Little El Cap (Wind Rivers)

I just got back from a short backpack into the southern Wind River Range. Managed to find a smoke-free window -- only a few whiffs in the evenings of some days. This is Little El Capitan between Upper Deep Creek and Ridge Lakes. The next day was planned to be a traverse below Wind River Peak, which would have been a 2400' vertical gain in 2 miles above treeline on an exposed plateau, but it started to graupel as I was eating breakfast, so I decided to go down instead. The next 2 days were cool completely cloudy, which was great for hiking with a full pack but would have been terrible for grand scenic photography.

My dog, Djinni, is 11 1/2, so this is probably our last big backpack.

This is the only one I've processed (but I didn't take many photos, anyway), so maybe more to come.

Some distinctly rugged looking terrain that looks even more so in B&W. Nice view of the distant peak. What's the elevation in this area? Looks to be entirely above treelike.

AlanLichty said:

Some distinctly rugged looking terrain that looks even more so in B&W. Nice view of the distant peak. What's the elevation in this area? Looks to be entirely above treelike.

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The saddle where I shot from is about 11,000'. I was camped at 10,800' and this was a bit higher. The peak on the left (Little El Capitan) is @12,000'

You and Djinni must be in great shape to be schlepping around a big pack at altitude!

I had to look up graupel, thanks for educating me.

Michael13 said:

You and Djinni must be in great shape to be schlepping around a big pack at altitude!

I had to look up graupel, thanks for educating me.

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I was not in good shape for that.........slept maybe 1-2 hours the previous night & I knew it would be a bad day walking that last stretch; it took me 2x the "conventional" time i.e. 10 hours instead of 5. I felt every one of my 67+ years, but fortunately, when we started down, 68 felt much better! Go figure....... Djinni wanted to chase stick our last few hours hiking out, but I wasn't sure I had the energy to throw them for her!

That's such a very cool image Monika. B&W really fits it well, and adding your dog makes for a great portrait of him.

Congrats on 68! That great thing about getting older is we forget more, so we forget how difficult something is.