Wind River Range backpacking

A backpacker hiking the Doubletop Mountain Trail, Wind River Range WY.

The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Wind River Range

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By Michael Lanza

It’s hard to frame the experience of walking for days through Wyoming’s Wind River Range in words. The usual superlatives seem inadequate for describing a constant parade of sharp-edged, granite peaks soaring to over 12,000 and 13,000 feet, all reflected in thousands of crystalline alpine lakes. But here’s a truth I’ve learned about the Winds from many trips personally and helping numerous people plan trips there: Backpackers who explore it always leave there feeling they’ve discovered a very special place and want to return again and again—as I have.

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A backpacker hiking into Titcomb Basin in the Wind River Range, Wyoming.

Backpacking the Wind River Range—a Photo Gallery

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By Michael Lanza

In late afternoon, near the end of a day of backpacking some 14 miles—mostly above 10,000 feet—two friends and I walked into Titcomb Basin, deep in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, mouths gaping open. Forming a horseshoe embracing this alpine valley at over 10,500 feet, mountains soared more than 3,000 feet above the windblown Titcomb Lakes, including the second-highest in the Winds, 13,745-foot Fremont Peak, on the Continental Divide.

But by that point on the first day of our 39-mile backpacking trip, my companions were fully smitten by the Winds—as I have been since my first trip there more than 30 years ago.

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A backpacker in the East Fork River Valley on the Wind River High Route, Wyoming.

The Wind River High Route—A Journey in Photos

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By Michael Lanza

An elegant, high-elevation, multi-day walk through a magnificent mountain range is the stuff of dreams for many backpackers, and there may be no walk better than the Wind River High Route. Traversing a range with few equals by any measure—elevations, abundance of alpine lakes and glaciers, remoteness, length and breadth, or raw splendor—the WRHR embodies everything we imagine a great hike in the mountains should be.

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A backpacker's campsite at sunset beside Lower Cook Lake, Wind River Range, Wyoming.

Backpacking 60 Miles Solo Through the Wind River Range

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It’s a just-about perfect morning, with mild temps and a gentle breeze, as I start hiking from Elkhart Park in the Wind River Range on the second day in September, carrying six days of food in my pack and a bundle of high expectations. Just as an experiment, I start counting the number of hikers I pass on the Pole Creek Trail and tally almost 40 in the first two hours, all but two of them backpackers and almost all of them heading in the other direction, back to the trailhead. This doesn’t surprise me—it is the day after Labor Day.

But after that first two hours and more than five miles of hiking, as soon as I pass the junction with the Seneca Lake Trail, the parade stops. Over the rest of today, I’ll encounter a half-dozen backpackers.

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A backpacker in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park.

America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips

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By Michael Lanza

What makes for a great backpacking trip? Certainly top-shelf scenery is mandatory. An element of adventurousness enhances a hike, in my eyes. While there’s definitely something inspirational about a big walk in the wild, some of the finest trips in the country can be done in a few days and half of the hikes on this list are under 50 miles. Another factor that truly matters is a wilderness experience: All 10 are in national parks or wilderness areas.

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