Wyoming, July 7-15, 2006

Aaron's and my summer plans kept evolving, but they evolved into a trip to Wyoming's Wind River Range for some climbing in the Cirque of the Towers. We began in Lander, stocking up on food and forgotten supplies, and spent a partial day climbing in Sinks Canyon. Then we loaded up our packs, which were quite heavy (we both carried packs which were over half our body weight) and hiked into the Wind Rivers. We climbed the Northeast Face of Pingora and the East Ridge of Wolf's Head, both found on Steck and Roper's "50 Classic Climbs of North America" list. For our "rest" day, we moved our camp over to the base of Haystack, getting lost in the process; although we intended to climb Haystack the next day, when it rained hard in the middle of the night, we decided not to climb the next day and hiked out instead.

In all, we were in the backcountry for six wonderful days (five nights), and we came out tired, dirty, and engaged. Here are both mine and Aaron's pictures from the trip. I had a new camera to play with, a Canon A540.

This camera had a way-too-much-fun feature, the ability to take pictures in black & white with just a single color showing. I played with it on the long drive to Lander.

Aaron crossing the Popo Agie river in Sinks Canyon. We tried to find the "Shady Side" crags and got lost, wandering around for two hours trying to find the hidden cliffs of limestone.

Aaron in the river.

Amy, laden with pack, starting off on the hike into the Wind Rivers. Photo: Aaron.

The wildflowers were just amazing on this trip. I took lots of pictures of them. Here: Indian Paintbrush.

Aaron gets a picture of me kneeling to get a picture of the wildflowers. Usually I regretted kneeling like this because it was hard to stand up afterwards!

Big Sandy Lake, with Big Sandy Mountain and Haystack Mountain in the background.

Amy.

Aaron.

Amy kneeling again to take a picture at Big Sandy Lake. Photo: Aaron.

After we passed Big Sandy Lake and had almost reached North Lake, the sky opened up and it started to pour. We stowed our packs under boulders and found ourselves a reasonably dry spot to wait out the rain. Once it stopped, we decided to make camp at North Lake instead of continuing on over Jackass Pass (and the Continental Divide) to the Cirque.

Alpenglow on the Temple peaks.

Engleman spruce pine cones. Photo: Aaron.

Aaron hiking over a pass into the foggy Cirque of the Towers.

Beautiful alpine wildflowers on Jackass Pass.

Arrowhead Lake.

Amy hiking.

Panorama of the foggy cirque.

Aaron as we're dropping down towards Lonesome Lake and the Cirque. The big spire is Pingora.

Pingora, and Wolf's Head to its left, and some other towers.

Pingora and Wolf's Head again.

Warrior I is the spiky peak here.

Water droplet on a geranium leaf.

Aaron looking for a place to make camp.

Mitchell Mountain.

Aaron and I hiked over to the base of the Northeast Face of Pingora to check out the line.

Clouds and the silhouette of the cirque.

Early morning light on Mitchell Mountain, reflected in Lonesome Lake, as we're hiking to the base of Pingora.

Aaron on an early pitch of the Northeast Face.

Amy seconding.

Amy at a belay.

Aaron.

Amy.

Aaron at the summit.

Long-arm shot of Aaron and Amy.

Amy descending from Pingora.

Morning light on the peaks to the right of Warrior on the day we did the Wolf's Head East Ridge.

There are two main ways to get to the East Ridge on Wolf's Head: 1) climb a gulley over the top of Tiger Tower, the little bump to the left of Pingora; or 2) climb wet, grassy, fifth-class ledges to the ridge. We chose Option 2. We chose badly. It was VERY wet. This was the only picture I took from those 4 gross pitches. At some places, there was no choice but to climb through the running water from snow melting above.

To the right, the east ridge of Wolf's Head; Overhanging Tower and (I think?) Shark's Nose are to the left.

Aaron, with the East Ridge above him. This part, all the way to the top, was easy climbing and we simulclimbed it.

Aaron on the "sidewalk" pitch. Although it's low-angle, it is surprisingly hard to stand up and walk it on two feet...the slab is pretty blank and, at some points, no more than 2 feet wide, with a steep drop-off on either side!

Amy on a narrow part of the ridge.

Looking back towards Pingora, Aaron simulclimbing along the top of the ridge.

The "real" climbing begins along the ridge, when the going gets horizontal. Wolf's Head has several towers to negotiate, and it's never clear, from looking at them, which way offers the least difficulty. The route is only rated 5.6, but I thought it had much more interesting climbing than Matthes Crest in Tuolumne, and with even more exposure! Here is Aaron deciding which way to traverse the first tower.

Amy heading off on the "piton pitch."

Aaron on one of the several airy, exhilirating traverses.

Aaron at the "summit" (12,165 ft), the high point on the ridge.

Long-arm shot of the two of us.

Aaron rappelling towards Shadow Lake on the descent.

We got to the snowpatch in the col between Wolf's Head and Overhanging Tower, and Aaron said, it's time to glissade! I said, you're crazy! But he was right; the snow was soft, and it made for a really fun glissade.

Aaron even makes a turn.

Amy, not as balanced as Aaron.

Wheeeee!

That was one of the highlights of my day.

Mt. Mitchell, Cirque Lake, and the beautiful flowers.

Colorful spread of flowers.

Aaron pauses to drink from a stream.

Aaron glissading a second, shorter, less steep snowpatch to Cirque Lake.

Amy.

Aaron.

Mt. Mitchell.

Aaron traversing Cirque Lake.

We saw lots of butterflies on this trip, but they rarely stayed still long enough to photograph.

A cotton ball cloud over Pingora.

Panorama of Mt. Mitchell and Cirque Lake.

Looking out the Cirque towards Temple and Haystack.

Warrior Peaks.

A view of the Cirque as we're hiking out of it, back over Jackass Pass.

Aaron.

Lovely flowers.

Arrowhead Lake.

Aaron resting.

Wildflowers at Big Sandy Lake.

Aaron crossing a stream.

Aaron romping through a field of flowers near Clear Lake, after we got lost and got found again.

Yellow and purple flowers.

Aaron and lupins. John Steinbeck: "Once a woman told me that colored flowers would seem more bright if you added a few white flowers to give the colors definition. Every petal of blue lupin is edged with white, so that a field of lupins is more blue than you can imagine."

After our adventures trying to find Clear Lake (we accidentally hiked up the wrong drainage, then had to cross over the spine of Haystack to get into the right drainage) we found a campsite and set up the tent quickly. We were just in time: it began to rain as soon as the tent went up.