Wilderness Backpacking

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For all your backpacking trips into the wilderness. First and foremost, remember to Leave No Trace.

Community rules:

Posts should focus on backpacking (including non-motorized forms of travel such as horses, bicycling and cross country skiing), not car camping, RV camping, etc.
Posts should focus on wilderness areas, including national forests and other government-managed lands. National parks are acceptable provided it is a backcountry trip away from human establishments including paved trails and established campgrounds.
No vagueposting, please. If you want to share your trip to the Internet, post the location such that it can be looked up on a map by people from an assortment of countries (do not assume nationality of readers).
Wild disregard of LNT principles are grounds for removal of a post (e.g., petting a bison).
In addition to trip reports, gear questions and trail/location questions are welcome. No spam or sexual content allowed.
Be excellent to each other.

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Cirque of the Towers, Wind River Range USA, September 2022 (iusearchlinux.fyi)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I did a three-day, two-night backpacking trip for the Cirque of the Towers loop in the Wind River Range, WY USA. It was a 26.1 mile loop total, starting at about 9100' and maxing out at 11300' crossing over the Continental Divide on Texas Pass.

I don't recommend going over Labor Day weekend. Everyone comes out to do it, so it is quite busy. But it's a beautiful hike and quite challenging!

Trail map

Zoom in of the Cirque

Dad's Lake

Shadow Lake

Shadow Lake at sunset

Cirque of the Towers - Texas Pass

Hoo boy was that a scary pass. There is no official trail for the pass, but people have created one. It's incredibly steep and somewhat unstable, more of a scramble than a hike. But once over it, it's incredible!

Lonesome Lake

Jackass Pass

Jackass Pass is the second crossing of the Continental Divide on this loop.

Jackass Pass towards Arrowhead Lake

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wind River Range/Cirque of the Towers is on my bucket list. So awesome!

Were there many spots with trees, or were you above the tree line for the most part? Asking because I like hammock camping, but not sure if it's feasible out there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Welcome! Glad you found this little corner of the internet.

It's like 50-50 for trees. Some places are fine (like the first campsite) for trees. Others, not so much. I think treeline is around 9500' out there, and that is the biggest factor. But it's got a lot of meadows as well, so not everything is wooded below treeline.