Spotted a 4,100 foot pass on my map in the Wind Rivers and it turned my whole route plan upside down

Piper Sullivan · 2026-10-16T12:25:04.997973+00:00

I was sketching out a 5 day loop out of the Elkhart Park trailhead in Wyoming and found a pass on the map that I'd somehow skipped over every other time I planned this thing. It sits at about 4,100 feet above where I'd camp, and there's a faint use trail marked on the topo that isn't in any guidebook I own. I pulled up three trip reports from different years and they all describe the same thing, loose scree on the north side and a snowfield that hangs around into July. So now instead of the boring valley slog I had planned, I'm looking at a high route with one sketchy section. Anyone here crossed a pass in the Winds that isn't in the standard guides, and was the use trail actually there or did you just go cross country?

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Spotted a 4,100 foot pass on my map in the Wind Rivers and it turned my whole route plan upside down | Backpacking Routes - Opinions Matter