. Talk about a fit group. Yeesh.

There are campsites and then there’s Summit Lake. An open expanse dotted with wildflowers in the midst of a wide valley was all we’d hoped for. I’d promised the group it would be worth toting fly rods and Summit delivered the big cutthroat trout that swarmed to our grasshoppers.

But with no wood nearby, trout dinners would have to wait. Instead, we fired up our denatured alcohol caldera cone stoves for another meal of dehydrated trail food and decaf coffee. Toby and I shared my stove and all I carried was eight ounces of fuel for the entire trip. These stoves are the wave of the future for backpackers.

Our night three way stop was Palmer Lake. It was notable because that’s where a giddy Paula caught her first ever trout, a brookie. It was the first of many. However, rain doused our plans for a shore dinner. Brook trout are an invasive species in the Winds, so numerous are these non-natives that in some lakes like Palmer the fish are stunted since competition for food is fierce.

The next day after our gear dried in the morning sunshine we endured a devilishly long and steep decline to the upper stretches of the New Fork River. Here we finally sated our desire for campfire brook trout liberally seasoned with lemon pepper. The group had great success dragging ‘hoppers’ or dry flies along the cut banks and not 10 minutes after the last fish was cleaned the lot was sizzling in non-stick foil on titanium grates over a low flame. The consensus was our results were as good, if not better, than restaurant fare. Far fresher, that’s for sure. The bones were immolated in the fire lest we attract critters, including the large clawed ones. The real pests were swarms of blood-thirsty mosquitoes. If Minnesotans jokingly label them their state bird, in Wyoming they are the state raptor.

One of us was sweating the long ascent to Porcupine Pass, a 10,900-foot saddle nestled between two low peaks. It turned out to be a modest climb into a broad, peaceful flower-strewn valley through dense clouds and mist. We all reached the top with flying colors.

Of all the passes in the Wind Rivers, this might be my favorite because the clouds immediately broke and on the far side was what could be mistaken for a Swiss valley minus the clang of cow bells and charming chalets. It was utterly marvelous. Greg even found a snowfield to play in as the rest of us traversed a long series of switchbacks down to the Porcupine River.

On that note, we did come upon moose and a porcupine on our walk, both of which we gave wide berth.

Alas, this is where the weather turned ominous. We were greeted by a steady rain which made for a soggy, uncomfortable night. The downpour continued into the next day, but once we saw brookies stacked up in the stream we rigged up during a break in the rain and caught enough fish for a shore lunch on a narrow sandbar.

We finished in the nick of time as the skies reopened and with everything already wet we made a joint decision to hightail it out another six miles even though it meant we cut our trek short by a day.

We ended up drying out at a B & B in Pinedale and found a welcome spot for a beer and a welcome meal someone else cooked.

Really, none of us were worse for the wear and whatever pain we felt dissolved quickly enough that we’re already talking about a return in August, 2024.

If there’s one thing we know for certain, we’ll darn well find a way to shave tortuous weight from packs that best weigh less than 30 pounds.

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