The Winds (abbreviated)

I've been miserable at posting lately. I've been meaning to write a hilarious, concise, complete account of my trip to the Winds. It was a great trip. It deserves a great post. But I'm realizing that if I wait for the perfect storm of inspiration and motivation to generate something to match my ambition, I'll never post again. So I'm just providing the basics. Some photos and some words:

Moonrise over Seneca Lake. This was our first campsite. We intended to walk 14 miles to Titcomb Basin the first day, but our heavy packs defeated us, and we barely lurched 7 miles before hollering uncle, pitching the tents, and grimly slurping the Wild Turkey.


Approaching basecamp in Titcomb Basin on Day 2. The next day, I'd meet a couple fishermen that, with utter seriousness, would ask me if I was camped in "Titty Comb Basin". That, combined with the fact that Tom kept running into a female backpacker with the most enormous gazongas any of us had ever seen in the backcountry, pretty much guaranteed we'd never refer to this astonishingly beautiful area by it's rightful name again.



The most amazing fish ever. My first solo, Western fishing experience. An absolutely fabulous day for me that I'll think about for the rest of my life if I feel like I need to smile. I am a wholly novice flyfisherman (flyfisherwoman?), and I really had no business catching this fish. It was about an hour after I took this photo that I stopped hyperventilating. I didn't keep the fish for two reasons. First, it was just super and absolutely part of the experience to watch this guy swim away. Second, we were already struggling to consume the insane overabundance of food we brought with us, including multiple cans of tuna in oil, a can of escargot, three bottles of whiskey, two bags of jalapeno Cheeze-its, one package of Oreo Double Stufs, a rather large container of olive oil, what must have been three pounds of Grape-Nuts, and at least two billy-club sized sticks of pepperoni. I'm not sure what we were thinking.



Eric and Jon on the summit of Gannett Peak.


My Asolo-clad feet in front of a view of Gannett from Bonney Pass. The boots were a last-minute gift that made the trip infinitely more pleasant for me. Thanks to Tom for bravely throwing a request into Asolo and, most importantly, to Bill Lockwood, an Asolo sales rep and a very good, extremely generous friend of mine.



Basecamp squalor in Tittycomb Basin.


Sunset over Fremont Peak. We camped at Seneca Lake again on our way out of the backcountry. The next day we packed out to the car, stopped at Pinedale for naughty tasty burgers and beer, and drove the 31 hours back to State College.