Backpacking Wyoming’s Wind River Range – The Green River/Porcupine Creek Loop

The morning of August 3rd saw us housing D.O.G. breakfast burritos at first light in Jackson, with a long drive down a rocky, dirt road to the trailhead on our docket. The origins of this trip, however, dated back to early April, when I talked four old friends and hiking buddies into joining me in the northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park for a week of backpacking and fishing.

I’d pulled a permit that synched the Crescent/High Lake loop in with a trip over to Sportsman Lake, down Fan Creek, and out the Gallatin River back to US-191. The remote nature of the trip meant we’d likely have plenty of space to ourselves, and the combination of high alpine lakes, the Gallatin itself, and the meandering streams that connected the two meant we’d have an unparalleled array of ways to catch fish.

Plans were made. Flights were booked.

Plans unraveled quickly.

A torn rotator cuff sent one of our party to the sidelines indefinitely in June. Another member – Jackson local with hands down the most fishing acumen of the group – realized quickly he’d need to be much busier with work during this window than originally planned, and had to bail on most of the trip. Smoke from Idaho, Oregon, and Montana enveloped the northern portion of the park, and campsite WB1 – where we were set to stay on our final night of the trip – had been ‘restricted due to bear activity’ for two weeks as our go-day neared. Fire restrictions predictably came down as the monsoon rains that often hit Yellowstone in July hadn’t materialized, and the trip we’d mapped out in great detail looked more and more like a no-go by the end of July.

My daughters are three and a half and fifteen months old, respectively, and this was the one full week of 2024 where I could 100% get out and do some good trekking – hence the serious advanced planning. Thankfully, the two other members of this trip that had booked flights into Jackson for the original Yellowstone trip were amenable to some trip malleability, and they mercifully agreed to my sales pitch to head south instead of up north in Yellowstone where the air quality was much, much worse.

We were going into the mighty Wind River Range, home of the tallest peak in all of Wyoming (Gannett Peak, 13,804 feet) and the umbrella of the Bridger, Fitzpatrick, and Popo Agie Wilderness areas that cover over 700,000 acres. We settled on a loop out of Green River Lakes that would eventually return us to the car via Porcupine Pass and Porcupine Creek on Day 5, though the precise route we took to get there was still to be determined as we set out on the 3rd.

If that seems like a rather longwinded way of telling you all about what we didn’t do, you aren’t wrong. I point it out, though, because if you put in your due diligence ahead of time and plan well enough for a target date in a certain region, you’ll be able to make these kinds of pivots to better conditions in most every other scenario. We found a comparable route with comparable terrain, actually leaning into better weather and air quality conditions. We’d take the same gear, we were in the same physical shape on Day 1, and nobody had to change a flight.

That’s not to say we did this on a whim, however. I’d hiked in the Winds before and had been sitting on detailed maps of the area for years, with the route we chose one that had been on my radar for quite some time. We learned quickly, though, that the ragged nature of the Winds mean their steepness gets hidden a bit by even the best of maps, and our legs were in for quite the five days on-trail.

It touched 95 degrees in Jackson on the afternoon of the 3rd, the same afternoon we set out on Day 1 of our trek. We headed south first around both upper and lower Green River Lakes and later up towards the headwaters of the Green River along the Highline Trail, with eyes on camp as far away as Three Forks Park. We were carrying enough fishing gear to make periodic stops along the river when it looked appropriate, opting to push quickly past the lakes to get into the added shade of the river canyon.

Ultimately, Day 1 was not just a mileage day while the trail was mostly flat, it was a barometer day to determine just what we’d make out of the trip as a whole. If we stopped to fish and covered less ground, we’d end up camped further north in that drainage. That would likely price us out of making the further push south to Summit Lake, meaning our best route would be to head west early past Clark Lake and Lozier Lakes to get back towards Porcupine Pass. On the other hand, if we hoofed it further down the Green on Day 1, that would give us the opportunity to target Summit Lake for Day 2 and a deeper route including No Name Lakes, Cutthroat Lake, and Palmer Canyon.

Working in our favor for mileage was that that section of the Highline Trail doubles as a section of the longer, more esteemed Continental Divide Trail, a 3,100 mile route that follows the Continental Divide across the United States from the border of Canada to the border of Mexico. Both thru-hikers and section baggers keep traffic on that trail pretty consistent, and that paired with regular maintenance means its a great trail on which you can log miles.

The afternoon heat on Day 1 didn’t get to us too badly as the trail was mostly in the trees. We made good time early, though by the time we reached Beaver Park it became clear that this basin was going to be busy for the night. Overnighters, south-to-north CDT hikers, and fisherfolks with poles were at most every good campsite we came across, and that paired with the persistent optimism of Day 1 of a long-planned trip kept us pushing further on the trail. We settled in finally around 6 PM in the trees at the northern edge of Three Forks Park just off the river, just south of a beautiful series of meadows that would’ve been a perfect camp were they not already claimed by multiple other parties.

Perhaps our unluckiness in finding a picture-perfect campsite worked in our favor in the water, however. We opted to cast lines in the fast-moving water of the Green where it picks up steam as Clark, Tourist, and Wells Creeks all form a major confluence (hence the name Three Forks Park), and despite the turbulent waters pulled out a handful of hard-fighting brookies before calling it a day. Had we not chosen that overgrown grove as our camp for the night, we never would’ve thought to fish that section at all.

Between the map and our various satellite-based devices, we figured we’d covered a little over 12 miles on our Day 1 route.

Day 2 was always going to be a climbing day. The switchbacks came early and often immediately after we got warm cruising past the meadows of Three Forks Park, taking us southwest up and away from the river itself. It became clear that we’d rather bypass heading west to Clark Lake and press on down the Highline Trail over Green River Pass and on to Summit Lake, the idea being to get there early enough in the day to find a better camp (and fish the afternoon away).

After the switchbacks drove us up over 1,000 feet in a hurry, the trail mellowed for a bit as it followed Trail Creek south towards Green River Pass. After having spent all of Day 1 in the trees and much of the morning of Day 2 switchbacking, it was nice to finally get into a more subalpine terrain where the pines were more sparse and the views began to emerge. Thankfully, the heat that had hounded us on Day 1 had subsided significantly, and the kind of weather you’d more expect from the Winds in early August swept in – clouds, highs around 70 as we gained elevation, and the persistent chance of thunderstorms as the afternoon neared.

When turning off towards Summit Lake, we also split off from the CDT, which stayed more southeast over Vista Pass towards Island Lake and Titcomb Basin. The new trail, while mostly obvious, clearly sees a lot less traffic than the CDT route. That would be of a bit more significance on Day 3, we’d discover.

Green River Pass is something of a rolling pass, with lush, tumbling meadows strewn with giant boulders. While rather narrow as you begin the gradual climb up, it opens up into a wider valley as you pass 10,000 feet, and the scene looks straight out of the Scottish Highlands – especially when gray clouds and cool air set its stage. Summit Lake, aptly named as it sits squarely in the meadows of the pass, is flanked by the ragged Glover Peak (12,068 feet) to its west, a typical Winds mountain in that its rocky spires look like they were hand molded by bear claws.

We set up camp a couple hundred yards off the southern shore of the lake, finding a nice grove of pines for some wind protection as a looming storm grew closer. After some light rain and a pair of thunder rumbles, the rest of the afternoon actually cleared up and turned in to the nicest weather we’d see all trip – sunny skies, moderate winds, the temperature somewhere around 70. We gave fishing the lake a whirl but had no success, guessing that the heat of the previous few days had driven what fish there were that high to the portions of the lake that were deeper (and colder) than our gear could reach. Somehow, though, getting skunked in that scenery was just as enjoyable as the tight-confines river fishing we’d had more success with the previous evening.

We retreated back to camp from the shores of the lake in late afternoon, and it became evident that the clouds were going to clear out and give us our best chance at seeing the full realm of a starry, wilderness sky.

After sweating through the first night of the trip, the cooler weather and higher elevation made for a chilly second evening. I brought a 20-degree rated bag on the trip, but I’ve had it for nearly a decade and put over a hundred nights of use into it and its loft no longer approaches keeping me warm to that level. Let’s just say I was comfortable, but quite glad the temperature didn’t dip any colder than it did.

We had a fire in the meadow and whiskey in our cups, exhaustion setting in with its good pal soreness sure to soon follow. August 4th was a new moon in this part of the world, meaning there’d be no nightlight to dull our view of the stars, and the Milky Way soon emerged as dense as a galactic fog. We stared up until our necks hurt before crawling into our tents in almost total darkness.

We’d added over a thousand feet of elevation gain to our ledger, and Day 2 tacked on another ~9 miles to our tally as well.

Day 3 evolved into our excuse to further put to use the fishing gear we’d hauled all the way in for this trip. We had cast lines for a half-hour or so before dark on Day 1 and struck out on Day 2, but our plan on Day 3 was to set out early and skirt No Name Lake, eventually dedicating most of the afernoon to fishing the appropirately named Cutthroat Lake. Depending on how things shook out, we could potentially even fish Palmer Lake as we worked our way west on the Doubletop Mountain Trail towards our destination for the night. We’d eventually drop down into Palmer Canyon to the headwaters of the New Fork River to meet up with the Jackson-based member of our party who was set to hike in that day from New Fork Lakes if all went to plan…

…if all went to plan.

A quick and beautiful couple hundred feet of pop greets you as you turn west from Summit Lake along the Doubletop Mountain Trail and rise towards treeline (roughly 10,400 feet), and copious water sources are around every single turn. Our original intention was to fish Cutthroat Lake when we got there, but we were tempted by the dozen or so lakes, ponds, and streams we crossed en route as the sun sat high in the sky with little wind. Funny, it was precisely along that route when the wind laid down the most yet the Winds (eponymous) felt the most alive.

We reached Cutthroat Lake at what was the perfect time for lunch, and after a tortilla full of Genoa salami and what remained of my hard cheddar it was time to cast some lines. An hour and a half later, we’d caught cutties on everything – dry flies, hoppers, droppers, spoons, what have you. Were it not for a 2,000 foot drop into Palmer Canyon left on our plate that day and an updated weather forecast calling for storms that afternoon, I believe we’d still be there to this day.

It was at this moment that our fishing success struck a deeper, more personal note. 25 years ago this summer my dad took high-school me on a horseback camp trip into Yellowstone out of southern Montana, a ride-in that took us past Electric Peak en route to Sportsman Lake. My dad turned 77 years old this summer and fortunately remains in rather good health, but doing trips like that (or this) are no longer in his wheelhouse. We caught more trout in our 3 days at Sportsman Lake that summer than I may have caught combined over the entirety of my subsequent fishing trips, and the original trip I planned (that we cancelled last minute) was very much an homage to that original one.

I was going to go back to Sportsman Lake to try and catch a ton of fish under the premise of nostalgia, and opted to bail on that last minute for this trip instead. So, for the fishing expedition that was supposed to be an homage to have such success elsewhere in such dream conditions got a hat-tip to the karma gods from me.

Thompson Lakes and the appropriately named Hidden Lakes hide behind the steep, sheer walls of Palmer Canyon’s northside. The face itself drops well over 2,000 feet to the watershed below, one of three creeks that flow into confluence at the headwaters of the New Fork River. We knew we, too, would be shedding over 2,000 feet to drop down to our next camp, but from the perspective of the map (and map only) it appeared to be a pretty typical switchbacky descent. Turns out that trail – after some skree-like switchbacks up top – effectively follows the creekbed of an annual snowmelt run, and the wood debris from presumably this season’s runoff turned said watershed into a route-finding obstacle course down a high-walled, steep creek.

Then came the thunder. We felt relatively safe because a) we were descending elevation rapidly and b) were in something of a canyon, not a high point, but at first rumble we were actually wading shin-deep through the creek itself because that was the path of least resistence. We’d lost the trail completely roughly a mile from the junction of our creek and Dodge Creek (and the New Fork headwaters), and while we were descending and seeking cover it was still a little hard to disassociate ‘fear of lightning’ and ‘standing in water’ while being somewhat lost.

Lost, of course, was relative. We were in the right watershed en route to the first junction we’d see, but the trail – which we later rediscovered about 50 feet above us on a ledge – was nowhere to be found at the precise time we needed to cover ground quickly. As a result, we were still un-camped when the skies opened, and we followed our first instincts to climb out of the creek and seek shelter under a grove of pines as the thunder, lightning, and pouring rain unleashed.

After a half-hour of hunkering down, things calmed for a bit – just long enough for me to hike up the ridge to our right and find a nice, tidy trail that had been over our shoulder all along. We soggily hoofed up the ridge and rejoined it, hiked less than 20 minutes, and found a somewhat protected camp at the junction of the Palmer Lake Trail and New Fork Trail, the latter of which we’d take up and over Porcupine Pass the next day.

It rained as we cooked dinner. It rained as we tried to get a fire going. It rained much too hard to dry anything out by said fire attempt, and we probably got more things wet just by trying. Then, it rained all night – and got just as cold as the previous night.

(Thanks to a late ping on our messenger, we also learned our Jackson-based friend wasn’t able to hike in and meet us that day and would instead be meeting us on the other side of Porcupine Pass the next afternoon. I know he’d been swamped with work all week, but I wouldn’t fault him for a second if I found out he’d also had a good look at the weather forecast for that night before making his call.)

We slept until almost 7:45 AM on the morning of Day 4. It was wet and cold. Our shoes were wet and cold. We’d covered some 8.5 miles the previous day, but that included almost 1,200 feet of climbing and almost 2,600 feet of descent. The agenda for Day 4 kickstarted with an almost immediate climb up from our camp at ~8,900 feet, with Porcupine Pass some 2,000 feet higher the destination – and we’d be doing so with almost everything being wet.

And cold.

As the sun finally peeked over the lip of Palmer Canyon to the southeast, we were relieved to see blue skies along with it – knowing that while the quick climb in wet everything would be an annoyance, the moment we began to near treeline we’d have the kind of sunshine we’d need to dry out our world.

Morale for this trip, I should point out, was generally awesome. Old friends, great fishing, Milky Way skies, and a trip devoid of the smoke and haze we’d seen both in Jackson and to the north. The end of Day 3 dealt us a tough hand, with wet, cold, and the reality of being over 40 and having logged some 30 miles of alpine and subalpine backpacking all rearing their heads at once. The aches and pains were now very real at this point, with blisters, hips, ankles, feet, and the like all barking like the coyotes we had heard howling near Summit Lake two nights before. The morning of Day 4 could have been a low point, but as we walked off what stiffness we could and found a high meadow blanketed in sunshine, wildflowers, and a light breeze, any attempt to derail the Type II fun we’d been filing away all trip went immediately by the wayside.

This place, this pass and the views it afforded us, was simply gorgeous. We’d end up climbing nearly 1,300 feet in just over 2 miles to start the day and reach the top of the pass, the pathway home now mostly visible in the vast distance.

We could see the last high point of the trip. We knew how good the fishing was on Porcupine Creek on the other side, and that our buddy would be meeting us down there with better angling acumen than we had (and a bottle of much needed fresh whiskey). We hadn’t made it, just yet, but we’d made it to the point where it was all downhill from here, and I’m here to make the argument that’s an even more direct shot of dopamine.

Porcupine Pass features a steep section of switchbacks on its northside, the kind I’d opt out of ascending at all costs. The descent, though, paired with the optimism of where we were in our trip made it feel like a down-escalator to the fun stuff, and that’s precisely how it panned out. We motored north once we put the switchbacks behind us, and the numerous parks along Porcupine Creek opened up into prime fishing and camping ground. When we finally made it to roughly 6 miles from our eventual exit point back at Green River Lakes, we found home under Battleship Mountain (11,584 feet) along a fishy-looking bend in the creek.

The skies began to get darker, and we quickly realized it would behoove us to get our tents set up. We had a hammock in the trio, so we searched diligently for a spot where he’d have two trees appropriately distanced from one another in an area where the others of us could set up our tents on flat ground. Close proximity was something of a priority that night since I’d seen a black bear on the opposite ridge of the Porcupine Creek drainage and there was bear scat all up and down the trail down to where we camped.

Not three minutes after we got our sleeping arrangements set up, our fourth came bounding up the trail from the north with a smile on his face as big as the whiskey bottle in his pack. Good thing, too – as he rushed to get his tent set up, the storms turned ugly, and we retreated to the shelter of the hammock’s tarp in the trees as we watched lightning and heard thunder tumble down the drainage.

The whiskey huddled up in the shelter with us. We were finally back down low, yet it was a high point of the trip.

Sometime around 7:00 PM, the rain broke and the creek called us back into action. The brookies in that section were small, but hungry, and their feeding frenzy was to our delight. Thanks to the new ringer in our crew of fisherfolk, we cobbled together a handful of keepers and cooked them up on a makeshift fire as the sun went down, the perfect way to wrap our final evening in the Winds.

Day 5? Let’s just say we knew it was a 6 mile hustle downhill with packs much ligher than 5 days prior, with burgers and beers at The Bird back in Jackson the next priority. We could see early on that smoke had found its way to the Green River Lakes basin, and waiting around there any longer was going to bring that ugly variable into the equation. As a result, we pushed hard for an hour and 45 minutes quickly back to the car, and called time on a trip that’ll resonate within me for the rest of my time.

The Garmin/Strava tracking of our bunch pegged the entire trip at roughly 43 miles and some 7,500 feet of ascent. That was about 7 miles further (and 3,000 feet more climbing) than the originally scheduled Yellowstone trip, but we all managed to make it out on our own two legs, even if said legs were griping at us in seven languages by the time we reached the car.

If You Go…

• While we leaned heavily on Garmin technology for tracking our route, I used an old Earthwalk Press map of the North Wind River Range diligently while on the trail. It’s almost impossible to track these down now as they’re out of print, but both the Beartooth Publishing map of the area and National Geographic Trails Illustrated map come highly recommended as well.
• The road in to Green River Lakes Trailhead from Cora features a long patch of dirt and rock. While it’s usually traversable on just a 2WD vehicle, you’d greatly appreciate a higher clearance vehicle to make better time.
• The bulk of this trip was in the Bridger Wilderness, and as is the case with each designated Wilderness areas there are some specific rules that apply. At camp, they ask that no campfires be lit above treeline and that you’re set up 200 feet away from lakes (and 100 feet away from moving water).
• Here’s a quick guide to what you can expect in general from trips into the Winds, including references to gear, terrain, and weather.
• As always, keep a keen eye on the weather reports before attempting any trip of this, or any other length. Also be sure to practice Leave No Trace principles while in the backcountry.