Hike Doubletop Peak via Dry Fork Trail Bridger-Teton National Forest, WY

Sep 04, 2022 — Doubletop Peak, the high point of the Gros Ventre range, is easily overlooked due to its proximity to the Tetons to the north. Often people visit the Gros Ventre outside of Jackson, WY, but the more remote and bigger peaks are sort of an effort to reach. Most require many miles of trail hiking after hours of driving, this outing included. After a couple of weeks of mostly solo hiking, I was thrilled to join friends in the area for a week of gorgeous peaks. Doubletop Peak was the first, and was supposed to be a warm-up hike. Naturally, I accidentally misinterpreted the distance for this hike as being significantly less than it ended up. I don't think my friends were thrilled with me, but the result was a summit of this gorgeous mountain. So that's a win!

Reaching the trailhead can likely be done by any vehicle with at least some clearance from either the north or the south, both leading to this junction (43.35625, -110.06459) where the road gets a little bit worse. Google estimated it would take us an extra hour than it did, likely predicting the dirt roads would be in less good shape. From the south, there was a section that could cause sedans to struggle due to some rockiness starting here (43.33782, -110.04241) and lasting to the junction. You probably want good tires regardless of your vehicle since it's a very remote area with no service and there are often some rocks and ruts.

We started along a connector trail that would join us with the Kinky Creek Trail. This required dropping about 400 feet of elevation that would need to be re-ascended at the end of the hike. You might be able to drive farther along the road and descend to start lower at another trailhead, but I'm not sure. Plus, the views were nice starting up high. After descending, we crossed Clear Creek and followed it for only a short time. The Dry Fork (Brewster Lake) Trail veers left at an unmarked junction, and it's easy to miss. From here the hike ascends at a nice pace along a forested ridge. There are some nice views to the west toward the Dry Fork of Clear Creek drainage, and Doubletop Peak comes into view far in the distance. Strange how we didn't question my original incorrectly predicted mileage earlier on, despite how far the peak appeared.

The Dry Fork Trail was pretty, swapping between forest and meadows as it undulated quite a bit. On the way back, we regained about 1000 vertical in total (including the last bit back to the trailhead), so a fair amount of the elevation for the day was just in changes on the trail over the course of the hike. We passed Lunch Lake, a bright blue lake with a nice view toward Triangle Peak and its extended east ridgeline. Pausing for lunch here (how could we not with a lake named as such?), I finally decided to second-guess our mileage and found the truth. We still had a way to go. Oops. Maybe we shouldn't have started hiking at noon?

The trail continued west, passing a couple of smaller lakes/ponds until Brewster Lake, nestled at the base of Triangle Peak. Once we reached the north side of the lake, the trail pretty much ended and we had to continue through a meadow with an occasional surprise marsh. We wrapped around the west side of Brewster Lake and located a social trail that led south into a weakness that avoided the cliffy terrain. Not exceeding Class 2, we made our way into a wide, gorgeous half-pipe looking drainage. The terrain seemed particularly complex here and we took a minute to decide how we wanted to continue ascending. Surrounding us were interesting-looking limestone formations that could potentially cause impassable cliffs. Topo maps of course couldn't show the complex crevasses and intricacies of this portion of the hike, so we were on our own to navigate on-the-fly. Doubletop Peak wasn't in view yet, but we knew to head generally south.

You may notice two lines on my attached map. The right (eastern) option was our ascent. This option leads freestyle-like through a maze of limestone. If you have time, I highly recommend going this way (or close to it). The sloped landscape is incredibly, like nothing I've seen before. We had fun navigating the many obstacles (Class 2+ max) and avoiding cracks in the ground. Matt, our geology nerd, stopped often to inspect the weird formations. It was definitely a slower-moving option, though. If time is an issue, I recommend using the left (western) option on my map, which was our descent route. If ascending this way, it heads up the drainage feature on limestone slabs and then continues south through less-complex terrain, though there's still plenty of cool formations to enjoy here too. Also expect a Class 3 move here and there since there are more large boulders.

Once we reached the northern ridgeline of Doubletop Peak, we were immediately impressed by the views. The broken ridgeline had monoliths of gorgeous rock with a sheer drop overlooking the peaks to the west. The various grassy overlooks formed outstanding jagged features. Continuing south along the ridge, we started up steeper Class 2 terrain that curved east toward the summit of Doubletop Peak. We didn't have much scrambling to contend with, mostly just some talus sections. There was even a social trail most of the way up. A false summit required a short drop to gain the true summit. Views west toward colorful lakes, bare and expansive limestone to the southeast, and the eroded Triangle Peak to the north had us gawking for a while before realizing we needed to get moving if we wanted to make dinner before midnight.