Witnessing the Great American Eclipse in the Wind River Range

Unzipping the tent screen, I emerged into the dawn of the day of the great eclipse, the 21st of August, 2017. I was camped at Mistake Lake, at an elevation of 10,800 feet, in the Titcomb Basin, located in the center of Wyoming’s Wind River Range.

Below, on the prominent moraine between two big lakes, were fourteen tents. I was to pass another thirty to forty tents on the upper reaches of the basin.

Perhaps never before had the basin been so crowded. For that matter, neither had the state, now with five or six times its usual population, owing to people coming here to experience the e...