Garrett Fisher

Author, Pilot, & Adventurer

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Flight: Gros Ventre Range, Wind River Range

June 16, 2015 by Garrett

About 30% of the time, I plan for one flight and do another, with the decision being made midflight. The air got quite clear, 100% blue skies, 20% humidity, and temperatures in the 70s with 100-mile views. Basically, it was exactly what I long for on an ongoing basis. The plan was to go up the east side of the Gros Ventre Range and the Absarokas, and come down the west side of both after reaching the Montana border. That’s a pretty long flight, and instead I found that the Gros Ventre Range was just too pretty. That, and I got distracted and wandered over to the Wind River Mountains, the site of Gannett Peak, the highest peak in Wyoming at 13,804. Home to the largest glaciers in the West outside of the Pacific Northwest, I will be spending some time here in the summer working on a book on Wyoming’s glaciers from the air. A little trial run is not a bad idea, especially after I saw the range while climbing to 35,000 feet on a commercial flight. What I saw scared the crap out of me, and it was time to research emergency landing options on satellite maps and validate them before heading up into some crazy terrain.

The flight itself was remarkable. I discovered a waterfall that we went to the next day, and also found a ton of other ones, some of which are accessible and some are not. I have a little hiking list to undertake after seeing all of this stunning terrain. I came across two rivers that burst forth out of the mountainside; they basically are high volume springs that come out on picturesque places. Another river descended the Wind River Range, went into a cave, and came out from beneath the earth, resuming its path toward the Pacific Ocean. For some reason, I think the fact that I could wander around a good portion of the crazy terrain in Wyoming for hours in the air, not needing to look at the map once, makes the whole thing that much more transcendent, when it is really more a function of the relationship between my fetish looking at maps and my ability to recollect what I read.

As I cruised around at 12,500’ to 13,500’ snapping pictures of terrain, savoring the clean mountain air, and enjoying 100 mile views, I remembered why I endured all of the hypoxic, hypothermic, and mind-bending miseries of photographing all of the peaks over 14,000’ in Colorado: there are few places on earth like this with air, water, soil, and rock so clean, so pure, and so free as being this high up, though instead of being alone tens of thousands of feet from the nearest anything, I am staring the masters of this rocky domain eye to eye, in a place where no man can live.

Just north of Pow Wow Point – 8,400′ in Photo, Gros Ventre Range in Background
IMG_6277 (6 of 553)

Antoinette Peak (11,407′) – Left, Corner Peak (11,130′ or so) – Right, Gros Ventre Range
IMG_6296 (25 of 553)

Shoal Falls (8,400′) – Gros Ventre Range
IMG_6324 (53 of 553)

Doubletop Peak (11,720′) – Highest Peak in Gros Ventre Range
IMG_6329 (58 of 553)

Tosi Peak (11,380′) – GVR, Wind River Range in right background
IMG_6365 (94 of 553)

Meat grinder disguised as northern Wind River Range
IMG_6414 (143 of 553)

Squaretop Mountain (11,000′) – Right, Gannett Peak (13,804′) – Left – Highest in Wyoming. Note Mammoth Glacier in center left.
IMG_6461 (190 of 553)

Squaretop Mountain, Gros Ventre Range on right horizon, Wyoming Range on distant horizon
IMG_6499 (228 of 553)

Southern slope of Palmer Peak, Wyoming Range in distance
IMG_6551 (280 of 553)

Unnamed peak – 11,080′
IMG_6567 (296 of 553)

Granite Creek (left), Pyramid Peak at end of ridge, Grand Teton on horizon, GVR
IMG_6625 (354 of 553)

Flat Creek basin, National Elk Refuge in flat area, Grand Teton on horizon
IMG_6669 (398 of 553)

Gros Ventre Range, looking SE, Wind River Range on horizon
IMG_6721 (450 of 553)

Looking down the Wyoming Range from the GVR, Salt River Range on horizon right
IMG_6743 (472 of 553)

Looking south between two flanks of the northern Wyoming Range
IMG_6792 (521 of 553)

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  • Flights: Norway: Hardangervidda, Largest Mountain Plateau in Europe September 17, 2022
  • Flight: Norway: Galdhøpiggen, Highest Peak in Northern Europe August 20, 2022
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  • Flights: Norway: Flyraseri ikke Flyskam July 17, 2022
  • Flight: Switzerland, France, Italy: 2,000 Hours & FL160 July 9, 2022
  • Flight: Day 4: Sweden, Norway: 56N to 59N July 6, 2022
  • Flight: Day 3: Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden: 53N to 56N June 27, 2022
  • Flight: Day 2: France, Belgium, Netherlands: 44N to 53N June 19, 2022
  • Flight: Day 1: Spain, France: 36N to 44N June 4, 2022
  • Flight: Spain: Rock the Casbah, Sierra Nevada, Africa on the Horizon May 8, 2022
  • Flight: Portugal, Spain: Promontorium Sacrum, Last Sausage Before America April 26, 2022
  • Flight: Spain, Morocco: Spanish Africa, Pillars of Hercules, Southernmost Point in Europe April 18, 2022
  • Flights: Spain: The Antipope, Package Holidays & A Clandestine Metropolis April 11, 2022
  • Flights: Days 2 & 3: France, Spain, Portugal: España Verde, Galicia, Aggressive Eucalyptus & Andalucía April 3, 2022
  • Flight: Day 1 of 3: Switzerland, France, Spain, Andorra: Alps, Mediterranean, Pyrenees & Atlantic March 30, 2022

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