🏔️ Wind River Range, July 4-6, 2025 July 4th, 5 AM. Left Spearfish, South Dakota, for a 7-hour drive through Wyoming, ending with a 30-mile gravel road to the Big Sandy Trailhead. A thunderstorm loomed as we strode 6 miles to Big Sandy Lake. Rain cleared, sun emerged, and we pitched camp, bedding down early. My companion, Ed Dykstra, 73, echoes Edward Abbey, the wilderness philosopher and curmudgeon. My trusted trail comrade, his humor dry as sagebrush, knowledge from 1970s Wind River treks sharp as flint, Ed moves with vigor that shames youth. “As long as I’m in the wilderness, I’m not lost,” Abbey wrote. July 5. Dawn climb to Templar Peak, iced lakes gleaming under snowy walls. We descended through a ghost forest, ancient trees stark. A porcupine passed; then, nuns clad with boots and packs, 15 deep, forded a creek, an odd hymn to the wilds. The wilderness is my true church, beyond any chapel. After 12 miles, back at base camp by 2 PM, we laughed at idle time. I proposed compressing two days’ trekking into one: an 8-mile trek to the Cirque of the Towers, that afternoon. Ed’s laconic “Let’s go” sealed it. We climbed Jackass Pass, lost the trail, crossed a granite slab—barefoot, risking icy waters—and glissaded snow. The Cirque’s spires defied reality. “We abuse land because we see it as a commodity. When we see it as a community, we use it with love,” Leopold wrote. Sunset drove us through a boulder field, trail lost amid pine. Delirious, we found the path, dragging sore feet to camp. Dinner was ramen with curry; we washed dishes in the creek, hung grizzly-proof bags in trees. At 2 AM, a deer’s antlers, moonlit, pressed my rain fly, a demonic specter. Ed’s “Hey!” woke me. July 6, sleepless, I rose at 4:45 AM, gear frost-caked, and we packed camp. We hiked 6 miles to the car, drove to Granite Hot Springs to soak sore feet, then ate at Hand Fire Pizza in Jackson Hole. The 7-hour return hit a lightning and hail storm near Spearfish, flooding roads, landing home at midnight, minds heavy with the wild’s mark.