The Cloud Peak Wilderness in 2024

Sometimes, even when you get the timing all wrong, you come back with the best memories.

My dog, River, watching the sun rise over Emerald Lake, Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming

Even though the spring had been incredibly wet, we decided not to push back the date of our trip.

We had to break a little snow on the trail before we crested the ridge to drop into Emerald Lake. Once we looked down into the high mountain drainage, we found it filled with equal parts snow and flood waters from the recent warm weather.

Fishing was incredibly limited, and the nights were freezing, but fish we did, and the fishing gods rewarded us.

We came off moved to a lower elevation a night early to escape the cold front that came in over night and had my Labrador trying to crawl in my sleeping bag to keep warm. The picture above is from when we crawled out of the tent at 4:30am to make breakfast, strike camp, and watch the sun rise before heading to lower elevations, warmer nights, and better fishing.

It wasn't the trip we had hoped for, but we came away with plenty of great memories.