Fast Facts:
Base Elevation: 8,052
Peak Elevation: 13,810
Hiking Elevation Gain: ~8,500
Distance: 39.85 miles
Elapsed Hiking Time: 23:20 hours
Hiking Moving Time: 19:15 hours
Date: August 31- Sept 2, 2024
Wow. The Wyoming high peak more than lived up to its reputation as the hardest or 2nd hardest state high point in the lower 48. The reason that this peak has earned this reputation isn’t because of the technical climbing – it is because of the long, arduous approach over miles and miles of bouldering. The minute you turn off the Highline Trail at mile ~12.3 and start heading up Tourist Creek, you are on large boulders or loose scree until you reach the summit. And if you enter the bushwhacking section too early after cross the Green River, you can spend hours of climbing over fallen trees with a heavy pack. One guy that we met on the trail said he spent an hour in the bushwhacking section and only gained 250 feet before he turned around. Navigating miles of boulders is extremely taxing because every step has consequences and you have to make split second decision for hours. This alone is mentally exhausting and scrambling over boulders just eats time and is very fatiguing.
The scenery along the Highline Trail is second to none. You walk along the Green River for the first 12 miles crossing it several times. I was constantly amazed by its color and refreshing nature. I think the Green River would be more appropriately named the turquoise river because the color looked more blue than green to me. It has this Gatorade Cool look to it and as you’re walking along the hot, dusty trail - it makes you just want to pull out a straw and take a big sip. If you are lucky, you might be treated to a few moose sightings as I did. Our first moose encounter, the moose was about 10 yards from us and she made a horse like sound to let us know that she was there. The second sighting was two moose wadding in the shallow parts of the Green. Fortunately, we did not see any grizzlies.
What is unique about this summit is that it takes you deep into the Wind River range. Gannett Peak is so far back there that you can access it from the west side or from the east side. Because of it's remoteness, you have to be cognizant of the fact that if you have an incident out there, there is no cell service and hiking out is long and unforgiving.
Day One
We drove from Pinedale (about 80 minutes away) and started hiking at 9 AM.
You are quickly presented with great views of Square Top mountain.
The trail meanders along the Green River on the east side primarily with very little elevation gain for 12 miles. There’s a few undulations but you gain less than 500 feet by the time you cross the river for the last time. This is very important, stay on the trail longer that you think because if you cross the river too early and head into the base of Tourist Creek from the north side, you will encounter some serious bushwhacking. In the picture below, you want to be even further to the hiker's right than this.
We hiked about 12.35 miles and another trip report said to cross the river at 43.196692° -109.742331°. There is a campsite next to the crossing and other people were crossing at the same time so there is consensus on this spot. When we crossed, the river was only about knee deep and not running fast. The crossing is slightly south of the Tourist Creek entrance so you will have to walk back through the meadows for a hundred yards or so.
Now the "fun" begins. We elected to find the narrowest path through the woods and get to the boulders as quick as possible which sounds obvious but in doing so we approached from the south side of the scree field and then work our way diagonally across the field. If you take the right approach, it shouldn't take you more than 20 minutes to get through it.
I remember reading someone else's trip report and they said there was a dead tree to aim just below the big mountain wall and we reached that tree after about 45 minutes of climbing 900 feet. From there, we wrapped around the big wall face and kept trying to stay high so that we wouldn't lose elevation by being pushed towards the creek on the left. As you climbed higher and got closer to the mountain wall, the boulders got bigger but they were more stable than the scree at the lower section. Just when you think it’s going to get easier, it just keeps going and going. You eventually go through a narrower passage and you are greeted by a refreshing waterhole with a grassy section.
From the woods to this area, we gained 1,700 ft (8,350 to 10,050) and traveled 1.6 miles in 3 hours. As we refueled, we discussed if we should continue to lake 11,000. It was now around 6:30 PM and getting to lake 11,000 would take at least another hour. Setting up camp and making dinner as night approached didn't seem like the right call so our group decided to get a good night sleep and go a little longer on summit day.
Day Two
We got on the road at 6:30 and we started to make your way up the valley along the creek.
Eventually we got to an open area and there’s kind of a Y with a smaller knoll in the middle and we went to the right which took us to the south west side of Solitude Mountain and lake 11,000.
Lake 11,000 is a very nice lake with several areas to camp on the right side (south side). We traversed around the lake on the right side. When you get to the end of the lake, you come to a drop off and down below is a small talus or pond. Some people went to the right but we elected to walk around to the left which is shorter but more technical. You don’t have to go all the way down to the talus and we stayed high on the left side of the talus. You cross a little riser at the end of this lake and we continued to stay left. You then come to a point where you can see Scott lake down on the right. Scott Lake is at 10,500 so you if you going to the summit, you don't want to drop the 600 ft to the lake.
There is a passage to your left between a smaller mountain and we elected to go to the left of this mountain and through the passage which I will call Skinny Pass as it is a more direct route to Skinny Lake.
Once you get on top of this passage/saddle, you will have your first glimpse of Gannett Peak.
You will encounter another long boulder field which drops you down to Skinny Lake. The Skinny Passage is about .7 miles to the start of Skinny Lake and it took us 40 minutes.
Many people encourage camping at Skinny Lake, but there are no obvious campsites until you reach the north east side (the end of the lake). We walked along the right side of Skinny Lake and it is about .5 mile from the tip to the tail. Once you exit Skinny Lake and start heading up the hill there’s another Y decision point and you want to go up to the right again. You’ll see a waterfall running down through the steep boulder field and you want stay to the right of that. Once you get on top this bench, you are close to Minor Glacier and we were informed by a descending hiker that you can avoid the glacier so we dropped out ice axes and micro spikes at this junction.
To avoid the glacier, go slightly left and follow a shoulder up to the base of Gannett.
Again, this section is more boulders and it get's progressively worse as the rock field becomes loose.
As you get closer to the Gannett wall, you will see a couloir on your left that heads up to the north ridge of Gannett. You will also see a few worn out sections from people hiking that offer brief trails. This section is quite steep but just class 3 scrambling.
You are now at about 13,000 and the saddle at the ridge is about 13,600. When you get up to the ridge/saddle, you could see into the north side of Gannett which offers great views of Gannett Glacier.
It was now around 12:30 so we had been moving for about 6 hours. I had read that from this saddle up to the summit would take about an hour but we did it in 35 minutes. Right from the saddle is a steep rock climb, which is probably high class 4 climbing. Nobody used ropes on this section but you do have to be comfortable with heights and exposure. The good news is is that the rock is very, very grippy and offers a lot of hand and folds.
We methodically made our way up the ~150 feet and then the final 100 ft of elevation gain is a simple ridge walk to the summit.
Here is an outline of the route from the end of Skinny Lake.
And then we were on the summit!
The views from the summit are spectacular and I was shocked to see how many glaciers were in the Wind River range.
We only spent about 10 minutes on the summit and there was probably five other people in the summit with us. We were going to retrace our route but a few other people that came up the same way we did, elected to descent off the south side and walk down towards Scott Lake. They felt that this way was less risky than going back down the north side as the south side was only class three scrambling. This sounded very tempting, but we had left some of our gear above Skinny Lake so we had to go back the way we came. I was a little nervous about down climbing the ridge but again we took it slow and my nephew guided me through it and after just a few quick moves, we were off the ridge heading back down the couloir.
When we got back to Skinny Lake, we took a well deserved dip in the lake and pumped some more water. As we approach lake 11,000 I was starting to get concerned that we might run out of daylight and I didn't want to be hiking the boulder fields back to camp using a headlamp. Luckily, I pulled into camp around 7:30 with about 30 minutes of light to spare.
Day 3
I was elated that we had summitted but I was still concerned about hiking out the lower steep sections of Tourist Creek with the heavy packs and after two big days of hiking. Since I was the slowest in our group, I decided to hit the road earlier than the others to get a head start. I was hiking by 7:30 and I got to the bushwhacking section in just over 2 hours and then it only took me 12 minutes to get through the bushwhacking forest section. I then put on my crocs and walked straight across the meadow, crossed the slow running Green and then walked across some more meadow before hitting the tree line. I thought I was going to have to bushwhack for another couple hundred yards but fortunately the Highline Trail was only about 20 yards away. From here, it was smooth sailing home and it took just over 2 hours to cover the 12 miles to the car.
Camping options
There was a lot of discussion amongst our group and online as to the best strategy of where to camp. When reading most people's trip reports, it seemed like the consensus was to stay at Scott or Skinny Lake and that was our original plan. But after carrying your heavy pack through the boulder field on the lower Tourist Creek section, it didn't seem to make sense to carry the packs down to Scott or Skinny Lake. I have outlined a few options and make my recommendations.
Option One
An aggressive option is to sleep below tourist creek just after crossing the Green River. This makes for a very long summit day and having to go up and down the lower Tourist Creek boulder field in the same day but it is doable for someone that is young, strong and fast. If you elect this route, I suggest starting before sunrise and make sure you bring a water pump/filter.
Option Two
Day one: hike through the boulder field on the lower Tourist Creek section and camp at the 10,000 watering hole are like we did above or go lake 11,000. Day two: summit and go back to the same base camp. Day three: hike out . Personally I think this is the best strategy and if I had to do it again, I would try to get to lake 11,000. Many people suggest getting to Scott Lake or Skinny Lake but IMO, it is a long way to haul a heavy pack. From lake 11,000 to Skinny Lake you actually lose about 200 ft of elevation so I don't see any value in going beyond lake 11,000. It took us 6.5 hours to summit from lake 10,000 and it would be about an hour less from lake 11,000 which is very reasonable.
Option Three
I would only suggest going to Scott Lake or Skinny Lake if you have 3 or more nights. Hiking to either lake in a day with a heavy pack would be very grueling. If you have 3 nights, I would suggest hiking to lake 10,000 on day one. Day two, hike to Skinny Lake and bypass the descent Scott Lake. Day three - summit and then hike back to Lake 11,000 or the 10,000 watering hole. Day four- hike out.
Couple of other pointers, bring hiking poles because they offer great stability as you trek through the boulder fields. Bring a water pump or purifier for the summit day so you don’t have to carry 3 liters or more of water. There are water sources along the entire route from the car to the summit so don't burden yourself by carrying a lot of water.
Comments