On Friday, July 25, 2025 Wes and I drove from Rock Springs, Wyoming to the parking lot for the Big Sandy Trailhead in Wyoming's Wind River Range. This is a truly remote area in an already remote state in the country. I was looking forward to several days of quiet, seclusion, and exciting climbing. Our rental car did fine on the drive along a bit of a rough dirt road, but I would have preferred a vehicle with higher ground clearance. The hike in to Deep Lake from the trailhead was about 7.5 miles with 1,500 feet of elevation gain and took us about three hours, taking us through wooded areas, some marshes, and finishing on rockier terrain. Arriving mid-afternoon, we pitched our tents between Deep Lake and the even higher Clear Lake near a fast-flowing stream and swimming hole and right under the shadow of Haystack Mountain.
On Saturday, July 26 I woke up at 4:30 AM and we left camp around 6 AM. Our objective was the Southwest Arete on Lost Temple Spire. By 8:30 AM we had reached the base of the route and begun our ascent.
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| Looking back at Clear Lake and Deep Lake from the base of Lost Temple Spire |
P1 - I led this. It did not feel especially hard, but there was some loose rock, so I took care both with my protection placements as well as with what I chose to step/pull on.
P2 - Wes's lead, an acute corner with difficult flared jams. Some smears and dishes on the right wall for feet.
P3 - my lead, a straightforward hand crack.
P4 - Wes's lead...
P5 - I led this pitch, starting with a portion of 5.9 crack (part of the traditional previous P4) and leading into 5.10a layback pitch. I thought this was actually pretty straightforward, if powerful. I was laying back the corner and using smears on the right wall for feet. There were not many really solid footholds, but the handholds and jams were good enough to keep steady pressure on those smears. I did find myself needing to grovel around the final lip where the corner changed directions, but I got it done.
P6/P7 - Wes led this as a combined pitch, a series of finger pods with very insecure feet and “technical” (thin) protection leading to a roof. At the roof he traversed way right and built an anchor (a fully hanging belay).
P8 - I tried to lead this while keeping my backpack on. Chimney is not my strength, and this pitch starts with a chimney, with only a few footholds, wide enough to not feel completely compressed inside. But there was little to no protection for a long portion of the chimney, and with the backpack hampering my progress, I was forced to retreat to the belay, hang my head in shame, and give the sharp end to Wes. He showed me how much easier it was to climb the chimney with the backpack dangling from two shoulder length (120 cm total length) slings below my harness. He ran it out in the “5.7” chimney nearly to the top, got some pro in, then pulled a 5.7 roof and finished up a 5.7 hand crack. Maybe each of those in isolation truly were 5.7, but in combination it sure felt like a much harder pitch! Here we unroped and scrambled to the top, where we actually found that we had cell service!
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| Wes celebrates in style atop Lost Temple Spire |
I believe we reach the top of the route around 2:30 PM. We rapped the entire rope with a single 70m rope (rather than using a tagline), thinking it was possibly a better choice given the nature of the route and the potential for ropes to get stuck on rappel. On the way down we replaced several of the rap stations (tat nests) with fresh cord and also backed up the stations for the first one heading down (Wes).
The raps were over by 4:30 PM but there was still a long, somewhat intimidating 3rd and 4th class walkoff with lots of loose rock, loose dirt, and scree. The party to (skier's) right was raining down large rocks into the descent gully which then funneled them down towards us at one point.
All in all the day's expedition was a serious undertaking.
Sunday, July 27 was a rest day. I read a book and bathed in the swimming hole.
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| Kenton preparing to get very cold in the swimming hole above Deep Lake |
On Monday, July 28 we decided to try something also long but a bit easier and with an easier approach and descent. Leaving camp at 6:50 AM, we reached the base of Haystack Mountain and had started climbing the Minor Dihedral by 7:30 AM. To reach the first pitch we traversed left across low angle slab from a grassy field/patch.
P1 - Wes led this first, very long pitch. It consisted of a right-facing corner, then a slabby section, more right-facing corner, a delicate rightward traverse, and a left-rising ramp to a grassy ledge.
P2 - Wes's lead, another short right-facing corner, then a cruxy beta-intensive slab traverse to the right to grab a rail and gain a right rising ramp. To do the traverse there was a very good foot far out right, but trying to move directly into this with the right foot put me too far off balance. Instead, I put my right foot on a tiny, closer jib and the stepped through with the left foot to the good foothold farther out. After that the right-rising ramp was easy 5.4ish climbing that put us at the base of a handcrack. Wes stopped here.
P3 - Wes climbed another 120ish feet in the straightforward handcrack to the bottom of the large namesake dihedral.
P4 - My lead, a splitter dihedral with decent feet in most sections. There was a memorable crux where I had to smear on the left wall, and here I almost fell but managed to hold on to a good hand jam. This pitch went a long way, almost the full rope length.
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| Kenton leading the way up the namesake dihedral pitch of Minor Dihedral |
P5 - I led this, a pitch starting with low-angle easier climbing to a roof. The roof should have been easy too, but the feet were bad, and I felt very heavily weighed-down with a lot of rope out and my backpack on. I finally shimmied my way over it, using my body to wedge against the wall to help out.
P6 - My lead again, a very easy section (5.6?) of broken rock for a full rope length. I built an anchor, brought up Wes, and we continued unroped to the top.
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| Victory selfie atop Haystack Mountain |
For the descent, we scrambled up and right over a small ridge which then led down to a scree chute. We crossed the scree chute (and Wes reminded me the scree chute was not the descent path!), crossed over another lip, and gained the "Grassy Goat Trail". This was relatively straightforward with a few class-4 butt-sliding or down-climbing sections that were OK as long as I moved slowly enough. There were many cairns. We were back at camp by 2 PM.
We packed up, left camp at 3 PM, and were at the car around 6 PM, with very sore feet but stoked about our successful expedition!
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