After initially hiking through a treed section, we got out onto the open area of Fish Creek Park on the Fremont Trail.

Day 1 - August 5, 2018
Big Sandy Trailhead to Mae's Lake

I try to get out and do a big backpack somewhere outside of the Canadian Rockies each year on a road trip. It doesn't always work out that way, but this year we got away to Wyoming.

The Wind River Range sits southeast of the Tetons. Since nothing impressive is visible from the highway, it is a relatively less popular area. We saw quite a few people on our first and last days, but deeper into the range there were only 2-5 groups at each lake. Most of which are quite large, making it easy to find solitude.

The whole range is just covered in lakes, containing 2,300 of various sizes. The rock is mostly granite, which crystallized 2.5 billion years ago. It is all within various Wilderness areas, meaning you do not have to book site or pay fees to visit it. In other words: it is a very appealing place for me to visit!

There are two major areas to visit. One in the north, around Titcomb Basin, and one in the south, around Cirque of the Towers. I chose to go to the southern area for various reasons. I thought it might be slightly less crowded (though I think they are basically comparable), I didn't want to climb any big or committing peaks this trip (so I saving the north with Fremont and Gannett for later), and I easily found various loops I could do in the south (while it looks possible, but a bit harder to make a loop in the north).