The Next Horizon Line: Upper NF little wind

The upper north fork of the little wind was a great trip and a highlight of the rocky mountain season for sure. I picked up my brother Jim and Kirk at the airport, we headed up to fort collins to meet up with Wigston and Evan, Kirk explained the idea of the 1st D of the upper north fork and they were in, we left the fort around midnight. Not getting to lander until the next morning we got our Indian permits and some food and headed up to find the take-out. The road wasn’t to bad but a truck was need (this take out is only a 15 minute hike instead of an hour on the other side), the road to the putin is only about 30 minutes away (not to bad for a 3 day run! By the time we started hiking it was 1 in the afternoon and somehow we couldn’t find the trail so off we went for about an 1-2 thru the woods before we found the trail. Once on the trail it was another 3 hours of hiking, it was way harder than I thought it would be and again I got dehydrated. Once reaching the twin lakes I stepped in to soak my legs and cool of, the lakes were one of the coolest camp spots I’ve ever been.
That evening we headed up and scouted the raft lake gorge, there were mostly slides and slot drops, totally bedrock and it defiantly had us excited. The next morning we lounged around fishing and just soaking the spot in, around 10 we hiked up the raft lake gorge (1-2 miles). This was the highlight of the trip, probably 5 good drops down to the big slide wigston named wind scraper (after skyscraper in cali). I had a good look at this massive rapid before giving it a go; wigston, jim and I were just kinda looking at each other and one of has to go so I decided to go first, the drop is probably a few hundred yards of slides that drops around 100 feet, we all had great lines and made quick work of the rest of the low angle slides.
We paddled across the lake and portaged around a huge 200-300 foot cascade, I think the last 80-100 feet might be runable but that’s for next time. The next section was kinda crappy with our low water but fun drops kept our spirits up, after a few hours we pulled over and camped on a big bluff.
The next day we had a few hours down to the normal put-in for the lower run that me and Evan had done before, we blazed it pretty quick stopping only a few times to scout and about 4 hours later we were hiking up the hill back to our car.
This trip was sick and I will defiantly be back but with a bit more water next time.
Time for some pics!