Wind Rivers 2007

Who Needs Patagonia?
Wind Rivers: Big Sandy to East Fork Valley

Down the East Fork

Thursday, September 13 We awoke to more blue skies, a bit tempered with a bit of smoky haze and the smell of smoke, and a relatively mild temperature of 40 degrees. We packed up our gear and were moseying out of camp at 9:13. We picked up the small path that I had found the first afternoon, which sorta parallels the outlet creek of Maes Lake, immediately to the east, and above it. The path is more like a critter trail that descends pretty steeply, dropping about 300 feet before its confluence with the East Fork River. As soon as we made it to a slightly less steep spot, we crossed over the outlet creek, in stages, and climbed over a slight rise to get to the river.

Oh brother. Another spectacularly beautiful spot. The river cascades over a series of broad rock shelves. The banks are lined with evergreens and the peaks of the East Fork Valley rise about the entire scene. Did I mention that much of the lower vegetation was turning gold as autumn arrived with an air of inevitability. We spent a fair amount of time taking lots of photos of the scene, attempting, but falling short, to capture its beauty. But go see for yourself: the spot is around 12T, 638545 E, 4742045 N.

We reluctantly turned away, and headed downstream, following the general XC route marked on the Earthwalk Press map. The going was easy, which was good, because we were feeling in a lazy mood. In some places, there was a discernable path, and in others, it was like a few deer had walked through the spot last year. But still, easy to follow, since we were just following the drainage downstream. About a mile and a half downstream of the aforementioned beauty spot, we ran into a young woman who was horse packing for a NOLS group. The group was headed to the highest lake in East Fork Drainage. I imagined that tent sites would be pretty spartan in that area, simply because of a very low grass to rock ratio.

We encountered the NOLS group about the same time that we encountered our first "official" trail of the day, to the west of where Washakie Creek flows into the East Fork. The trail crosses our route perpendicularly, but we noted that there were no trail signs (perhaps because there was no official trail coming down the route we had earlier. However, this point is where the maintained trail down the East Fork valley begins and you would think there would be a trail sign. (In fact, we would encounter no trail signs whatsoever until the Chillcoot Trail leaves the East Fork Trail probably three miles down the valley.) But we were clearly on the maintained trail: the trail swerves to the east and crosses the East Fork on a huge sheep bridge (We GUESSED it is for sheep. It is certainly overkill for humans.) We crossed the bridge and hiked a few hundred meters more before stopping for lunch, and pumping water, sometime shortly after Noon.

After lunch, we continued on the East Fork Trail, heading downstream. We had decided to make a slight shift in plans. Originally, we had planned to stop for the night at Boulder Lake. However, looking at the map, we noticed that such would be outside the official Wilderness area, so had modified our goal to attempt to stay somewhere near the north end of Poston Meadows. So we were not in a big hurry, again, in keeping with the overall "atmosphere" of the trip. A short mile after our lunch stop, the trail began a short climb through scattered timber to avoid dropping into the same gorge that the east fork pours thru. A quick look at the gorge shows why the trail builders elected to stay out of it. It is not deep, but it is very rugged. The bypass drops into yet more meadows (thankfully dry by this time of year), and skirts them to the east. Near 12T, 637500 E, 4735918 N, the topo map shows the trail crossing to the west side of the river, and joining the Highline Trail coming down the west side. Well, it is one of those occasions to pick your spot, since there is no bridge. The crossing does not appear to be very deep, but it is not clear how deep it MIGHT be earlier in the season. Rock hopping in mid-September was no problem.

The trail continued to head south, dropping through a gentle narrow valley and arrives at a signed junction with the Chillcoot Trail, near a small lake. We decided a rest stop was in order and I commented that I could see the first cloud of the entire trip. It was 2:10 pm. That is a lot of cloudless hours for the Wind River Mountains. After a small snack, we hoisted for our final pull of the day. As we dropped into the head of Poston Meadows, we noted the Wilderness sign, which seemed to us to be premature. Indeed, the sign was a good half mile north of the point where the trail would cross the boundary as marked on the map. We looked around the western edge of the meadows and while there were camping spots, it looked like we could do better. We checked out the meadow itself, but had no interest in being THAT out in the open. We ultimately found a small spot, previously used, tucked in close to some trees at the northeast corner of the meadow, near 12T, 637772 E, 4732832 E. It was probably 3:30 pm by the time we selected our campsite. An abundance of riches, I guess.

Actually, it turned out to be a pretty good spot. The creek/river was not flowing too hard at this point, and it ran past the site thru a canopy of trees and shrubs which reminded us of fall on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. We cleaned up and I measured the air temperature in the shade: it was 58 degrees, the highest of the trip, so far. Dinner was penne pasta with pesto sauce and pre-toasted pine nuts and lots of parmesan cheese. Ah, for a nice buttery Chardonney…. We had cooked in amongst the trees, just to provide some shelter from the breeze, and decided to build a small trash fire with a few sticks of "driftwood." We did this right on the bank of the stream so that we could have some shelter and to make it easy to clean the fire spot afterward. We chatted and determined that an early breaking of camp in the morning would suit our needs to have dinner at one of our favorite watering holes, and streamline the trip home. Avoiding late season tourists in Yellowstone was also a priority. So we tried to make camp as shipshape as possible BEFORE retiring to the tent. Theoretically, this is meant to streamline the camp-breaking process, but I am not sure as to its efficacy with Susie and me.

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To view supplemental photos of this trip, go to our TwoHikers SmugMug gallery.