Medicine Bow Peak, Snowy Range, Medicine Bow National Forest, Centennial, Wyoming
With this being my first time hiking in the Snowy Range, I was looking to experience as much of the range as I could in one outing, so I decided our route would involve summiting Medicine Bow Peak and also exploring the lakes in the basins around the peak. It had snowed a few days before the day we were planning to do the hike, but the weather had warmed back up so we were curious to see how much snow we would encounter. We parked at the West Lake Marie Trailhead early in the morning, wondering what we were about to find.
We found no snow at the trailhead, which we were happy to see and started up the trail that headed up the slope to the east side of the parking lot. We followed this trail past the old cabin that I believe was used as a fire lookout and turned right at the intersection that was below Medicine Bow Peak. We encountered a few spots of wind drifted snow and there was some snow still lingering in the talus fields, however it didn’t really impact our hike. We finally found ourselves on the ridge heading to the summit and took in what were some of my favorite views of the day. The lakes to the south were beautiful with big walls along their eastern shores. We also got our first views of the many lakes in the area.
We were feeling pretty good so we decided that instead of heading back down the mountain on the usual route, we would continue heading north off-trail for a bit. We started walking towards Gap Point and found ourselves navigating a mix of boulders and tundra. We made our way around Gap Point and found ourselves at North Gap Lake, where we picked an established trail back up. We also started seeing more people. We took the trail over “The Gap” and made our way along South Gap Lake.
When we hit the trailhead by Lewis Lake, we took the trail that would take us back up Medicine Bow Peak, but turned left at the intersection that would take us south, past Lookout Lake. Shortly thereafter, we found ourselves at Lakes Trailhead and followed the paved path back to the West Lake Marie Trailhead.
Overall, this was a very lovely hike. For almost the entire hike, the views were spectacular. There was no long approach through the trees for miles and miles before you got any real views - they were pretty immediate. Based upon the signs at the parking lot at the fees required to park there, I’d guess this area is very popular for hiking in the middle of summer. It was still quite busy in the middle of September. I’d like to come back to check out more of the Snowy Range in the future.
Stats: 11.5 miles, 2000 ft of elevation gain.
