In Search of Wildness: The Trailless Wind River Range

The wild has been calling my entire life. I've often felt I was born in the wrong place and time, that I should have been an 18th-century voyageur, paddling into the interior of New France with trade goods, a Lakota bison hunter during the height of plains horse culture, or a botanist seeking new plants in the remote Amazon interior a century or more ago.

Since I was instead born in 1958 in Minneapolis, and have chosen to live a relatively mainstream life, far from the wild, I seek whiffs of the wild in everyday life, in the semi-wild places near my home in Northfield. Regularly though, the wild calls strongly, and to the wild I go. While I generally bring a camera and shoot photos, that is not my primary motivation. I simply want to be in these places, to experience life as a human animal in the wild, to steep myself in the wildness lacking in everyday life. 

The late Minnesota conservationist and author Paul Gruchow wrote eloquently of this urge in his beautiful book The Necessity of Empty Places: "Nevertheless, some value and meaning clearly resides in such (empty) places, as in all places. Despite ourselves and our beliefs, some among us continue impulsively to seek them out. We go to a mountaintop, or retreat to the desert, or repair to some lonely cove along the wide and empty sea. We are drawn toward wildness as water is toward the level. And there we find the something that we cannot name. We find ourselves, we say. But I suppose that what we really find is the void within ourselves, the loneliness, the surviving heart of wildness that binds us to all the living earth."

Anatomically modern humans, with brains much like our own, have roamed the earth for about the last 200,000 years. For almost all of this time, our hunter-gatherer forebears spent all of their time in what we moderns would consider wild places. Given this history, it seems only natural that some among us maintain the urge to abide in the wild for at least a time. 

On the African savanna, then the Eurasian steppe, the Australasian archipelago and Australia, and later, the North American plains, bands of men would go out, armed only with stone and fire-hardened wood weapons, and hunt animals small and large in these wild places. Women would gather roots, berries, seeds, mushrooms and other edibles, care for children, and make home places, permanent, semi-permanent or nomadic, for their people to shelter in the wild. 

The wildness remaining in 2017 is far tamer than the wildness our doughty ancestors spent the entirety of their lifetimes in. We moderns don’t have to worry about saber-toothed cat or dire wolf attack, needn’t bring down a woolly mammoth to feed ourselves in the wilderness, and enjoy the comfort of high-tech clothing, cooking equipment and sleeping quarters. Nonetheless, a multi-day journey into modern wildness connects us with 10,000 generations of ancestors and their everyday reality, and reminds us what it means to be a human animal, in direct contact with the wild, a microscopic speck of consciousness contemplating the vast cosmos.

While I spent lots of time pottering about in neighborhood streams, vacant lots, and scrubby second-growth woodlands as a young child, and did some state park car camping with my family, my first exposure to what could be considered a wild place occurred when my parents, to their everlasting credit, took our family of four kids -- Scott (15), Gwen (14), me (13) and little sister Gail (7) on a multi-day trip in northeastern Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I was immediately hooked, and have returned to the BWCA and other wilderness areas countless times in the 46 years since. My parents were not intrepid outdoorspeople, so it’s unclear why they took this leap into the wild with four kids. Whatever their motivation, I'm forever grateful to my parents for this early introduction to the wild.

I began planning my most recent foray into the wild when the urge to return to the mountains became irresistible in the past year or so. The mountains hold a special appeal to this flatlander. I was ready for a fix of mountain wilds. My most frequent wilderness experiences are in the BWCA, where I have taken perhaps 30 or more multi-day trips since that memorable 1971 family trip. I've done fewer backpacking trips, but have been to Isle Royale (in Lake Superior), Grand Teton National Park (twice), Glacier National Park (twice), Rocky Mountain National Park, and Alberta's Banff National Park in the past. My last trip was 10 years ago (far too long ago), a memorable one to Glacier in 2007 with my then-15-year-old son Jakob, where we both learned a lot about ourselves and each other. 

I decided back in January, after registering for the August 19th Gravel World Championships (a tongue-in-cheek name for a seriously hard gravel bike race put on annually by the equally cheeky Pirate Cycling League of Lincoln, Nebraska), that I would take the opportunity afforded by being 400 miles closer to the Wyoming mountains than I am at home in southern Minnesota to head west after the race for some backpacking. My destination of choice: the Wind River Range, a fabled climbing and backpacking area, home to the Bridger Wilderness (west of the continental divide) and the Fitzpatrick Wilderness (east of the divide) in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

I had traveled to Lincoln the afternoon of Friday, August 18 to ride in the Gravel Worlds. My friend Dave S and I both stayed the nights before and after the race with pal Joe P and his mate Julie Y, who had moved to Lincoln about three years ago. On Saturday we had a fine, grueling 151-mile bike ride on ever-rolling hills in the ever-warming Nebraska heat, with 10,000 feet of climbing and a temperature of 90 degrees by ride’s end. With the distance, the climbing and the heat, I was crushed, utterly spent by the end of the race around 4:30 p.m. Saturday -- a perfect warmup for my backpacking adventure!

The next morning (Sunday the 20th) I jumped in my trusty Prius adventuremobile at about 6:00 a.m. and pointed it westward. Onward, Prius! I lashed the rig which I normally drive as conservatively as possible at 80 mph, hurtling toward the mountains! It was a mere 800 miles, and I pulled into Pinedale, Wyoming around 6:00 p.m.

Months after I planned the trip I realized, to my delight, that the August 21 total solar eclipse would be viewable around 11:35 a.m. in the Wind River Range. Unbelievable serendipity! I realized that this meant more people would be in the wilderness than would typically be the case, but this seemed a small price to pay (especially since I was confident most of the eclipse-viewers would be within a day’s hike of my trailhead, and wouldn’t be in the truly remote and wild interior of the range). Pulling into Pinedale, I could tell the circus had come to town, as there was lots of small-town traffic, and a big tent set up on the outskirts of town by local law enforcement with a prominent "Eclipse Info" sign plastered on its side.

A friendly law enforcement staffer told me, when I inquired about the conditions at the Elkhart Park campground (the National Forest Service campground 30 minutes farther into the mountains, my chosen trailhead launch point for the trip into the Wind River Range), that "it's like Woodstock up there. There's nowhere to park, and you'll get turned back." I, of course, had to see this, so drove up there post-haste only to find that it was indeed (while not quite Woodstock) a circus, with cars parked along the narrow mountain road for the last mile heading up to the parking lot. After surveying the remarkable scene, I headed a bit back down the mountain to a nearby ski resort where I had been told I could camp for $20 for the night.


After pulling into the funky White Pine Ski Resort and wandering around a bit, I found what appeared to be a camping area, with a number of semi-permanent tipis and canvas tent-house things set up. An elderly couple greeted me and told me the owners had left for the evening, but I could camp anywhere. I set up overlooking a beautiful meadow, shared a bit of proffered Jack Daniels with a friendly chappy about my age, chatted with the oldsters (Marty and Anna from Carpinteria, California -- Marty and a friend had biked cross-country from New York to Carpinteria in 1961!), ate a few tacos offered by a friendly young mountain biker, and got a good night's sleep before the backpacking was to begin.

Photographer's Point

I was up early the next morning (Monday the 21st, eclipse day!), eager to hit the trails. I was on the trail by around 7:30 a.m., and immediately saw a remarkable stream of people heading back toward civilization from the interior. This seemed very odd to me, as I was keen to see the eclipse in the wild. Obviously, all sorts of folks had come for the eclipse, but many of them were not staying in the wilderness for it. Weird. Whatever the explanation, people and dogs, dogs, and more dogs kept passing me. It seemed every other group had a hound or two with his/her own little backpack. Very sweet! The first four miles or so were mellow, and not spectacular, just a beautiful meander through


Dogs, dogs everywhere the first day!

mountain spruce-fir forest. The first knockout spot was an overlook of some rugged peaks known as "Photographer's Point," which I had actually day-hiked to with Jakob in 2004 when he and I were driving cross-country to meet my wife Anne and daughter Maia on the Oregon coast. I had internally vowed then to return for a bigger trip, deep into the wild; here I was, 13 years later! YEAH!!!

Things got steadily more interesting and craggy as the morning progressed. By around 10:30 a group of hikers I passed asked if I had seen the beginning of the eclipse yet. No! I put on my eclipse glasses and saw that indeed, a sliver of the sun was gone! I hiked on, as I wanted to get as far into the wilderness as I could by totality.

About 45 minutes later I found a beautiful spot by a little pond, with the sun high in the sky to the south-southeast above a cliff, framed by surrounding conifers. I set up my camera on its tripod, slipped on my glasses, and began watching the dwindling crescent of sun. The deepening twilight was noticeable well before totality was reached. It was surreal to watch the crescent of sun shrink and finally wink out, with darkness falling all around. I heard a shout from across the pond where I had set up -- others were hanging out in the area.

 The cosmic alignment (sun, moon, my Personal Speck of Consciousness) was almost too much to take in. It was a truly memorable couple of minutes, needless to say. Annie Dillard described the experience brilliantly in her essay “Total Eclipse”: 

“At once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid. The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover. The hatch in the brain slammed. Abruptly it was dark night, on the land and in the sky. In the night sky was a tiny ring of light. The hole where the sun belongs is very small. A thin ring of light marked its place. There was no sound. The eyes dried, the arteries drained, the lungs hushed. There was no world. We were the world’s dead people rotating and orbiting around and around, embedded in the planet’s crust, while the earth rolled down. Our minds were light-years distant, forgetful of almost everything.”

When a blazing slice of the sun began reappearing, I felt dazed, but packed up once again in the weird, otherworldly light, and began hiking deeper into the wilderness. I soon met a few more groups of hikers, and we exchanged giddy greetings, realizing we had shared an incredibly rare and wonderful experience in the wilderness.

After stopping for a quick lunch with my already sore feet (harbinger of much pain to come) soaking in Lake Seneca, I passed through a country of beautiful wildflower- and boulder-strewn meadows and streams. I had been climbing steadily from the beginning (starting at about 9,350'; by day's end I would be at about 10,400'), but none of it was particularly hard climbing. I finally called it a day in the late afternoon after hiking about 12 miles and set up camp. While I felt a good tired, this was really too much, given that I wasn't acclimated to the altitude. After a beautiful evening in camp, I turned in early so I could get a well-rested start to what promised to be a strenuous day in the high country on Tuesday.


Island Lake, home for my first night on the trail at 10,400'

I soon realized that my ancient Thermarest pad had a slow leak, and I was essentially sleeping on the hard ground. NO!!! Well-rested was now a vain hope, as I tossed and turned all night, getting some but not much sleep, with my arthritic, 59-year-old lower back and sacroiliac joints protesting all night long.

I rose early, and after a quick breakfast, packed up and headed toward Titcomb Basin and Indian Basin, two famously-beautiful backpacking and climbing destinations. I admired both as I hiked past Titcomb and through Indian Basin on the way to the first major climb of the trip, up 12,150-foot Indian Pass.

Fremont and Jackson Peaks, Indian Basin

Small jewel-like lakes dotted Indian Basin, and patches of snowfield left over from last winter’s much-heavier-than-normal snowpack began showing up. The trail became less and less distinct the higher I went, and soon I was scrambling over boulder fields and snowfields. This was to be the norm for most of the next three days. 

At about this point, I came upon another solo hiker. He suggested that we stick together going up and over Indian Pass, as it was looking pretty gnarly. I agreed, though not wholeheartedly, as I was really looking for solitude on this trip.

John S and I join forces while climbing toward Indian Pass

As it turned out, I was eventually extremely glad that we did stick together. For parts of each of the next four days John S (a 40-year-old who had emigrated as a college student from a small town in central China and is now an IT professional in Ann Arbor, Michigan) and I spent quite a bit of time hiking together and camped together one night. I got to know him quite well. John proved to be a really sweet guy, and an excellent traveling companion. We helped each other navigate through some extremely confusing and difficult off-trail terrain, and I think we both benefitted greatly from our cooperation.

The climb to Indian Pass was all over snow for the last hour or so.

A third solo hiker, 22-year-old Alan, also from Ann Arbor, by coincidence, joined us for parts of this climb. This was high, craggy, wild country, with gorgeous alpine views in all directions. When we finally arrived at the pass, a solo woman day-hiker (from a campsite somewhere in Indian Basin) was resting and admiring the view over the pass to the east of the Continental Divide, overlooking the Knife Point Glacier. A group of four 20-somethings also made it up the pass while we were there. Alan was heading down Knife Point Glacier and north; John, the 20-somethings and I were all traversing the glacier to nearby Alpine Lakes Pass, also at about 12,150. Day-Hiker Woman commented on how

Closing in on Indian Pass

she found Knife Point Glacier anti-climactic, as it wasn't as large as it appears on maps. She was right: climate change's effect was dramatically visible, though the late-August remains of last winter’s heavy snowpack expanded the appearance of the remaining glacier. Nonetheless, it was still an impressive sight. It was also steep, and frankly looked scary as hell to someone with no experience on glaciers.



John sets foot on Knife Point Glacier

The traverse of Knife Point Glacier, and the subsequent descent of the glacier on the far side of Alpine Lakes Pass, was grueling, exhausting work. Though the glacier surface was soft, each footstep had to be kicked in and held hard on the steep crossing. Without crampons or an ice axe (damn fool! I berated myself), it was somewhat harrowing at times, but I eventually made it up and over the pass, and down the glacier on the far side of the pass to Upper Alpine Lake. This also included crossing several extremely rough talus fields exposed by the retreating glaciers. 

Traversing Knife Point Glacier sans crampons or ice axe (damn fool!)

En route, I realized to my horror that I had somehow, inexplicably, lost both my iPhone (with several photos of detailed maps showing how to navigate through the trailless area I now planned to cross over the next three days) and one of my two hard-copy maps, the one that covered pretty much the entire off-trail portion of the trip. ARGHHHHH!!!!!! In my 40-plus years of wilderness travel, I had never previously lost anything of significance. I’m still not sure what happened. The effects of altitude had perhaps clouded my mental faculties and led me to set the map and/or the phone down on a boulder while resting. It’s also possible that the phone came out of my Velcroed pocket on a fast and fun glissade down the glacier toward Upper Alpine Lake. In any case, I now knew I had would have to rely on the kindness of others to make it through the wilderness. I also felt sick that I had littered the wilderness through my carelessness.

Exhausted by the climbing, glacier crossings and boulder-hopping, I camped that second night on the first bit of relatively flat terrain I came to on my descent from Alpine Lakes Pass, a tiny patch of tundra overlooking an alpine lake. I've never known greater solitude. 

Camp 2: Give me oxygen!

I was over 11,000 feet, sleep was difficult, and I was feeling the effects of the altitude (headache, loss of appetite, low energy). I fretted a bit about being in the heart of exceedingly wild country without a map, but consoled myself with the likelihood I would come across someone early in the next day’s hike who would allow me to photograph their maps.

Sue and Kirsten save my bacon!

Awaking early the next morning, I downed a couple of cups of coffee and forced down some breakfast. I felt good in spite of the lack of sleep and altitude effects, and after descending through rugged boulder fields for about 30 minutes, came upon a mother and daughter breaking camp, Sue and Kirsten from Bozeman, who let me photograph their maps.
Thankyouthankyouthankyou, Sue and Kirsten!!!

John and I soon re-connected while puzzling our way through complicated, broken terrain, and for the next two days we scrambled up and down valleys, over another high (though not glaciated) pass (Hay Pass, 11,003'), and generally wandered in awe through the prelapsarian alpine wonderland.

Another alpine jewel below Douglas Peak

Craggy peaks, tiny glacial-meltwater ponds, boulder fields, occasional patches of meadow bursting with wildflowers, all was amazing.


Rocky Mountain columbine

In places Rocky Mountain columbine was thick. Indian paintbrush and a dizzying array of other exotic (to my Midwestern eyes) wildflowers of all hues grew everywhere.John and I hiked together part of the time, and we hiked solo at other times.

Micro icebergs in August

Though I saw none of the large mammals that call the Winds home (grizzly and black bear, elk, moose, mule deer, bighorn sheep), here and there I came upon an inquisitive marmot or pika, peering at the two-legged interloper in their alpine domain. All was good, though my toes were swollen and sore, and my legs ached from all the boulder scrambling. 

Marmot on the lookout

I spent the third night at another beautiful solo campsite on aptly-named Camp Lake. John pushed farther on along Camp Lake. He later told me he would have camped with me, but I had mentioned that I was seeking solitude on this trip, so he pushed on alone. I felt like a bit of an antisocial cad when he told me this on the fourth day, but he seemed genuinely unoffended.

The fourth night John and I did camp together just above a beautiful, small, unnamed lake after descending a stunningly gorgeous valley with views of the Golden Lakes chain, and continuing past the Golden Lakes.


Gorgeous view, looking south, of the Golden Lakes chain

I told John that evening that I had originally planned to exit the wilderness the next day (Friday), but that the 24 miles remaining was simply too much to cover in one day, so my plan was to cover 15 up and down miles to Pole Creek Lake, and then hike the final nine miles to the trailhead on Saturday. I had covered only about 18 hard, hard miles in three days of off-trail scrambling, far less than I had expected to cover, since the boulder-hopping was such slow going. Along with the first day’s 12 miles, I had traveled about 30 miles total from the trailhead in the first four days, much less than the 40 to 45 miles I had expected to cover in that time.

Camp 4 sunrise

The next morning we broke camp early, and hiked at a good clip. After wandering for a couple of miles, we found ourselves on actual trails again. It felt like we were back in civilization (though that was still waaaaaaaaay off). We made good time, and stopped for the first time for an early lunch after covering about five miles. At this point John bid me farewell, as he knew I wanted to move it along and he didn't want to hold me

Stream crossings? No problem

back. We exchanged phone numbers so we could share photos with each other, and made plans to get together for drinks in December when he planned to be in St. Paul to visit a good friend.

Friday afternoon I felt like a world-beater. My legs were feeling strong, my toes had settled down a bit, and I began thinking "you know, if I can make it 15 miles, I can surely make it 24..." This was crazy thinking, but I knew that: a) Anne was worried sick about me, and the longer it took me to get out to where I could message her (with someone else's phone!), the longer she would worry; b) I didn't really want to sleep on the ground another night -- the allure of a soft bed and a shower was becoming powerful; and c) I really kinda like doing crazy hard things. YEAH, let's go for it!!!


I hiked through seven stream crossings that day. Yeah, baby! I hiked up and over 10,800' Hat Pass. Feelin' strong! I hiked another seven miles to Pole Creek Lake, my original planned stop for the night, crossing the last stream with the sun still an hour or two high in the sky. I took off my soaked boots, let my sore feet breath, ate a quick dinner, and did a brief reality check. Was I really up to doing another nine miles, much of it in the dark, by headlamp? My grip on reality is tenuous at best; I decided to push on. 

Final stream crossing at the Pole Creek Lake outlet.
I should have camped here. I REALLY should have camped here.

Unable to face the prospect of putting my seriously sore feet back in my boots, I put on my Keen sandals to hike the final nine miles, as the trail was not likely to be excessively rocky and rugged anymore.  About three miles down the trail, after some beautiful twilight hiking, I turned the headlamp on, and total exhaustion was setting in. Another mile-and-a-half down the trail, I could barely walk. I staggered into an area that I knew was the Photographer's Point outcropping I had passed Monday morning, four-and-a-half miles from the trailhead. I shrugged off my pack and laid on the bare rock, utterly exhausted, for about 15 minutes. I knew I could find some relatively flat spot nearby to pitch my tent, and finish the hike in the morning, but noooooooooo, I'm a stubborn son of a bitch, so I shouldered the pack for one last time. I would have taken more breaks, but I knew if I stopped again and took the pack off, I would never be able to continue. 

The last two miles or so of hiking were, without a doubt, the physically most difficult thing I have done in a 59-year life full of doing physically hard things. I was fighting off sharp pain in my right Achilles' tendon, basically dragging my left leg along, and bending over every 10 minutes or so to take some pack-pressure off my shoulders and give myself a chance to collect my breath for 20 seconds or so, then carry on. 

Just when I thought that I truly couldn't go on, I saw a campfire through the trees. YES! Civilization! I shuffled the last few hundred feet through the woods, staggered out into the parking lot, made my way to the parked Prius, and nearly collapsed as I took off my pack. I slumped into the driver's seat, too tired to even move for several minutes. I looked at the car’s clock: 12:03 a.m. I had started around 8:00 a.m., so had been on the trail the last day for about 16 hours to cover the final 24 miles.

After driving the 30 minutes or so down the mountain to Pinedale, I sought out a brew-pub I remembered seeing on Sunday. I had been fantasizing all evening about having a big fish sandwich (with lots of tartar sauce and freshly-squeezed lemon juice), a pile of fries, a pint or two of good beer, and a chocolate shake. I found the brew-pub; it was closed, of course. I drove on and found a 24-hour gas station, bought a turkey wrap and some hot chocolate (I couldn't eat, and could barely drink, over the last nine miles, so was now famished and felt a raging thirst), and made my way to the nearest hotel so I could take a shower and collapse. I could barely walk into the hotel to book a room, my legs, ankles, feet and toes hurt so badly, but I eventually made it up to my second-floor room, where I slowly and painfully stripped, showered, and collapsed into bed around 1:30 a.m.

The next morning, I hobbled down to the car after eating a sumptuous hotel continental breakfast, and pointed the Prius eastward for the 1100-mile trip home. A great chunk of the interior of the country (Wyoming, South Dakota and southern Minnesota), much of it beautiful, flashed by with the cruise control mostly pegged at 82 for the next 17 hours or so. My normally incredibly SLOW and energy-saving driving habits were thrown out the window in the interest of GETTING THE HELL HOME for this trip.

After driving slowly through fog for the last three hours in southern Minnesota, I finally pulled into the driveway at home. Opening the car door and shuffling up to the front door, I found Anne smiling and waiting for me with a hug as I crept painfully into the house at 3:05 a.m. Sunday. All was well. I was home. 

My animal spirits have been renewed. Though I’m happy to be back in civilization, and realize that I am living in the precise place and time I should be (right here, right now), I cherish the memories of five filled-to-overflowing days spent living intensely in the high, snowy, craggy, boulder-strewn wilds of the Winds. I’m now ready to sit by the figurative winter campfire and relive the memories for a long time to come. Though I'm in the process of losing a few toenails, I found what I was seeking on this trip, the pulsing heart of the wild.