Once again, up around 4.00, clear skies overhead; wonderful stars.  Tossed and turned until 5:15 am, then got up and packed, 26 degrees, our coldest morning yet (and as it turned out, the coldest of the trek).  Wake up call for everyone else at 5.30 am - Hugh was already up and at ‘em.  Oddly, there was ice on crew tarp (plus my wet clothes from yesterday’s swim were frozen to the bushes), but the grass was just wet.  Did some minor pack up of remaining Crew gear, then Chris, Mike, Hugh and I headed across the rather boggy meadow and up the (steep!) hill to get the bear bags; the sopping wet meadow certainly explained why we had such a surplus of mosquitoes here.  The guys were moving a little slower this morning - everyone too cold.  I started chugging water - we have a long hike over the pass, and apparently no water on the way.  Just as we were getting ready to circle up, Luke reminded me about his boot sole, which was now considerably worse than at lunch yesterday - unbelievable that brand new Vasque Sundowners are separating like this!  I used my clothesline to jury-rig it back together, which took another 20 minutes.  Fortunately, his other boot was still (mostly) holding together.  Finally circled up and got through the exercises quickly, then saddled up at 6:55 and headed north towards Skull Lake on the Pyramid Lake Trail (being careful as we worked back across the boggy meadow).  9 1/2 miles today, plus a high altitude pass to crest.

It was an immediate uphill on the trail, and we did a few caterpillars to warm up and get back into the swing of it.  Hiked about 30 minutes, reaching the Washakie Trail intersect around 7.30 am, and stopping for breakfast on a nearby pile of sunlit rocks.  Pleasant temperatures in the sun, plus we had a nice view of the Pass.  Breakfast was the ever-popular frosted Pop-Tarts, the increasingly less popular dehydrated apples, mueslix cereal, and beef jerky; the trail snacks were a Cliff bar and a fruit bar.  We saddled up and headed back out on the trail at 8.15 am.  I tried "slow walking" the trail in an effort to make up some time - not popular, so we went back to caterpillaring after about 15 minutes.  Steady climb up, not too bad.  We were surprised to find a small pond to the right (it was marked as intermittent on the map, but looked completely full to me) - after a short discussion, we decided to top off our canteens.  I also got some great photos of the guys on rocks overlooking Skull Lake.  Took 30 minutes to fill up, and re-started up the pass at 9.00 am.

We all quickly realized that it wasn’t nearly as tough a climb as we had thought it would be - steep, but not ridiculous.  Super views behind us as we climbed.  Seven step to five step to occasional three step caterpillars made it easy.  There were several snowfields to either side, in the shade of the two large peaks outlining the Pass (Bernard Peak to the left, Mount Washakie to the right).  The wind grew ever stronger as we climbed - probably a steady 20 mph with gusts of 30 -  40 mph.  The good news was that it was at our backs.  Very strong just below the crest.  We held in place 20 feet below the apparent crest and we all advanced in a line abreast to two pole cairns and a badly weathered sign for Bridger/Shoshone Wilderness Boundary (the actual crest was another 25 feet away).  11,611 feet elevation.  Superb views to the east (all new to us), with two huge lakes below us (showing whitecaps!), surrounded by huge gray rock spires.  Minor forestation at the lowest altitude.  Starkly beautiful and desolate at the same time, and almost overwhelming in scale.
 
We went about 50 feet down the trail to get out of the wind, stopping between two snowfields, and took a break to soak up the view.  Despite the wind and snow, it was very pleasant in the sun.  Lots of photo ops here.  Rick and Chris west back to the crest to get some personal photos at the sign.  After 45 minutes, we began a slow and careful descent; it was significantly steeper on the east side for the first several hundred yards.  Oddly, the trail was well defined in some sections, then almost untraceable in other parts.   [Photos: 1, 2]  Crossed a larger snowfield about 2/3rd’s the way down, with snow-melt pouring out from underneath.  We took our time with that stretch.  Finally got down to Macon Lake (the first lake), which had a very barren and rocky shoreline; at this point, the trail was just cairn to cairn, and Al acted as the lead dog.  As we pushed on to Washakie Lake (the second lake), we met 3 guys coming up the pass - the vanguard of a High School group from Alpinore (sp?).  Stopped to chat for awhile - the two leaders had been leading Wind River Range treks for 15 years.  This year’s group was 5 guys, 12 girls, and 4 adults (3 men, 1 woman).  The older guy was very positive on fishing in the immediate area, especially on the river between Macon and Washakie.

We stopped for lunch above Washakie Lake, with a distant view of the high schoolers’ camp (they were still finishing their breakdown and getting packed up to go).  Even in amongst the trees, still strong, swirling winds.  Lunch was cheese cracker snack packs and cashews.  There was a beautiful waterfall nearby (fed by Macon and Pass Lakes), surrounded by lots of flowers, which we all visited after lunch.  The rest of the high schoolers (almost all of the girls) finally worked their way up past us as we were reassembling back at our packs - amusingly, when the first one saw us alongside the trail, she waited 5 minutes until everyone else caught up, then had their single male lead them by us.  Yeah, don’t worry about hiking alone and clueless in prime bear territory, worry about the Boy Scouts (Duh!)  We made a collective decision to pass through the Ranger Park area and push a little further to Valentine Lake (since there were no lakes or ponds in Ranger Park).  Got warmer and less windy (with more trees) as we headed down the valley past Washakie, and we began moving right along.

Just as we reached the intersect with the Bear’s Ears Trail (for Ranger Park and Valentine Lake), we were overtaken by the first 4 members of another backpacking crew.  They turned out to be a group of 8 college friends (now from all around the midwestern U.S.) who get together for a one week long Wind River Range trek every summer.  All big, strapping guys, armed with bear spray cannisters, some semi-automatic pistols, and a few 5-mile model Motorola radios.  (If the high school girls had been wary of us, they must have been petrified of these guys!)  They turned out to also be going to Valentine Lake.  Very heavy packs, but they were all moving pretty good.  They passed us as we took a water break, but we caught them again at the crossing of the South Fork of the Little Wind River a few minutes later, where they (sensibly) decided to hold up and wait for their buddies.  We crossed the "river" on a rock bridge; kind of tricky, with slick and "tippy" rocks, but no-one got a boot full .  Moved steadily uphill to Valentine Lake - couldn’t see the lake from the trail, but we saw the tents of a few other campers.  The first 2 guys from the midwest group (who had passed us as we were climbing) headed down and got a spot near the lake itself; they obviously knew exactly where they were going.  We took a well used site just off the trail, about 100 feet from a nice stream and maybe 5 minutes from the lake.  Not an ideal setting, but certainly pleasant enough.  Our elevation here was about 10,400 feet.

Started setting up around 4:00 pm, so a pretty long day after all - albeit not as difficult as we had thought ahead of time - and I’m glad we got an early start.  Decided to do our personal cleanup using the stream water, since the lake was a bit of a hike.  Just about everyone enjoyed wading and eventually sitting in the stream (which was quite cold but "just" bearable).  Mike and Chris cooked and cleaned, while I wrote diary for about 2 hours.  After hunting around, we placed our bear bags down a narrow canyon to the northwest of the camp (which seemed to lead down into another distant valley).  Once again, the mosquitoes and "biter" flies discovered us as soon as we stopped moving; odd in that we had thought there would be fewer mosquitoes here than down by the lake.  Well, that’s what we brought the Deet for, right?  Dinner was pea soup followed by Pasta Primavera, Pilot crackers, cookies, and lemonade.  After cleanup, I made a major effort on Luke’s boot.  After cleaning and abrading the two surfaces, we first tried dripping flaming, melted nylon (burning parachute cord) into the seam while rolling the two edges together; that didn’t work.  Then we tried a more elaborate stringing job; that worked, but Luke couldn’t get his foot into the boot.  Finally, I used an entire tube of Seam Grip (permanently requisitioned from Hugh), smearing it in with my finger, then roping it tight with parachute cord and compressing it with heavy rocks .  Hopefully, a 12 hour overnight curing job will do the trick; we’ll see.  Got the bear bags up pretty late (had to bark at the Scouts to get it done).  About half the Crew enjoyed some bouldering on a small bare rock ridge on the north side of the campsite as the light began to fade.  Wrote diary ‘til 9:00 pm on top of the little rock ridge.  Bed at 9:15, still light out, with the stream providing a distant musical accompaniment.