Cirque of the Towers
| Cirque of the Towers | ||
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 The Pingora Peak is a popular climbing destination for visitors to the Cirque. |
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| location | Fremont County in Wyoming (USA) | |
| Waters | North Popo Agie River | |
| Mountains | Wind River Range | |
| Geographical location | 42 ° 46 '38 " N , 109 ° 12' 50" W | |
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| height | 2700 to 3100 m | |
The Cirque of the Towers is a mountain basin in the US state of Wyoming . Located in the southern section of the Wind River Range on the border of Bridger-Teton National Forest and Shoshone National Forest , it is a hugely popular destination for technical climbers . Mountaineer Orrin Bonney gave the area its current name in 1941. Before that, only few or hardly any visitors had dared to venture into the mountain basin due to the remote location. The cirque is an almost circular hollow or valley that was formed by a glacier that melted over 8,000 years ago . As in the rest of the Wind River Range, the surrounding mountains are almost entirely made of granite . The continental divide stretches across the crest of the main peaks .
description
The towers are on average 300 meters lower than the highest mountains in the north of the Wind River Range. The highest is Lizard Head Peak with a height of 3914 m . Other peaks of the Cirque are the Shark's Nose , Warbonnet , Warrior Peak , Wolf's Head and Pingora Peak . There are hundreds of climbing routes ranging in difficulty from 5.1 to 5.11a. Since the mountains are primarily made up of granite rock, there is good anchoring. Two of these climbs are mentioned in Steck and Roper's Fifty Classic Climbs of North America : the northeast side of Pingora Peak (IV, 5.9) and the east ridge of Wolf's Head (III, 5.6).
Access
From Pinedale a 88 km long, partly paved, partly gravel road leads southeast to the Big Sandy starting point, where a small US Forest Service campsite is located. The trail begins at an altitude of 2700 m and is relatively flat for the first eleven kilometers. The last 1.6 kilometers the path becomes very steep and crosses the continental divide at the Jackass Pass at an altitude of 3300 m . From there it is necessary to descend a steep half-mile (800 m) to Lonesome Lake, which is one of the four lakes of the Cirque. In July and August, the cirque is one of the most popular hiking and climbing destinations in the Wind River Range, which is why you can expect increased activity on the route at this time.
Lonesome Lake is believed to be the first lake in the Wind River Range whose water was deemed unfit for human consumption because of human waste. For this reason, no camping sites on the lake are allowed within 400 meters. The granite rocks only allow poor filtering of the groundwater . In addition, alpine lakes are often more difficult to clean themselves than lakes at lower altitudes.
Web links
- Cirque of the Towers in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey
- TopoQuest: Lonesome Lake, USGS Lizard Head Peak (WY) . Retrieved May 8, 2012.
- MountainManCountry.com: Cirque of the Towers . In: Destinations . Retrieved May 8, 2012.
- Cirque of the Towers on Peakbagger.com (English)
- Cirque of the Towers . Summitpost.org. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Steve Roper, Allen Steck: Fifty Classic Climbs of North America. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco 1979, ISBN 0-87156-292-8 , pp. 171-183.