Bighorn and Darton peaks dominate the southern core of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains. They are the southernmost twelve thousand footers in the range, and mark the southern limit of the Bighorn’s alpine terrain. I had climbed Darton from the east near Willow Lake in 1987 (Darton Peak link), following a natural ramp between the Oliver Creek and Chill Lakes basins. Karl and I planned an alternate route for this trip. We would launch from the West Tensleep Trailhead and camp at Lost Twin Lakes. From there we would try to circle the head of the rim of the Lost Twins cirque, while climbing both Bighorn and Darton. We had no prior information on this route, but it looked feasible from the USGS topo maps. Since we expected this trip to be hiking rather than climbing, Karl brought Nitro along.
We
must have driven over the night before and slept in the West Tensleep Campground
as we were under way at 7:50. We started out on the Lost Twins Trail (#65)
reaching Mirror Lake about 9AM, and Lower Lost Twin Lake at 10:30 after about
6.5 miles of backpacking. It was good, easy trail all the way, but we saw no
other people. There were trail signs at the wilderness boundary, Mirror Lake,
and the now abandoned Yost Trail.
We
had lunch at the lake and set up camp near the outlet. Our climb started by
going around the west side of the lower lake and taking the first gully up. The
gully was easy going, but we left it too early and ended up on top of the “El
Capitan-like” nose between the two lakes, and were forced to work our way along
a ledge just below peak 12,015’. All day long we would make minor detours
around the sheer heads of the glacial cirques surrounding the peaks as we
couldn’t see the cirques until we were right at their rims. I dropped and broke
my camera near the nose, so there are no pictures from this trip.
From
the top of the gully all our travel in the alpine zone was boulder hoping until
our final descent. We had great views southwest to Meadowlark Lake, and over
the Lake Creek drainage to the south. Neither Bighorn nor Darton is nearly as
impressive from the west as they are from the east. I ended up climbing the sub
peak to the south of Bighorn by mistake. We had just taken a break at the ramp
located along the USGS quad boundary, and I headed up the highest looking peak
without checking my map. Karl and Nitro had gone the correct way and got a
chuckle out of my extra effort. Bighorn’s summit had a large cairn but no
register. Karl speculated that both the east face couloir and east ridge of the
mountain looked climbable, but we never got a chance to test either route.
From
the top of Bighorn, it was a little easier to get our bearings as we headed
north toward Darton. Again, we got a bit too far east and tangled with the
couloirs that we needed to bypass as we headed toward the high saddle between
the two peaks. At the saddle it was already 3:45 and our ambition was flagging.
But it proved to be only another 30 minutes
to the top of Darton. Darton had a new register that was placed in 1988,
so I signed that one as well. There were less than ten ascents in 1990, the
last one on 8-13-90. In this era, it seemed that Cloud Peak was the only
popular summit in the Bighorns. I don’t recall ever seeing another party or
sign of travel on any other peak in the range.
By
the top of Darton we were very tired and out of water, so it was a relief to
spot our easy looking descent route. But the descent was still a tiring boulder
hop down to a small knob at 11,600’. Beyond that point we were mostly on grassy
slopes with a few rock bands down to the lower Lost Twin Lake. We pulled into
camp at 5:45 after a full 9 hours of hiking. We were all tired, but only Nitro
did not complain. I later guesstimated that we’d hiked an additional six miles
after setting up camp.
Not
surprisingly we slept well overnight, despite being woken up twice by small rain
showers. We took an easy morning and long breakfast to recover. Karl fished a
bit with moderate success. Just as we started the hike out another light rain
began and lasted until Mirror Lake. We saw our only other hikers of the trip on
the way out, reaching the trailhead in 2 ¼ hours.
The route to Bighorn and Darton Peaks.
