Thursday, 15 August 2013
The Wind River mountains are often the highlight of the trail for many CDT hikers and for us it was no different. Huge cirques and valleys have been carved out by ice during the last glaciation and many moraine deposits and boulder erratics cover the landscape. It is a beautiful place and I have vowed to come back one day to hike it properly - not just flying through with my head down.
It took us a day and a half to get from the basin floor back into the hills on dusty dirt roads with a few impromptu breaks when we took a wrong turn and couldn't find ourselves on the map (we were off the map). However, things in life have a way of working out and it just happened to be the time that Dave and Sukey drove past on the way to their self built cabin in the woods. They offered us some pancakes and coffee so we jumped in the back of he wagon and were chauffeured to their cabin. After enjoying many pancakes, a piece of cake, a coffee and a glass of milk we were set. Little did we know that we ate all of Dave and Sukey's breakfast - but they weren't worried about it. Dave drove us back down to the dirt road and we walked into the hills. Even after only a week of road walking, we were ready for the cool breezes, shade, and views that he mountains always provide.
The highlight of the section was the Cirque of the Towers. Nothing can describe the beauty of the place, looking straight up a 1000ft vertical rock face has its own special appeal. We took a couple of hours off to swim and wait out a rainstorm in the cirque, and headed out over Texas pass into the rolling hills of the south western side of the winds. It was a shame to not have time to hike a route higher in elevation over peaks, ridges and saddles but our current schedule doesn't allow us much time to do the awesome time intensive things.
The rest of the southern winds were by no means boring. There are over 1300 lakes in the winds and it felt like we saw half of them. We walked past lake after beautiful lake, over hills, through streams and through rain and hail for 2 days until reaching Elkhart Pass where we hitched into town.
I am now lying on a buffalo skin rug on Dave and Sukey's floor in Pinedale who invited us to stay as they knew we were coming to town to resupply. If we had've started 30 minutes earlier on our second day, we would have missed the pancake breakfast, missed seeing the house and the cabin that Dave has both built himself, and missed out on making two new wonderful friends. I sometimes think how small decisions and random events can change the outcome of your day, or the whole hike. I feel very lucky to have slept in that day.
Pinedale. Aug 14th. Mile 1600
