Category:Wyoming Snowy Range

From Coloradohikingtrails

Hiking Trails in Wyoming's Snowy Range in the Medicine Bow - Routt National Forest

The Snowy Range and Medicine Bow Mountains in southeast Wyoming offer some of the finest easily-accessible high-mountain hiking trails in the region. The Snowy Range is reached via Highway 130, called the Snowy Range Scenic Byway, that crosses the Medicine Bow Mountains. Approachable from the east or west off Interstate 80, the route rises from 8,000 feet on the valley floor to a height of 10,847 feet. At Snowy Range Pass, nearby Medicine Bow Peak towers 12,013 feet.

Traversing the Byway, travelers are close enough to Medicine Bow Peak and the surrounding mountains and rifges to explore the year-round snowfields. It is easy to see how this part of the Medicine Bow Range got its name.

Vegetation along the Byway changes from sagebrush prairie at the lower elevations to lodgepole pine at mid elevations. At higher elevations, the lodgepole pine gives way to spruce-fir forests and alpine tundra. In summer, wildflowers carpet the alpine meadows. Wildlife include moose, elk, deer, pronghorn antelope, and smaller mammals such as marmots, beaver and pika. The many small lakes nestled against the peaks are home to rainbow, cutthroat, and brook trout.

The Byway is open from Memorial Day through October, weather permitting. There are numerous hiking trails accessible from the Byway. In addition to the Snow Range hiking trail information available on this web site, trail maps and information brochures are available from the US Forest Service's Centennial Visitor Information Center, located on the eastern Forest boundary, and the Brush Creek Visitor Information Center, on the western boundary of the Forest.