Wind River High Route

The weather is the highlight of this trip. You've got a clean three-day window: sunny skies, light NW winds under 10 mph after today, and highs climbing from 39°F today to 48°F by Thursday at elevation. Overnight lows in the upper 20s are cold but manageable. No precipitation in the forecast. This is a rare late-season gift for the Wind Rivers.

Snowpack is essentially zero at the SNOTEL stations that reported — Annie Springs at 6,021 ft shows just 1 inch of depth with stable trend, and lower stations show nothing. The Wind River High Route runs well above 10,000 feet, so don't extrapolate directly, but there's no active snowpack loading at any monitored elevation. Expect patchy remnant snow and ice on north-facing slopes and shaded couloirs above 10,500 ft, especially on approaches to passes. That icy terrain combined with cold nights will be more of a traction problem than a depth problem.

The stream crossing data in this briefing is from California USGS gauges — it doesn't apply here. Disregard those numbers entirely. For November in the Wind Rivers, snowmelt is minimal given the near-zero snowpack, so rivers like the Green River and New Fork tributaries should be running low and cold. That said, low doesn't mean trivial — expect numbing temps and slick rocks. Scout before committing, especially on any crossing above knee depth.

Daylight is your real logistics constraint. Under 10 hours of usable light with sunset at 5:00 PM means you need to be making camp by 4:00 PM at the latest. Plan your high-route segments — especially any pass crossings — to be complete before 2 PM. The cold nights and hard starts mean slow morning warmup time, so don't count on being moving at first light. Conservative daily objectives will serve you better than ambitious mileage that puts you navigating off-trail in the dark.