My obsession with Gannett Peak, Wyoming’s highest point, began after we climbed Granite Peak, Montana’s highest in 2017. Prior to that we’d been state high-pointing, but Granite was my first “technical” peak. This opened up a whole new possibility of completing the lower 48, if not all 50, with Denali of course being leaps and bounds more difficult than any of the others.
Two years ago, we made our first attempt on Gannett via the Tourist Creek route. There wasn’t much info about how to go up Tourist Creek and after we’d been hiking up on the boulders for three hours, we looked across Tourist Creek to see three adults and a baby quickly making their way up in much easier terrain. Our friend said “There’s got to be a less difficult Baby Route” which we found on our way down. While we didn’t succeed at Gannett two years ago (we didn’t even see the mountain we were trying to climb), we did complete an on- and off-trail backpacking trip of the North Winds. This year we returned to the North Winds and I had two specific goals:
- Climb Gannett Peak.
- Provide a detailed description and waypoints of the Baby Route up Tourist Creek.
As such I planned a 40 mile backpacking trip, almost a loop, to complete in 7 days. Even though all but 16 of this was off-trail, it was half the distance of our last North Winds trip and so I assumed it was conservative enough that we could do it unless Gannett took us multiple days.
After our backpacking trip in Utah’s Uintas, Erik and I drove north to the Green River Lakes Trailhead where we met our friend Kathryn. She had climbed Gannett back in 2017 from the east face. As a geologist, Kathryn has significantly more mountain skill than I and is super fast in boulderfields. I’d heard the road into the Green River Lakes Trailhead was long and rough. Even though I try to minimize driving and had thoughts of starting from the closer New Fork Lakes Trailhead, decided I was committed enough to completing our route it would be worth it to drive into the Green River Lakes Trailhead.
Between our backpacking trips, we’d stayed at a rundown motel in the tiny town of Marbleton, WY. When we woke it was cloudy and intermittently raining. This kept up on our drive to the trailhead. This morning cloud cover was quite unusual for mountain weather. Cumulatively I’ve spent some 13+ weeks in the summer in the western US, and could recall just two other mornings when we woke to cloud cover — in Rocky Mountain National Park in 2013 and in Glacier National Park in 2016.
The cloud cover persisted as we drove. Initially I was hoping the road had been paved all the way to Green River Lakes Trailhead but just past the Kendall Valley Fire Hall, the pavement ended and gave way to a fairly rocky and pot-holed gravel road. For the next 20 miles, Erik averaged just 12 mph as we slowly crept to the trailhead, occasional rain falling on us. I contemplated if this was all worth it but then eventually Squaretop came into view.
At the parking lot we found Kathryn and got a spot next to her. We exchanged a bit of gear, we’re glad that the clouds didn’t seem like they actually threatened rain, and then we set out on our backpacking trip.
Day One 8/20/23: Green River Lakes Trailhead to the base of Tourist Creek
Since we’d all done the trail on the east side of Lower Green Lake previously, we decided to take the west trail even though we suspected it would be less scenic. Shortly after leaving the campground area, the trail climbed a ways above the lake and headed into the trees. Thus we caught only a couple brief views. We did find a nice beach about 2/3 of the way down the lake (no good camping). After finding many blowdowns in the Uintas, we were glad to only find one that we could easily skirt around and we made great time until we met up with the Highline/CDT Trail for the Upper Green River Lake.
We kept cruising as the sky remained overcast but it never rained. Eventually we stopped for our tortilla break just before Pixley Creek. At Pixley Creek we took the trail upstream a tad before crossing on a bunch of convenient down trees. This crossing was slow as the logs were small, bouncy, and a bit slippery. I remembered this whole section from two years prior and remarked it was a bit odd for Erik and I to go back to the same place twice.
Then at Beaver Park we crossed the Green River on the bridge, only the bridge had some upper railing damage we had to step over. Here’s where the route for Tourist Creek really begins. In some reports people don’t actually cross on the bridge and instead begin heading off-trail on the east side of the Green River. These reports all note lots of down trees and from what I can tell, crossing the Green River on the bridge and then crossing where we went on this trip is faster.
Compared to two years prior, we found a new stream crossing using Strava which has many more public tracks of the Tourist Creek Route compared to Gaia.
We filled up on water at Marten Creek, a non-glacial stream, so we wouldn’t clog up our water filter. A short time thereafter, we came to a very well established campsite on the left side of the trail. We could tell we were nearing a small lake that was our marker of where to cross the Green River so we headed through the campsite. On the far side we found a beat-down trail through a small meadow that led to a second campsite. From here there was more meadow to the Green River. We found the gravel bar I’d seen on satellite and took off our shoes and socks to get ready for the crossing.
Owing to the bright green glacial color of the Green River, it’s impossible to determine how deep it is. Erik went first. I suggested that he cross at the head of the gravel bar but when he got in the water here it went up to his mid-thigh. He continued, then found an area about 10 feet below the gravel bar to be consistently up to his knees at the highest. This corresponded with the north side of a clump of pine trees on the west shore. Kathryn and I then proceeded. The water was certainly cold, but not freezing, and the current was modest so this was a very safe crossing.
After our Green River crossing, we found some beat down grass heading to a patch of pine trees to the north. We took this, briefly cut through the pine trees, then found another beat down trail through a meadow that we took to the northwest (notch between the mountains in the photo below). When the trail got into the woods, there was a nice switchback heading up and at the top a well-established campsite. Even though it wasn’t yet 4 pm, we’d hit our goal 12 miles and decided to camp here, especially seeing as the next good camping was a the top of Tourist Creek and would take another 2-3 hours to reach.
Given the excellent condition of this trail, I was convinced we had found the Baby Route, the true social trail up Tourist Creek. There were a couple areas of down trees near our camp and after we set up our tents, we set about doing trail maintenance. Just down from our camp the trail crossed Tourist Creek (which divides and braids its way through the meadow before emptying into the Green River) and so for an hour before dinner we made a bridge across part of the Tourist Creek from small downed trees we found. The sun was popping out some.
After our dinner of Mac and Cheese, we built yet another fire because there was a great fire ring and this would be our last campsite in the trees assuming the remainder of the trip went to plan. Wow, campfire #3 in the past year.
That night when I lay down in the tent there was some weird light. At first I thought it was the moon but Erik said “That’s somebody coming down Tourist Creek with a headlamp.” I’m not sure if they ever ambled by our campsite as I fell asleep shortly thereafter, but if they did and were on our trail, they may have been surprised to find our new “bridge.”
Day Two 8/21/23: Up Tourist Creek to Solitude Lake
As soon as it got light enough to see, we were up, eating breakfast and packing up camp. The sun started to come out. The first bit of the trail was easy due to our efforts from the night before. There was a second crossing of Tourist Creek, though, and this one required more log walking and wasn’t very fast.
The trail went to the giantest rock ever. Here we turned east and walked through the meadow but soon any trace of a trail was gone and I had my first disappointment as we headed into the woods to navigate lots of down trees.
We kept trying to make our way towards Tourist Creek where I thought there’d be more luck of a trail. Soon enough we popped out onto a familiar looking boulderfield and we headed for the upper end of the aspens closest to Tourist Creek. Once we got to the aspens I realized the boulderfield continued to where the social trail begins in the pine forest.
After some woods walking with a few down trees, we came out to a small area with giant car-sized boulders. We crossed this and then tried to find the trail again in the woods but we struggled with this as we made our way up, sometimes finding areas that resembled more of a trail than other times. At one point we hiked too high up on the south side and ended up in a boulderfield. Here we ran into a couple coming down Tourist Creek. They’d just been camped up by Baker Lake and had gone up the route we were intending to go down over Lone Eagle Peak which they said was much easier than Tourist Creek and beautiful. These were the only two people aside from our group that I saw all day!
Shortly after we met that couple we entered the woods closer to the creek and stumbled upon a well-established campsite. We assumed we were back on the Baby Route but again had difficulty finding the trail. I was further confused because two years ago we’d failed to mark where we had crossed Tourist Creek..
Since we couldn’t find the trail, we decided to cross Tourist Creek. Level of “difficultly” is of course subjective but also largely based on expectation. Our Tourist Creek crossing was a bit ridiculous with some willows and big rocks. It certainly was not impossible but I would describe it as “time-intensive” rather than “difficult.”
After we crossed Tourist Creek we found more vertical slab-like rock and kinda cruised but then ended up a bit high and while there were less boulders, we were fighting with raspberries. Alas, here we should’ve been down in the creek basin. By now we were reaching the big headwall that marks the minor divide between Tourist Creek and the small bowl to the northeast.
Once we made it to the headwall, I was looking forward to some good trail next to it as we remembered, but again this seemed elusive as we mostly made our way up on boulders. Soon enough we got to the slightly flatter area at the base of the lake area and found some more grass and trees. We had first lunch where the baby was camped last time.
From here we stayed to the north side of Tourist Creek where there were more woods/grass than boulders. We ended up way too high as we made our way to the meadow section where we’d camped last time. So we headed down, crossed the meadow, and then climbed up on the area still in the trees as Tourist Creek narrowed in the next section. We crossed back to the south side of Tourist Creek just at the top of this narrowed section where we could walk across on boulders.
From here we skirted a brief boulderfield before we hit some willows and tundra grass as we hiked south. We had to do a stream crossing (it was wet everywhere and no problems finding fresh, non-glaciated water) and then fight through a few willows before we got to what Kathryn calls “Alpine Sidewalk” — aka tundra grass. This next pitch though was achilles-stretching steep. At least it didn’t last too long.
We kept picking our way up towards Solitude Lake (I’m not sure that’s the official name of this lake but it is just to the west of Mount Solitude), trying to hit up more Alpine Sidewalk instead of boulders and eventually we made it to the base of Solitude Lake. By now the wind had picked up and the clouds were coming in. As we made our way around the west side of Solitude Lake (again trying to find more grass that boulders), the sun intermittently came out and the wind settled some. We came upon a small but nice beach but we still had places to go. The tall jagged mountains in the Well’s Creek drainage with their large north-sided glaciers dominated the backdrop.
At the head of the lake we stopped for second lunch and filled our water bottles as this was the last non-glacier water we knew about. Our destination for the day was Skinny Lake — the long lake at the northwest base of Gannett. Then we headed up the pass into the Well’s Creek drainage. When we got to the top of the pass, we saw it was very steep down to the next tarn and so we made our way west until we got to a good ramp.
Now we were getting our first views of Gannett. I knew it was going to look intimidating, and sure enough it did, but almost immediately I noticed a lollypop or question mark-like patch of snow up on the “ramp.” We were somewhat prepared with crampons and also had climbing harnesses and a glacier rope along with a few pieces of protection.
Slowly we made our way down to the tarn, and then around on the southwest side where there was nice slabby granite. Then we went to a small pass where we saw that there was an area of side-sloping and a creek to cross before we got to a rock gate of sorts that I’d been looking at for years on maps. The clouds were building and it started to rain and then quickly stopped. The side-sloping was steep and had it been much steeper I probably would’ve been scared. I thought about our side-sloping last year in Chugach State Park in Alaska and thought about how much less steep that was than this.
There were a few boulders as we approached the rock gate but then were able to find a bit of alpine sidewalk. Kathryn and Erik had gotten ahead of me on the boulders and were waiting for me. It had stopped raining and I took off my rain jacket. From here we could see the end of the Skinny Lake where we planned to camp at the base of Gannett. It was a solid mile of variable boulders that Kathryn surmised would take us two hours to hike through. We also saw that the scree field leaving Skinny Lake looked steep, perhaps mixed with some ice from the Minor Glacier. And there was that snow patch up on the ramp. Kathryn had read it was a 40 degree slope and that we’d probably want some ice screws which we didn’t have with us.
Then we made a decision that I didn’t entirely understand at the time and that I still can’t comprehend. The primary goal of the trip was to climb Gannett. We had four days to sit at the base and try. Sure, I wanted to get home by 6 pm on Sunday to attend our block club party, but I was more than willing to sacrifice that if it took us all four days. Erik had said he wanted to learned more mountaineering skills from Kathryn. We knew the weather forecast was surprisingly bad and deteriorating throughout the week. Gannett obviously looked unnerving, but it wasn’t like we hadn’t climbed many a mountains in the past with similar profiles. It never feels as steep on the mountain as it looks from far away.
I wanted to keep going but got out-voted with the carrot that we’d have a much better chance at completing the rest of our above tree-line route that I’d planned and to which I was rather attached. That meant not having to go back down Tourist Creek if we gave up on Gannett. I’m sure I could’ve persuaded the others that we really needed to at least try Gannett, but that mountain looked formidable and I wasn’t strong enough or confident enough to push the other two.
So we turned around as it began raining again and we donned rain gear.
We retraced our steps back up to the head of Solitude Lake, doing the side sloping, then hiking around on the granite slabs by the tarn, then up the gully and over the pass into the Tourist Creek drainage. There were thunderstorms now behind us on the divide. I got a bit behind having taken a slightly worse route and then stopped for a photo. Hence Kathryn and Erik found a camping spot a ways above the lake in an area that was fairly exposed. By now it was 5 pm and we’d been going since 7 am. Sure my lower leg muscles and feet were a bit sore, but I’d expected a semi-hard day and it didn’t feel terribly out of the ordinary. Expectation and experience is everything.
After we’d set up the tents and cooked dinner, mashed potatoes on this night, we were just dishing up the food when it began to storm. We ducked into our tents. The wind came up in crazy gusts and we had to hold down the tent with our bear bag and backpacks. The rain came sideways along with occasional hail. The storm lasted 30 minutes or so and then we got out of the tent to do our usual bedtime rituals. It was fairly warm but the wind gusts made it feel much colder. Around dusk we got in the tent for the night.
Day Three 8/22/23: Solitude Lake to Trail Creek Park
The wind gusted all night long. It also stayed cloudy and hence only got down to 48 degrees. We re-traced our route along Solitude Lake on the west side and then at the base began working our way towards a small un-named lake at 10,930 feet. We scooted around this one on the south side but then upon climbing up the next section learned there was another higher lake not on our maps. Erik and Kathryn fought their way through some willows to cross the outlet while I went on boulders around the south side of the lake. Then we kept climbing up higher and went through a small gully and then back down towards the next lake, the biggest one, Flagstone, at 10,890 feet.
From here we could see our pass up onto the Continental Divide and it was totally socked in the clouds. The wind was still blowing and we had to keep moving to stay warm as it also began to rain. We had another discussion about continuing on our route, staying put to see if the weather would change, or heading back down Tourist Creek. I really did not want to do Tourist Creek one more time and so argued for either continuing on or staying put to wait out the weather or perhaps even detouring up to Tourist Lake to check it out but got out-voted again and so we began heading down Tourist Creek.
Soon it stopped raining. This upper part of Tourist Creek was much easier to navigate than the lower part with good alpine sidewalk. After not too long we decided to cross back over to the north side of the creek for more alpine sidewalk and less boulders. After going downstream a bit farther (which first required us to climb higher around some rocks before descending to the creek) we found somewhere that we could cross on rocks and keep our feet dry just before Tourist Creek tumbled over some big rocks into a slot.
After the creek crossing we took a lunch break and then shortly thereafter the weather got better. Now I was annoyed and wanted to either stay where we were or hike back up higher a ways but we kept going back down.
Soon we’d made our way to the meadow where we’d camped two years ago and then from there back to the campsite just before the valley got much steeper. Then we continued down Tourist Creek. The “trail” was easier to follow when looking down rather than up as we made our way along the headwall. When the trail ran out we took to the boulders at the base of the stream where Tourist Creek ran under the rocks. Here we got a couple brief grassy sections. When there was more forest to our right, we took this, eventually dropping down below a steeper section and then crossing what would be the creek but it was completely hidden under boulders. This was the same place we had crossed two years prior on our way down Tourist Creek. The day before we had crossed too low.
On the south side of the creek we found more “trail” and soon stumbled back upon the campsite we’d seen the day before. Again we stuck relatively close to the creek in the trees, although we often had to go around some down trees or step over them. We could make out the trail so much better heading down than we could going up. Then we came to the short section with car-sized boulders and I had no interest in going fast and often walked around on one boulder checking out multiple routes off it before finally deciding which way I was going to go. I had my hiking poles out and that didn’t help as most of my moves required me to use my hands. Meanwhile Kathryn had easily traversed the boulder field and was waiting for me for a long time.
After this we had second lunch and then soon the forest ran out and we were back on the final boulder pitch. It began raining again. We made our way to the vertical row of poplars farther from the river and found a nice scree trail there. It stopped raining as we descended and soon I was too hot and had to take off my rain gear. I was really really hoping that once the terrain flattened out that there would be a good trail through the section of down trees given how worn out this scree was but yet again, no such luck. So we bushwacked and stepped over and under down trees and then it started to rain again and eventually we made our way back to the meadow and then to the giant rock and back across Tourist Creek and then back across the Green River and then we stopped for a snack and to plan the remainder of our trip from the well established campsite that was between the meadow and the trail. By now it had stopped raining again.
We had mumbled a bit about a plan a bit on the way down seeing as today was only Tuesday and we had until Friday afternoon (we’d already made the plan to come out Friday instead of Saturday morning seeing as that gravel road into Green River Lakes took us so long and I wanted to get back for our block club party Sunday evening). Essentially we had three options: give up on the trip altogether and head home (Erik said “No” immediately to this one), try for Squaretop and then make another plan from there (I really couldn’t bare the idea of failing to climb yet another mountain), or make a loop to the south and west via Cube Rock Pass and Porcupine Pass that would take up the next three days of our wilderness time. We decided on this last option and hence began making our way up to Trail Creek Park.
Back on the well-established Highline/CDT trail we cruised and when we began climbing again I found the switchbacks much more gentle than I’d remembered them two years prior. There seemed to be a newly fallen down-tree that didn’t yet have a social trail around it and a CDT thru-hiker, the only person I saw all day, came flying by us. I wasn’t brave enough to hop across Clark Creek so I took my shoes and socks off and let Erik and Kathryn go on up ahead to find a campsite near the next intersection with the Clark Lake Trail.
At the next intersection I saw a couple tents up in the meadow above the trail, met Kathryn and Erik, and we headed down to the river to scope out the area there where we found some camping sites just upstream from the trail crossing.
We set about drying our stuff and setting up our tents and preparing dinner. Again we’d just finished cooking when the rain came. The storm was mild down in the trees but Erik and Kathryn were glad to not be up by the divide. It kept raining most of the remainder of the evening as we hung out in our tents although it didn’t rain very hard. It was still sprinkling when we got out to brush our teeth and pee just before it got completely dark around 9 pm.
Day Four 8/23/23: Trail Creek Park to Summit Lake (the long way via Cube Rock Pass)
The weather settled some overnight as it dropped down a few degrees colder than the previous night and we saw blue sky overhead in the morning. We started packing up camp at dawn and after eating breakfast it was around 7 am and chilly. Thus we were glad to hike uphill for awhile to warm up. By the time we got to our cut-off with the Glacier Trail, the same way we’d gone last time, I was warm. Once we got up to Vista Lake there was a party there still hanging out in camp.
We headed back down to the Green River drainage again and then up towards Dale Lake. This section of trail is “nonmaintained” and there is a brief boulderfield. We tried to follow a route but didn’t do well and eventually found ourselves too high and had to hike down to gain the trail again. Then soon enough we hiked by Dale Lake where we’d camped two years prior and then we were on to Peak Lake where we turned south to hike up and over Cube Rock Pass.
I was stoked for this pass seeing as the view from Peak Lake is so spectacular but the pass was narrow and between a couple big mountains so we didn’t get great views. There were a bunch of small lakes though which was kind of surprising. Our map wasn’t totally clear but a second pass, Shannon, was also marked and this was a very minor pass. Soon we could see down to Elbow Lake as we kept hiking through meadow-like terrain that was often wet and frequently we crossed little streams. There kinda seemed to be lakes everywhere. We passed a small group of three, part of which looked like they had climbed up by Stroud Peak that morning.
We began climbing a bit above Elbow Lake and here we stopped for first lunch. It was sunny but the wind was strong and we got a bit chilled as we ate our food. Then we kept hiking, now west on the Highline/CDT, it was quite interesting how this high area with lots of lakes and minimally prominent rounded mountains reminded me of the Fossil Lake area in the Beartooths. We had good views looking back to the mountains in the Titcomb Basin. We went down and around, still quite high in regards to elevation, but definitely not in the big jagged mountains. Kathryn told us about a book she’d read recently that was all about beavers and we recalled some of the most amazing beaver dams we’d ever seen.
As we hiked up towards Summit Lake where we planned to camp, we were gaining on a couple. We stopped for water at Pine Creek and gave them enough time to get in front of us that we didn’t see them again. This was only the second party we’d seen all day, the first one being just before we got to Elbow Lake. It was 3 pm when we got to the south side of Summit Lake and found a campsite amongst a clump of trees. The wind was still strong and it was quickly chilly in the shade.
After setting up our tents and second lunch, we set out to explore the area. We saw a horse party on the far side of the lake and after this we never saw anyone else all day. There was a small tarn between us and Summit Lake and a weird black rock on the far side. I hiked a ways up the mountain to the east of Summit Lake (Sky Pilot), trying to do a tad bit of bouldering. Then Kathryn and I circumnavigated Summit Lake before returning to camp for dinner. Then we hiked back a ways up the same area to the east before calling it a day.
Day Five 8/24/23: Summit Lake to Dodge Creek Meadow with detours to Doubletop Mountain and Rim Peak
We woke to a typical mountain day — cloudless and colder than the previous.
After packing up and breakfast, we headed out on the Doubletop Mountain Trail. My hands were cold so I walked briskly. Soon I was ahead of Kathryn and Erik and getting into some real negative head space, contemplating that decision we’d made three days prior to forego Gannett. I was pissed. I was mad at myself for not being more forceful, stating the goal of the trip, and that I was willing to be tent-bound to make it happen.
Having just reached a 20 year goal of benching my body weight coupled with thrice weekly strength routines with more leg strength exercises than I’ve ever done in the past, I knew I was stronger than perhaps I’d ever been in my life. Sure, post-tib tendonitis had waylayed my running for much of the last half year, but I’d worked my way up to 8.5 miles and was doing intervals before our trip. Even though I wasn’t super fast at climbing on rocks or acclimatized, I knew my years of accumulated time in the mountains had prepared me well. I was ready physically and to not use this fitness felt like a complete waste.
Before the trip I’d started struggling a bit with my “mid-life crisis.” I was contemplating some of my goals more and more, like canoeing all the Minnesota waterways and wondering if there was much point to writing this blog. And why had I spent so many hours this summer weeding my lawn? Now, as I began running above 10,000 feet, trying to get away from myself, I thought about my identity. Maybe I wasn’t the mountain climber I wanted to be. And I had said this completely unfiltered comment to Erik when we turned around from Gannett: “If we turn around now, then we should have kids.”
I’ve been wrestling with this decision to have kids since Erik and I got together, almost two decades ago. I’d always planned on having kids until I started dating Erik. I’d gone on for years not really wanting children but also not being completely OK not having kids. Maybe this was it, Erik finally making the decision for me. I mean, if I’m not a mountain climber then I should just give up and make babies.
And so I plowed through the Doubletop Mountain Trail, at times running, noticing the scenery (a repeat of the second half of the day before without any glaciers or jagged peaks), and definitely not appreciating it. The weather was absolutely perfect. Finally when I’d reached the trail intersection at Palmer Lake, I sat down to wait for my party. When Kathryn and Erik met me, Erik was pissed that I’d taken off without providing a plan.
The night before I’d suggested we add on to our route, thus we decided to do an out-and-back to Doubletop Mountain and then also a brief off-trail up Rim Peak. We got messed up at the four-way intersection on the south side of Palmer Lake that was in a meadow and ended up on the Palmer Trail. Once we realized this we hiked off-trail through the meadow up to the Doubletop Mountain Trail. We took this until we were on the south side of Doubletop Mountain and then hiked a short and easy ways off-trail to the summit.
Here Kathryn got cell phone reception and learned that the next day’s forecast, which was our last, was fairly rainy for the afternoon. Apparently Doubletop Mountain is famous for its panorama view of the North Winds. There was Gannett, a perfect weather day, and of course that question-marked shaped snow patch on its ramp. I was still too upset to fully enjoy the view and disappointed that we weren’t up on Gannett.
After some photos and first lunch, we headed back to the trail and Palmer Lake where there was a small beach. I suggested we swim but no one was particularly interested so we headed on to Rim Peak. Again the hike up Rim was mostly achilles-straining alpine sidewalk. Rim Peak is only at 10,985 feet so it was a short hike, although it was big on top and we weren’t certain which of the rocky outcroppings was highest. We likely ended up on one that was five feet lower than the actual summit. From here we had another good view back to the Continental Divide but Gannett was obstructed by a mountain between us. We had a good view of the large wall above Palmer Canyon and Erik repeatedly commented about how this looked like a fantastic wall for rock climbing. He wondered why it wasn’t more popular. We also checked the views out north towards Porcupine Pass where we were heading the next morning and the nearby mountains.
We headed down from Rim Mountain and caught up with the Palmer Lake Trail. This quickly got steep, albeit briefly. Despite the switchbacks it had a lot of loose small rocks, the kind of trail where my quads get tired quickly from holding myself back. We passed an older couple heading up hill. They had big packs and seemed to be laboring under the effort but made me hope that I might still be out backpacking in 30 years.
At Dodge Creek we took another food break while Erik sat in the creek. The day wasn’t particularly warm, but it was hot in the sun and there was no breeze. Then we got to climbing up towards the head of the valley. The trail was super gradual and so even though we were climbing it wasn’t hard. I figured we should camp near where three streams came together to form Dodge Creek. There was a big meadow in this area and when we first started looking for a campsite I said we had to go higher until we got to at least 10,000 feet which was about at the top of the meadow. We found some decent camping although without tree protection.
It was 5 pm so we set up the tents and got dinner going. We spent the evening talking and poking around the camping area before it got dark and we retreated to our tents.
Day Six 8/25/23: Dodge Creek Meadow to Green River Lakes Trailhead
We woke to clear skies, temps in the low 40s, and the wettest tent we’ve had in a long time owing to the dew in the meadow. While the weather held I suggested we climb the peak at 11,850 feet to the east of Porcupine Pass. Erik had previously suggested a small grassy bump on the west side but I won this one. It didn’t take us long to get to Porcupine Pass and there we ditched a couple packs and food bags and headed up Peak 11,850 (I can’t see it actually has a name). We mostly followed the ridge but the second pitch was quite steep with small loose rock and we split up to find the best route. After that it flattened out a bit before a boulderfield to the next flat area.
We caught a bit of alpine sidewalk before we found a bridge to the next part of the peak. From here we mostly climbed up on more alpine sidewalk, taking the small pass before hiking on boulders for the final summit push. The view up on top was pretty amazing. We could see the Tetons to the northwest, the Beartooths to the north, and had a great view of Gannett and the big peaks on the Continental Divide. The view was definitely worth it even if that meant we might get rained on as we hiked back to the car.
But all good things must come to an end and after looking over the steep edge to the east, we began our descent. Somehow I felt good on the boulders and when we reached the second to last steep pitch with some small loose rock and dirt, it wasn’t even that bad and I really marveled at the amazing pink rocks in that area. They had this pink veining. I even thought about hauling some rocks back home. They definitely caught my eye as being the most beautiful rocks I’ve ever seen.
Back at Porcupine Pass we had first lunch and then began the switchback descent over the much steeper north face of the pass. Then we entered back into the forest. There were lots of mushrooms and Kathryn picked some. We made plans to cook them in olive oil back at the trailhead with our Mac and Cheese. Eventually we came to a meadow and then back to the forest. The trail crossed Porcupine Creek. We missed the intersection to Twin Lakes where there was a group camped and then we crossed back over Porcupine Creek. Shortly thereafter it began to seriously rain. We were warm and so I didn’t even put on my rain gear. It also helped that we were heading back to the car in a couple hours. We passed by the Porcupine Creek Falls, but they were largely obstructed by the forest. Classic.
By the time we crossed Porcupine Creek for the last time, where we managed a dry foot crossing with the help of a braided channel and some down trees, it had stopped raining.
We debated about whether we should hike the west or east trail along Lower Green River Lake but given the weather decided on the less scenic west trail. Slowly we dried out as the trail climbed high above the water. It seemed like it was taking forever but eventually we made it back to the trailhead just before 4 pm. Kathryn took off to make it home near Salt Lake City at a decent hour. Meanwhile Erik and I were hungry so Erik fried up those shrooms and cooked up the Mac and Cheese but it began to rain again, hard. Erik cooked under our back hatch while I sat in the front seat of our car. So comfy.
After our Mac and Cheese, we began our drive down the very rutted and washboarded gravel road. We stopped at the Kendall Warm Springs and walked around. There were signs saying “No wading, swimming, or fishing,” because there’s a fish species (the Kendall dace) that is only found here. The spring cascaded into the Green River over a waterfall of travertine. We got back in the car and shortly thereafter found a pull-out with a fire ring (out west there’s camping all over the national forests). This site was free and while it didn’t offer any real amenities the water access was descent and we had our car. We drove home over the next two days, giving some CDT flip-floppers a ride into Pinedale the next morning.
This was not the trip I’d come to do but I did satisfy the goal of getting intimate with the Tourist Creek Baby Route.
If I had to do this trip again: Wouzer!!! I would’ve been way more persistent that we needed to hike into Skinny Lake. We needed to TRY Gannett. It’s one thing to fail on ability but it’s another to just simply give up. I’m proud of myself that back in 2018 when I went after a 6 minute mile I still did my attempt even though I wasn’t certain I was ready. What we did on Gannett was do all the prep and then bail before trying.
Because we turned around though, I definitely learned more about myself. I learned that I like jagged peak with glaciers. I learned that having some chill time in camp is good, but not too much. I learned that I like challenges and overcoming them but failure is hard. I’ve previously had the motto “You have to fail to succeed” but this was hard, really hard because it was the second attempt and this one we didn’t even really try. And we’d set ourselves up well by driving all the way to the Green River Lakes Trailhead.
Best Decisions: This is difficult given the above. I’m glad we tried a new river crossing to get to Tourist Creek and of course that we did that un-named peak at 11,850 to the east of Porcupine Pass.
Next Time: I left the Winds incredibly hungry. For now I get to pour most of that energy into my ski training — more leg strength, 100 pull-up sessions, and lots of intervals. Soon we’ll do a trip to the southwest United States — a medical conference in Sedona and lots of driving to the Texas high point in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. I’ve resolved to make that trip as difficult as possible. Of course I’ve pondered if we should still go after the state high points (upon quick calculations, I’ve now completed 23). We debated this two years ago after we failed on Gannett and then had a trip planned to do Boundary in Nevada. In the end we hit up Boundary and I was glad we did as we had an excellent time, but Boundary was also a bit difficult and provided good redemption.
As for returning to the North Winds, well, I’m tempted to vindicate myself but I’m also grappling with failure, between this trip and last years’ to the Chugach. Erik seems skittish about camping above treeline after a couple bad wind experiences and I’m not sure I trust his mojo anymore. Perhaps next year will be one of building, I’ll let him plan some vacations. I don’t do well when my trips don’t go as planned.
Gannett is certainly calling me. Perhaps we can try for the glaciated east face although that bergshund certainly scares me. Maybe we can plan for a several day trip where we just hang out on the Gooseneck Glacier and work our way up the mountain, returning to base camp each night, building on our glacier skills. But that west face is calling me, too. Only I might be too stubborn to set myself up so well again with the Green River Lakes Trailhead.
I do know that the North Winds offers some of the best scenery in the Lower 48 and so if we do attempt again, assuming we get close, it will be stunning.
Elspeth Ronnander 
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