Reading Time: 8 minutes

---

No hike in the Winds is this so easy for such a payoff. As such, it’s great to take kids to. It does require some acceptance off off-trail navigation, but nothing serious. Not proofread, because my scurrilous sister no longer likes being paid $20 to proofread a post.

---

➻ Quick Facts

---

---

⤷Introduction

My wife and I had flown up to Bozeman for church family (thanks to a very generous man who loaned us his plane and the hours on it, which is a blessing beyond belief for us) camp for the holiday, which had cut out a weekend of hiking, and then we’d gone to see Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein (plus where they filmed Starship Troopers), so I’d knocked out a couple of hiking weekends.

Our trips to Bozeman and to Dave and Robbie! (Plus the Bibbli.)

On the 13th, I noticed that weather would be good on the weekend, so I rang up my mom and suggested that she accompany Yue Little (YL) and I to Gypsum Lakes, which is so nice I’d do it twice. To be clear, this isn’t staggering like Marten Lake, but it’s a very easy, pretty hike to some good fishing, and that’s hard to get in the Winds. Mom agreed!

---

---

⤑Day 1: A Better Road and a Better Way

This write-up will be pretty short, just like the hike. I’ve done it before, so it’s not worth typing up all that much, as not all that much has changed. 

Mom met us at 40 Rod Road and we took the Cheap Patriot up to Gypsum Creek Road. I decided to take a little OHV road this time instead of FR 688, which was a beast, and this was a smart decision. As long as your vehicle has at least 8 inches of ground clearance, you’ll do just fine, and without the worries of the other road. If you look at my GPS track, the best way to hike in is the way I hiked out. (Download it into Google Earth and you’ll see.) 

The air was chilly but the sky was clear when we left our parking spot at 1130. We went up a disused OHV trail through the forest, did some orienteering through forest and then sagebrush, and took another OHV trail for a bit—saw an OHV behind us, but we outpaced them. There is a stand of trees near the 9150 foot mark. We wet across a creek drainage. Don’t do this. There is a hidden trail that we found on the way out, so just follow that GPS track until you find it, then head uphill. 

After that, it was more sage, then a dry creekbed, then uphill toward the disappearing pond at 9530. Again, much harder than the way we went out, and YL hated the rockpile we crossed, which was quite sharp. She loved her new backpack, though, which was a real pack.

You’ll notice that we walked “through” the pond. The pond dries up as the year progresses, we so really just wanted over dry, cracked mud. Past the mud pond, the trail becomes more defined, and YL started leading. It’s sometimes indistinct, so I had to talk to YL sometimes to prompt her to find the “path of the forest creature.” She wanted to know how I was always able to find the path of the forest creature, as every hike she’s done with me I find them (off-trail animal/use paths). I asked her, “Yue, have you ever asked yourself who the forest creature is? I am the forest creature. These are my paths.” She was floored. “No dad?! No??? Really? Are you really the forest creature?” Hahahaha. What a great memory. I also point out animal tracks to her, and have spun a fable that I grew up on the res (I did) and became a tracker. My mom and YL decided that YL was a Tracker-in-Training, which I told them was not a good acronym.

YL lost a glove at mile 2.4 (I told her she would by keeping them loose on her belt), but I was able to track it down quickly. I am, after all, a tracker.  At 9880 feet we decided to cross the creek (instead of taking the trail) to have a bit of fun. YL liked some of the limestone rocks and used them as climbing walls. She also found many fossils, which brought her great joy.  The trail area is easier than the open flats, because these flats actually have a number of rocks hidden in the grass. 

We got to lower Gypsum Lake at 1515, which was early. Yue Little busied herself finding crystals and fossils, then we went to the inlet creek area and set up camp. Yue and I fished a lot, and YL caught and released many fish, which she named after characters from Bluey and other shows. Unfortunately, she decided to gank and eat Frank, using her new knife and titanium ultralight grill plate.

My salt had fallen out of my pack, a loss worse than a kidney, but dinner was still good. Mom brought marshmallows and YL loved making them over the fire…we loved the fire given how dang cold it got after the sun went down. 

---

---

⤑Day 2: Hike to Upper Lake Then Out

In the morning I got up after mom, who had started a fire. I made YL some scrambled eggs. After eating them, she got out and made marshmallows again. At 1100, we began the hike to the upper lake; we saw two day hikers on the west side of the lake also heading up, but we didn’t see them again. Yue loved the little canyon, which we hiked up this time as opposed to the way I went up last time. It was very rewarding and beautiful. Above the canyon proper are some opportunities for rock climbing (ish) for kids. Yue was having a blast on them. At the flats (at 10430) we stopped by the creek to get water, then continued on, arriving at the upper lake at 12:50. The wind was intense, and while I wanted to climb the pass to look down the Gadsby area, I didn’t feel YL would be fast enough, so we saved it for another time. 

On the way back we stopped to break rocks and take home crystals and “eggs,” as Yue called them. Yue absolutely wanted to take the whole mountain if she could, so I had to slow her down a bit. Unfortunately, my mom got cell service and started working…grrr.  This time we followed the use path down and then left our camping spot at 15:39. YL wore my down jacket and Kuhl beanie as it was cold. Snow was still in the shadows.

On the way back I listened to a reading of a famous work. While the man who wrote it was a murderous psychopath, he was also prescient about what being oversocialized would do to society. Pop quiz: what was the work I read?

Because we took a different trail back, YL kept asking when we would get to the mud pond. We bypassed it entirely, so of course I made hay of that! Hahaha. We were well beyond it when I finally told her that we had actually passed it. 

We went back to the Jeep through a forest by the river, which has a use trail. There was even a sign from the Forest Service in the forest, but obviously it had long been grown over by trees. I let YL “discover” the Jeep, and boy was she delighted to be back. We were on the road back home at 6PM, just as a medevac helicopter went over. I hoped that no one was hurt too bad up by Green River Lakes. 

---

---

➤Conclusion and Rating

What a perfect hike for a kid! Or for an adult. This is a perfect intro hike because it’s short, beautiful, and gets people into light, off-trail orienteering, which makes some people nervous. It also has fishing, fossils, and great geology.

---

---

•  My scientific rating system. I absolutely loved this hike with my kid and mom!
• Beauty. If you’re at all into geology, you’ll be in love.
• Camping spots. There are numerous places you can camp, but not all of them are exactly choice spots.
• Crowds. I’ve only ever seen two day hikers.
• Difficulty. For the Winds, totally mild.
• Fishing. Cutts!
• History. Not really any significant history of which I’m aware.
• Over/Under Bracket: Because I use close bracketing by similar hikes, there are no “over” hikes. For a short hike in the Winds or Big Horns, this is the best one you can do.

---

---