Wind River High Route (Skurka) and Bike ride loop

If you haven’t heard, we started a YouTube channel! Our first video was from this trip. Check it out here!

Overview

Location: Wind River Range, Wyoming

Dates: 7/31/22 – 8/7/22 (7 days hiking, 2 days biking)

Route: Wind River High Route – Skurka

Distance: 110 (ish) miles, 90 miles biking

Gear List: https://lighterpack.com/r/4ocah7

Gear List if I did it again: https://lighterpack.com/r/mo1vae

Me and my buddy, Danny, set out to hike Andrew Skurka’s Wind River high route south to north and then close the loop by biking between trailheads. It was an amazing, beautiful, and crazy difficult experience, especially considering how unlucky we got with the weather. In spite of our inexperience in high routes and off trail travel, injuries, equipment failure, talus (too much talus), and being plagued by rain, through long days of hiking from 5am to 8 pm, we managed to complete most of the High Route. The main route alternate we took was that we were forced to take the Glacier Trail out instead of going up West Sentinel Pass. From the Glacier Trail trailhead we rode our bikes back to our car at Bruce’s Bridge, and other than a couple rain delays and more equipment failure, we managed to complete our fully self propelled Skurka Wind River High Route loop. Overall, we don’t think we’d recommend this hike to everyone, but we both came away unanimously positive about biking as a fantastic option to link up your thru-hike. This is especially true for the Wind River High Route, since most of the bike travel is on the Transamerica Bike Trail.

The Route

Day 1: Bruce’s Bridge to Deep Creek Cutoff Trail and Ice Lakes Trail Fork

Other than Danny getting hit a bit with the effects of elevation, this was an easy day. Our morale was high at this point and we got to enjoy a lunch of fresh food, which included blueberries, the last bit of fresh food for the next week. There also isn’t much to look at until the end. The campsite was one of our best of the trip and the spot served as a sneak peak of the beautiful views we were in store for.

Day 2: Deep Creek Cutoff Trail and Ice Lakes Trail Fork to Big Sandy Lake

Despite this being our shortest mileage day, it was undoubtedly the most difficult. This was the part of the hike where you have to go down the infamous West Gully after climbing up Wind River Peak. It is every bit as bad and difficult as everyone says and by far the worst part of the entire route. I would recommend you try to avoid it by all means possible. We also stupidly didn’t follow the suggested way down that Skurka laid out in his guide and mapset, which was our last time making that mistake. We ended up going too far left thinking that the really steep snowfield in that direction would be an easier way down…it was not. I ended up breaking both my hiking poles. Somewhere in that snowfield lies the remnants of two Fizan ultralight hiking poles. If you end up there, and find them, and are a total beast who’s not at all worried about sliding down the gully, please be a dear and pack them out. I also ended up wearing compression shorts and leg sleeves the rest of the hike (would just do full on tights if I did it again), since my running shorts with a briefs liner led to me sliding bare-butt down snow and gravel…the good news was the snow came after the gravel, so I got to ice my butt after scratching it up.

As we’d find out throughout this hike, usually the lowest of lows would be followed by the highest of highs (and vice-versa). After we finished the terrible descent, we saw a moose! It scared the bejesus out of me actually. After rounding a giant boulder, the sound hit me first. I hear an animal…charging?! Then my eyes see the moose ten feet from me galloping away. It stayed close enough for us to admire its glory.

There was still some pretty unpleasant off trail walking between here and Big Sandy Lake, so be prepared for that. There’s a few really annoying, brambly ascents and descents around the Black Joe Creek section.

When we got close to our campsite, I rolled my ankle so bad I started seeing stars. They tell you to rub dirt on it, and I did something like that. I curled in the fetal position and stayed there for a couple of minutes. After that, good as new? No. I felt some smarting of the ankle the rest of the time but not bad enough to be a major problem.

Day 3: Big Sandy Lake to Jim Harrower Lake

Mostly pretty good on trail travel for the day. I wish I could’ve hiked a bit faster but I hadn’t quite gotten my legs under me yet and my ankle was still sore. The positive was that Jackass Pass was quite easy to get over, and you’re treated to an amazing view of the Cirque of the Towers right after getting over it. The second big positive was that I found possibly the most amazing hiking stick I’ve ever seen (I named it Sticky), so we were up to 3 hiking poles between us. And using a stick you found in the woods is way cooler. And just as we were feeling good, hiking good trail, getting good stick, seeing good view of the famous Cirque, we got rained on…like I mentioned earlier…highs to lows. We made it over the pass before the clouds started rolling in, so we at least got a good look at the Cirque before the clouds covered them completely.

It rained by the time we completed our descent down to Lonesome Lake. We took a pretty long break there, but we really should’ve just kept going. This was another delay primarily caused by our super slow water filters. Danny also got a timelapse of the clouds covering the Cirque.

We opted to go up Texas Pass instead of New York Pass due to the rain (also we were wary at this point of off trail travel after the West Gully fiasco). This was easy enough. I think it’s technically off trail, but it was pretty much a real trail, and we saw more people than we’d see the rest of the hike.

We got on trail again on the Hailey Pass Trail and would continue on that until going off trail at Skull Lake. Going off trail here really felt like we were leaving “civilization” behind. That feeling would last until the second to last day when we reached the Glacier Trail.

Our final climb of the day would be over Raid Peak Pass, which I don’t remember too much about. I remember I got treated to a beautiful view because I chose to go gradually up the right side and there’s a nice remote lake up there. Danny ended up taking the low way there by hiking along the river and then hiking up all at once.

What I do remember is going down Raid Peak Pass because it started raining again, and it was late. Class 3 scrambling down wet talus was already terrible enough but even worse when it’s the end of the day and you just want to get to your tent. We set up our tent in the rain and misery and went straight to sleep without dinner. Our morale was probably at an all time low at the end of this day.

Day 4: Jim Harrower Lake to two miles before Golden Lakes

Luckily the rain stopped by the next morning. This day would be the day we hiked the most elevation gain and the most miles. We would ascend Sentry Peak Pass, Photo Pass, and Europe Peak. Other than the ascents, I remember vividly how unpleasant the travel was between each pass and peak. A lot of going along elk trails that are barely trails, whacking through willow (a new word I learned and a new plant I now hate), and just wet bogginess due to the rain the previous day. We considered taking the low route alternate Skurka laid out in his guide, but low routing was so unpleasant between Sentry Peak Pass and the Middle Fork Lake that we decided to continue along the primary route. We were happy we did. Europe Peak and Photo Pass were likely the most pleasant ascents the entire trip. The section before Photo Pass is one of the most scenic sections of the route. And Photo Pass is about as easy as Texas Pass to ascend and descend.

The hike between Photo Pass and Europe Peak is again quite unpleasant. There’s a lot of ascent and it’s below treeline and off-trail, which is an unpleasant combination. Once you get over what I dub a “mini-pass” before the final ascent up Europe Peak, it becomes a lot better. This section is on Indian lands, and I did feel some sort of untouched, wild, magical quality to it. As if the land had been this way and will continue to be this way for millenia. We didn’t see any elk unfortunately, but we were treated to signs of elk, and by treated to signs of elk, I mean we saw elk poop, a lot of elk poop.

On our ascent of Europe Peak proper, we passed by a father and son doing the high route in the opposite direction. They seemed to be in trouble and were figuring out how to bail because they wouldn’t be able to make it to Bruce’s Bridge in time. We also passed by someone (who also seemed in trouble) on our ascent of Sentry Peak Pass earlier in the day. It was weirdly comforting to see other people struggling as much as us, if not moreso.

The actual ascent of Europe Peak was pretty fun. This is where Skurkey the Turkey says there’s “a Class 3 scramble to a knife’s edge, Yeehaw!” and I was pretty nervous about it all day. It ended up not being as bad as I thought and even rather enjoyable. The scramble was a little scary but not actually life threatening and the holds are really sturdy. I also said a genuine “Yeehaw” for the first time in my life after I finished the scramble. It would not be my last Yeehaw.

We made a mistake not staying east enough on our descent from Europe Peak and weren’t able to make it to Golden Lakes like we wanted to. We found a decent campsite by the creek, and had a little bit of sunlight for camp.

Day 5: Golden Lakes to two miles before Blaurock Pass

This was the day of talus. We started off getting to Golden Lakes, which ended up being a bit underwhelming based on Skurka’s description and the name: Golden. He highly suggests you camp there, but honestly I enjoyed our campsite the night before more, since the creek was clean glacier melt water (not dirty animal poop lake water), and it was way less buggy. We also happened to have very little wind the entire trip, so you might feel differently if you actually experience the “Wind River Range” as it’s named.

The talus begins once you ascend Douglas Peak Pass and is pretty much unceasing until you complete the descent of Alpine Lakes Pass. We considered taking the Camp Lakes Low Route but decided against it since it involved more miles and more elevation and still had talus scrambling anyway. I think it was the right choice, but I’m not sure Danny is convinced. Douglas Peak Pass really wasn’t too bad. The route Skurks lays out in the guide makes it very manageable and not harder than any of the other passes on the route.

I hated the Alpine Lakes area because it was just unceasing, unending boulder hopping. Danny and I got a pretty good lunch spot at the very least, but then it was just more boulder hopping. Danny bent one of his hiking poles going up the snow on Alpine Lakes pass. So if not talus, it was slippery snow that led to bent pole.

According to our lord and savior, Andrew Skurka, the six miles between Alpine Lakes Pass and Blaurock Pass are the best of the entire route. I would shrink that down to the two miles before Blaurock Pass. After getting over Alpine Lakes Pass, we were again struck by bad luck, and it rained on us again. So once again, we descended wet talus with cold rain drenching us, with darkness setting in.

My mood was actually the lowest it’d be the entire time during this rain, but luckily, it cleared up rather quickly. Unluckily, we had to ford a creek, a fast moving, rainfall laden creek. We spent a long time deciding the best place to cross. We settled for a spot that still had fast water with water that went up to my chest at one point…yeah, that was our best option. After the creek ford, we managed to find a rather subpar, bug filled campsite for the night. Oh I also should mention, we had to use Danny’s poles one at a time to cross the stream, but he’s a pretty accurate javelin thrower. I had to throw Sticky across to the other side and he died on impact. I’m still mourning the loss.

Day 6: Blaurock Pass to who knows where (9.5 miles left of the Glacier Trail per Strava)

I was pretty excited for today because there’s a spot Skurka describes on his mapset as “sound of music setting.” He did not lie. Once you climb enough to be able to see the North Fork and Blaurock Pass, the views are truly awe inspiring…I mean “the hills are alive.” This is no doubt the most beautiful spot we saw on the route and one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my life.

After eating with our eyes, we have to climb with our legs. Blaurock Pass is a bitch of an ascent. It’s super long and there’s a few steps to figuring it out, but at this point, we were used to it, though still fatigued by it. The snow ended up being pretty decent travel so we were happy to have that.

When we finally made it up Blaurock Pass, we were treated to, you guessed it, rain, again, and also, pretty good views of the glaciers and Gannett Peak.

Descending down Blaurock Pass was untrivial in the rain, but we managed to finally make it to the Glacier Trail. With the rain, and dark clouds moving over Grasshopper Glacier, and our exhaustion, there was no chance we weren’t gonna end our Skurkish March and take the Glacier Trail out. We ticked all of Skurka’s reasons for cutting the route short and taking the Glacier Trail: injury (Danny’s knee was pretty messed up at this point, still is I think), equipment failure (we had one set of bent poles between us, which is pretty important for Glacier travel), mental fatigue (obviously), and weather most of all.

I am proud to say we did as much of the route as we possibly could given the weather and our time constraints. From the Glacier Trail, all we heard was thunder and lightning up in the glaciers. It would’ve been completely bonkers to go up there. If we were really motivated to complete the route, the only thing we could’ve done would have been camp at Dinwoody Creek for two nights and wait out the storm, but Danny and I both have lives and jobs we want to keep, so we opted to hike out.

We were pretty joyous when we made it to the Glacier Trail. It’s the most well developed trail we saw the entire time and after days of off trail travel, I wanted to kiss the dirt of the trail itself. I’ve never been that happy hiking in the rain. Even with the rain bearing down harder than ever, and a couple fast flowing river crossings, our morale was pretty high.

…it didn’t last long. We still had 23 miles to the trailhead and the weather did us no favors.

After about a three hour lull in the rain, it started again, and we decided to set up camp. We should’ve kept going. After setting up camp in the rain, we decided to cook dinner and night hike so we could leave more time the next day for biking. This decision was motivated by the fact that the rain stopped. 15 minutes in, it proceeded to rain again. We managed to make some good progress before Danny’s rain jacket got soaked through and he started getting really cold. We frantically set up our tent in the rain and dark. Fun.

Day 7: Who knows where to Glacier Trail Trailhead

It wasn’t raining much in the morning, but it was extremely foggy. Things weren’t boding well for a dry bike ride. We did get a sick view of the clouds rapidly swirling around behind us, but I would’ve preferred a sick view of the sun.

We passed by a lot of people today. There was an older guy who also did the High Route the same direction as us, but did it in 17 days instead. We had finally caught up to him. Don’t know his name, but I’ll call him Pittsburgh. Coming towards us, we also met two guys who had done the High Route but skipped the glaciers like us two years before. They came back for unfinished business.

I asked Danny “you think that’ll be us in two years?”

He said “No.”

Rude…

But I agree.

We made it to our bikes, and found them hale and hearty underneath our tarp. Other than wishing we had left a clean set of dry clothes with the bikes, we were pretty spoked to get biking.

Day 7: Begin bike from Glacier Trail Trailhead to Shoshone Rose Casino

Once we started biking, it started…you guessed it…raining again. This was especially unpleasant, since the first ten miles of the bike ride was over dirt and gravel. We were complete idiots at first too. We had our weight balanced out completely incorrectly. At one point I was biking with a loaded bear canister high over my pack that I strapped on my back rack, instead of distributing most of the weight in the cat litter panniers Danny made for us. I was also wearing a poncho with terrible wind resistance. This was the hilliest part of the ride save for the end, and I was unable to make it up most of the hills without walking. A couple people at the Trailhead earlier called us “Badass” when we explained our trip itinerary, so that fueled me up those first few terrible miles. It’s not everyday a wimp like me gets called a badass. And by not every day, I mean this was the first time someone has genuinely called me a badass.

Danny’s rain jacket once again soaked through and he got really cold. We found refuge in some covered overlook. During a lull, we decided we’d shoot for the National Museum of Military Vehicles where we could regroup and check the weather. We made it there without it raining on us again, but we must’ve looked ridiculous going in there, soaked, dirty, like we crawled out of the mud. If we were dressed more in traditional hiking gear, instead of like yuppy biker hikers, people might’ve thought we were part of the Vietnam War exhibit. The museum really was a godsend. We managed to clean ourselves up a bit, and we found out it was likely going to rain again for the next couple of hours, so we just spent that time looking at military vehicles. It’s a huge and amazing museum, and I’d recommend checking it out if you have the chance.

We resumed our bike ride in the sun and beauty of the Transamerica Bike Trail. We planned it so that the bike ride would be mostly downhill, and it was awesome zooming down the long stretches of descent. With a bit of night-biking, we were hoping to get to our car by the end of the day, but once again we were hit with, you guessed it, more rain.

By the time the rain hit, we were pretty close to Lander and about 5 miles away from the Shoshone Rose Casino where we decided to stay for the night. It was weirdly a bit unsatisfying eating real food, having a warm shower, and sleeping in a bed (we even washed our clothes) because it felt premature. Usually, I prefer to complete the journey before getting that level of gratification.

Day 8: Shoshone Rose Casino to Bruce’s Bridge

We wrapped up the bike ride. There wasn’t that many miles left, but there’s still a crapload of elevation between Lander and Bruce’s Bridge. It’s a nonstop ascent. Danny’s bike broke down on the way up. The good thing was that we were only half a mile away, so he completed the journey pushing his bike on foot. What’s crazy is when we got to our car we bumped into Pittsburgh again! He apparently strung together 3 hitchhikes to get back and stayed in Lander the evening. He also called us badass.

And that’s the trip. We hiked 110 miles, biked 90 miles, o’er mountain pass and peaks, in rocks, grass, dirt, talus, talus, talus, talus, and snow, in weather fair and foul, on swollen ankles, battered knees, broke hiking poles, bent hiking boles, broke a bike, lost $50 at a casino, but it was all worth it because I’ve now been called a badass twice in my life.

Gear Thoughts

Tights

This was the first hike I decided to try doing the ultralight thing and wear a pair of short shorts with a built-in brief’s liner. This was the wrong hike to do that. I would do it again on-trail, but you need protection on a hike like this. I tried to do a modular system where I’d wear these biking leg sleeves depending on the situation and I also brought a pair of compression shorts in case I couldn’t stand the liner. After the third day, I ended up wearing all three pieces the entire time. I wish I just had full leg tights instead. For something like this, wear pants the whole time, or if you’re a weirdo like me who likes compression and looking sexy and sleek, wear full leg tights with shorts over them.

Poncho

I had a poncho, and Danny had a rain jacket. I was happy (well not exactly happy) in the rain, Danny wasn’t. He’s converted to team poncho at this point. I used a cheap 2 dollar 2 oz Coghlans emergency poncho, and it was amazing. It’s super light, didn’t get me hot (I’m actually a real sweaty betty), covered my pack, and actually protected me from rain indefinitely. I also brought a wind jacket. The poncho and wind jacket combined weigh less than even the lightest rain jacket, so it’s the system I’d recommend. Rain jackets always soak through and can’t protect your pack. Because I had a poncho, when we were night-hiking in the rain, I could’ve hiked until the end, but Danny had to stop because he got too cold. Poncho fo life.

Rain pants

I’d bring rain pants next time. Not really for rain, just for bugs. The bugs were bad, and I mean really bad. You can buy those cheap nylon dance pants that Jupiter Hikes guy has on his gear list.

Electrolytes

These were a late add on to our consumables and something we never brought along before. We mainly got them for biking, but decided on a whim that they’d be useful to bring along the hike too. It’s now something we’d bring along for every hike. They really give you a boost when you need it, and manage to even help out some altitude discomfort and body soreness.

Huel Hot and Savory

Great backpacking food option I’ve never seen suggested. Though possibly why we needed electrolytes since it has a lot less sodium than most backpacking food. Like Mountain House, it’s 4 kcal/gram. It’s vegan and i think tastier than any other option, but the best thing about it is how much cheaper it is. Huel (with some initial discounts) is .76 cents per calorie, Mountain House is 1.96 cents per calorie.

Water Filters

Both our water filters were slow as all get out. I use a BeFree and Danny uses a Sawyer Squeeze. We should’ve tested them beforehand but we did not. We ended up drinking a lot of unfiltered, untreated water. This wasn’t too bad since a lot of the water on the route is just straight glacial melt.

Snacks

Our meals were too big, especially lunch. For a hike like this where we planned to have long and grueling days, we maybe should’ve just snacked throughout the day instead of even taking a lunch.

GPS phone, map

Our phones were everything on this trip. I believe the easiest way to do this route is to manually enter all the waypoints Skurka includes in his mapset on a downloaded map to your phone and just walk from waypoint to waypoint (well not all of them since sometimes Skurka is just informing you what’s there). We used Gaia GPS. It’s easier to manually enter the waypoints if you use the USGS topo layer.

Apple Watch

This was also my first time attempting to use an Apple Watch on a thru hike. I think it’s a fantastic option, if you can keep it charged. The issue is we had so little downtime and the magnetic charger slips off easily and you also don’t want to overcharge. I’ll figure out some strap or clip option for next time. Using the WorkOutdoors app, you can download maps and import GPX files. Danny entered the waypoints into Gaia GPS, and I was able to export from Gaia, and then import onto my watch. Am I making it sound easy? If I am, it is that easy. If I’m not, it’s way easier than it sounds. After you do that, you can just use the WorkOutdoors app map feature on your watch and walk point to point, instead of pulling out your phone.