TITCOMB BASIN, WIND RIVER RANGE PINEDALE, WYOMING

The wind river range is a prime destination for backpackers and it didn’t disappoint. It’s set in the Rocky Mountains and stretches for 100 miles or so and the highest peak is Gannett Peak at 13,804 feet. The entire area is massive (over 2 million acres) and composed of hundreds of beautiful mountain lakes. I was surprised at how many lakes I encountered and the size of some of them is unbelievable. All of the lakes we came across had visibility of at least 8 feet or more. They look so inviting and from what I’m told contain quite a few trout. I spoke to a few fisherman who told me of the numerous trout.

9/5 – The hike up to Hobbs lake started out as a fast uphill, not steep just consistently uphill so we hiked fast. We hiked through some major blowdowns on both sides of the trail that is pretty intimidating and leaves one thankful not to be caught up in the blowdown when it happened. I spoke to another hiker who said there were people trapped on the other side of the blowdown a year or so ago and they had to cross all of the trees that had fallen in the trail. All I can say is wow that would have been brutal! Since we are flatlanders we stopped around 8 miles for night 1 at Hobbs Lake. No need to hammer the trail and get ourselves sick. Hobbs Lake is beautiful, not unlike all of the other lakes in the area. Our campsite was at the far end of the lake just off the trail and up about 30 feet. It was quite a nice campsite with room for several tents, we had 5 but could have comfortable squeezed in 5 more! At the one end of the campsite you could walk down a small trail to get water from the lake. There were several campsites on the next ledge up from us and in fact several more above that.

9/6 – We hiked around 6.5 miles to Island lake which happens to be the ‘base-camp’ site for day hiking the Titcomb Basin. Island lake is absolutely beautiful and it reminds me of Thousand Island lake on the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevadas. It’s also quite large and picturesque. The trail to Titcomb Basin itself goes around the one end of the lake and starts up just on the other side. There are a multitude of campsites around Island lake, some illegal being too close to the lake but most were legal. We noticed people camping on the opposite side of the lake from us because they had a fire. So many campsites!

9/7 – We hiked around 10 miles in order to make our final day a quick hike out so we could get some real food! We camped at Eklund lake which was of decent size and another beautiful lake to mention. We found a really nice meadow where we pitched our tents. There were several other nice campsites around the lake and quite a few other hikers camped at the lake.

9/8 – This was our final day on our Titcomb hike and a short approximately 3+ mile hike out. Regardless, it seemed like it took forever to get to Elkhart Trailhead! We finally made it and headed back to Pinedale for some Mexican food at Los Cabos restaurant. It was pretty great!

WIND RIVER RANGE LOOP: TITCOMB BASIN 29.5(APPROXIMATE)
START/STOP POINT – TITCOMB BASIN 29.5 MILES	TRAILHEAD – ELKHART PARK POLE CREEK TRAIL 15 MILS NE OF PINEDALE
TOTAL MILEAGE	29.5
DATE	9/5 – 9/8
ELEVATION CHANGE	3100 FEET
CAMPSITE NIGHT 1	HOBBS LAKE
CAMPSITE NIGHT 2	ISLAND LAKE
CAMPSITE NIGHT 3	EKLUND LAKE

PERMITS	NOT NEEDED
REGULATIONS	NO CAMPING WITHIN ¼ MILE OF LONESOME LAKE, NO CAMPING WITHIN 200 FT OF LAKES AND TRAILS, CAMPFIRES HIGHLY DISCOURAGED
FOOD STORAGE	BEAR CANISTERS OR BAGS. HANG BY TREES OR OVER TOP OF BOULDERS
CREEK CROSSINGS	NOT A CONCERN
SHELTERS/CAMPSITES	NOT DESIGNATED. CAMPSITES MUST BE 100FT FROM RIVER & 200FT FROM TRAIL OR LAKESHORE