"Environmental regulators have launched an investigation into a heavily trafficked lake below the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River Range, with an Enterococci reading 384 times the safety threshold."
"LONESOME LAKE — Whit Coleman belly flopped with style into some of Wyoming’s most famous alpine waters on Wednesday.
Out on a father-son backpacking trip with friends, the Salt Lake City man took the plunge with an incredible backdrop: the Wind River Range’s Cirque of the Towers, a semi-circle of big-walled granite peaks that all top 12,000 feet. The dip was pleasant, he recalled later in the day.
“It’s probably better that we didn’t know,” Coleman said. “We enjoyed ourselves. I’m not too worried about getting sick.”
Coleman learned of a potential health concern after the fact while hiking out from Lonesome Lake, which sits at the bottom of the cirque and forms the headwaters of the North Popo Agie River.
Lonesome Lake has long been reputed to be unfit for drinking and even swimming. That’s due to contamination presumed to be from the hordes of humans who poop while traveling through the popular backcountry basin. Now there’s a datapoint to back it up."
Mike Koshmrl reports for WyoFile July 11, 2025, in partnership with The Water Desk at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism.
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