It feels good to sleep in after so many early mornings and we don’t get on to the trail until almost 11. Fortunately it is cloudy and cool today, with a few small showers as we hike. Our trail is the Pole Creek Trail starting at Elklund trailhead at the top of Fremont Lake, which taking us to Williams Lake. We end up taking a 1.4 mi detour to “photographers viewpoint”, which we find has a spectacular view of the Wind River Range and granite outcroppings. We hike at 9,500 ft in elevation; the trail is fairly flat and groomed but there are so many mosquitos they will eat you alive. We have insect shield clothing and deet but they hover annoyingly in front of my face. If there are close to 20 in front of me, there must be millions in the entire area!
We run into an Asian couple from Colorado who said they backpacked the range 20 years ago. Their son tells us the east side is much more difficult and the terrain is quite different, giving one a sense of the geology of the range. On the trail, we pass alpacas packing up the trail and think this might be a good way to go instead of backpacking, though when it starts to shower, camping up here feels like a challenge.
We decide to make another stop and check out Elklund Lake 2 miles further up the trail then to head back down to Williams Lake. The wildflowers are in bloom and on both sides of the trail are carpets of lupine, buttercups and other flowers I don’t recognize. In total we hike 13 miles, seeing only a few groups the entire day.
We exit the trail at 8:30 pm and head for the Wind River Brewery for a quick dinner before calling it a night.