Wyoming 2025

 6/30 - 7/12/25

My oldest kid was in Utah doing a NOLS river trip and needed to be picked up eventually. I figured I would drive to Wyoming again and do some backpacking with my son who was going to be starting high school in the fall and then get my daughter. This timing ended up lining up with a trip that some friends had planned in the Salt River Range in western Wyoming, so my son and I would do a 5 or 6 nights and then meet up for 5 more nights with the fellas. 

It is almost exactly 24 hours of driving to get to Brooks Lake. We had a long day that got us to a crappy hotel outside of North Platte NE and then about 8ish more hours got us to Brooks Lake. 

I had thoughts of the Brooks Lake campground near the boat dock and maybe doing a short hike. But, it was horribly buggy. So, we tried the Pinnacles campground right around the corner. A little higher above the lake and a little bit more wind made for a much better campsite. We walked around the campground and actually drove over to the other campground for a short hike, but the bugs were annoying and we were tired. A little reading and then crawled in back to sleep. 

Day 1 (July 1)

Woke up to a beautiful day. 

Drove up to the Pinnacles Trailhead and started hiking.

We had an early lunch near Bonneville Pass

I had read that there were some social trails up to the plateau, but I wasn't sure exactly where I would find a trail. As we were eating, I looked over and saw what appeared to be a trail. We loaded up and went to check it out and found the trail very easily. Soon we were climbing. 

A storm was building which caused us to set up camp earlier than I wanted, but it had great views once the storm blew through. 

Elk on the ridge (200mm lens and highly cropped)

This is more like the actual view. 

Looking down at Cub Creek

Day 2 (July 2)

Perry N Boday Lake, looks pretty, but buggy as hell

Heavily cropped photo of a bald eagle

Tetons in the distance

Once again a storm was building forcing us to set up camp early. 

My son said "it looks like someone is summoning a demon"

Dinner time and a brief bit of sun

Day 3 (July 3)

Woke up and the sky is already ugly, pack the camera away, so this is the only camera photo for the day

We looked at the sky and checked weather on my InReach and decided that spending more days up high was a bad idea. So we backtracked back to Perry N Boday and then down to Cub Creek.

Something else up on the snowfields

Along Cub Creek

We ended up camping where the CDT crosses Cub Creek. The exact same spot I camped a couple years earlier. 

The bugs were horrible. I knew they would be which was why I wanted to be up on the Buffalo Plateau.

We ate dinner and then dived in the tent for the night. 

Day 4 (July 4)

Weather looks terrible, the bugs are horrible down low, let's head towards the car and figure out something else.

Upper Brooks Lake

We headed towards Jackson with the idea of camping at Granite Creek for a couple of days and hoping the weather blew through. 

Stormy weather over the Tetons

Day 5 & 6 (July 4 - 6) Granite Creek

I was worried that Granite Creek would be full because it was a holiday weekend, but we found a great campsite and then went to check out the hot spring at the end of the road.

In the parking lot of the hot spring

Our campsite

Great view for morning coffee and hot chocolate

The whole Granite Creek area is beautiful, a great place to hang out for a couple of days. 

The Open Door is pretty cool looking

Granite Falls

We did a couple of short dayhikes, it was a lot hotter than the Buffalo Plateau

We headed into Jackson to find lunch and then drove up the road a bit to check out the Tetons again. 

Big pano of the Tetons (this is about 10 photos stiched together)

And then down to Afton where we had a room reserved before meeting up with "the fellas" for another backpacking trip.

My son liked the map of Middle Earth on the side of this building

Day 7 (July 7)

Met the fellas at the BBQ place in Afton and then drove to the trailhead on Commissary Ridge in the Salt River Range.

And down the trail we go, thankfully the weather forecast looks awesome for the next couple of day. 

Hard to read, it says "Boundary Stock Driveway" with no obvious road around.

We missed a trail junction or something, the sign was wrong, so we headed up the slope and hoped we find our trail eventually, which we did after very little searching. 

We set up camp in a great meadow with a nice creek nearby. 

Day 8 (July 8)

My son was being lazy in the tent so I got up to wander a bit before breakfast. 

Campsite below, would totally stay here again.

Waterfall near Corral Creek

The remains of a snowmobile, someone had a bad day

Below the outlet of Corral Creek Lake

Corral Creek Lake

Time for a little bit of off-trail work, there is a bit of a game trail going down off the ridge.

Our goal was to camp at the tarn in the middle of the photo.

Not photographed, there was a bit of an ugly scramble getting off the ridge. I took a stupid route and then my son had a bit of a panic attack. It had been a long day by the time we got down so we set up camp short of the target tarn. Pretty area, but the bugs were horrible.

2nd camp the next morning

Day 9 (July 9)

The tarn we were aiming for, buggy and not very pretty. I'm not sad that we didn't camp here. 

Pretty bird

More off-trail work ...

... a little bit of butt scooting to get down (my son needs more practice with his scrambling to be comfortable in these situations).

North Crow Creek down below

There was a stretch of trail lined with coneflowers. It would have been great to walk through here in another week or so when they were blooming. 

Lower Crow Creek Lake

The Wyoming Range in the distance

After dinner we sat by the lake and watched the pika run around. They move really fast in the talus, hard to get a photo.

3rd night campsite near Crow Creek Lake

Day 10 (July 10)

We were way behind schedule, no way we were going to make it to the end where we had a car waiting, so we decided to head back to the starting point. So we decided to head down North Crow Creek to Grays River Road and then either hope for a hitch back to my car or we would walk the road.

A bit of a scramble down to the official trail

Interesting marker near the road. On the USFS map there is a "drill hole" nearby, I assume the marker and drill hole are related. 

Bridge across the Grays River

After a little bit of walking, a young guy in a jeep pulled over and gave me a lift to my car. He was from Canada and was taking 6 weeks or so to explore the American West. 

While waiting for me to get back to my car, my son noticed this nest right at eye level next to the road.

We ended up making camp at the trailhead before driving back to Afton the next morning. 

The next day, we got back to Afton and said goodbye to the fellas and we headed south to Vernal UT to pick up my oldest kid.

The Flaming Gorge is very pretty. It would have been neat to see before the dam, but the blue water and red rock go well together.

After dinner, we gave my car a washing to get the Wyoming dirt roads off.

The next day we got my daughter and went to check out the Quarry Exhibit Hall in Dinosaur National Monument.

We did a short hike near the quarry to find some more fossils in the rock.

And then we headed to Colorado to see my sister for one night and then back to Kentucky.