Wind River Range - Car Camping?

I'm trying to knock off another area that I've driven by and gawked at for thirty years but never visited. Last year we did the Black Canyon near Gunnison and it ended up being awesome. No crowds and surreal. We ended the week north of Crested Butte camping for free with the best dayhiking on earth and that was amazing as well.

We were considering taking our new Prius V wagon but looking at campground access it looks like we might be better off taking the 4-Runner to reach the free BLM areas with less crowding? Plenty of trails for dayhikes near car camping areas? I know it is a destination multi day hiking area but with my 2 year old girl that isn't going to happen.

Any suggestions? The Wyoming Range looks cool as well and it sounds like they are less crowded in August. We might drive through Yellowstone on the way home just because my wife hasn't seen it but not interested in camping there in August with the masses. I think I could spend all week driving gravel around the Winds and dayhiking and that is sort of the plan.

dear god why? it's one of the nicer wildernesses where you can get way the fuck out there in the lower 48.

Why not? We'll get way the fuck out once the girl is a little older. For now we have to settle for longish dayhikes from the end of gravel roads. Simple plan. Just probing for insight.

sounds adventurous enough with a young one. but who can argue with 12000 posts.http://www.windriver.org/info/topten...ings%20to%20Do

You wouldn't have a bad time, but most of the best stuff is 8+ miles in. The western side is a little bit more accessible than the eastern side. Big Sandy Lake and Photographer's Point are two of the better day hike destinations on that side.

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Originally Posted by geomorph

You wouldn't have a bad time, but most of the best stuff is 8+ miles in. The western side is a little bit more accessible than the eastern side. Big Sandy Lake and Photographer's Point are two of the better day hike destinations on that side.

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Cool. That is kind of what I'm gathering. If we are underwhelmed I guess we will use the trip as recon and move on but we are pretty easily entertained.

Green River Lakes is a good destination- campgrounds and lakes near the road, canoeing too. Bring bug spray and bear spray, definitely griz in the area. Hiking up towards Squaretop, great fishing in the GR lakes and all the little drainages up towards the divide. It is a looong way in on a dirt road, but i bet the prius could make it fine.

We stayed in Pinedale at the Lakeside Lodge (www.lakesidelodge.com) on Fremont Lake earlier this Summer with our 2.5 year old. I highly recommend it. There is a NF campground at the end of the road, which we scoped out for our next trip to the area. It had quite a few RV's and various forms of mechanized redneck fun. Not too big of a deal though. You can use it as your base of operations accessing the western side of the Winds.

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Originally Posted by homemadesalsa

Green River Lakes is a good destination- campgrounds and lakes near the road, canoeing too. Bring bug spray and bear spray, definitely griz in the area. Hiking up towards Squaretop, great fishing in the GR lakes and all the little drainages up towards the divide. It is a looong way in on a dirt road, but i bet the prius could make it fine.

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Hey thanks man. I was hoping to get a little local insight - Green Lakes is where we want to get started. We have two cans of bear spray and bells etc so we are good there and we are packing the fishing poles. I think we are leaning 4-Runner since we still don't have plates for the Prius or the rack for the box and I just read they don't have an aftermarket windshield out for them yet and it is like $1k through Toyota so I'd rather break the 4-Runner glass since we do that all the time anyway.

Anyway, I know nobody is going to give there secret spots away. Just making sure I'm not wasting my time heading up there. Maybe we'll see you all the the Targhee Bluegrass Fest on that Friday.