Wyoming Backcountry: The Safety Gear That Actually Matters

Three pieces of gear do the most work in the Wyoming backcountry: a satellite communicator, a bear canister in grizzly country, and a reliable water filter. Wyoming search and rescue teams average more than 300 missions a year, according to the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security. The hardest searches are the ones where nobody knows where the subject is. A Garmin inReach Mini 2 sending GPS coordinates takes the searching out of search and rescue.

This is not a comprehensive gear list. It is the specific items with functional consequences in Wyoming terrain, explained without the hedging.

The geography that makes Wyoming different

Wyoming covers 97,813 square miles and counted 576,851 people in the 2020 census, the sparsest population of the lower 48 states. The backcountry is correspondingly empty.

The Wind River Range runs 100 miles through central Wyoming. The Absaroka Range borders Yellowstone to the east and southeast. The Beartooths spill from Montana into northwestern Wyoming. In all three, cell coverage drops to zero within a few miles of the trailhead parking lot and stays there. There are drainages in the Bridger Wilderness where a helicopter cannot land safely. When something goes wrong at 11,000 feet in a narrow canyon with no landing zone, help can be a long time coming.

The other variable is grizzly bears. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem supports roughly 1,000 grizzlies; the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team’s estimate peaked at 1,030 in 2024. Their range extends into the Wind Rivers, Absarokas, and much of northwest Wyoming. This is not a statistical curiosity. It is a working hazard in the same category as lightning and flash floods.

A hand holding up a plain black daypack against a white background. — The gear is only part of the calculus. The other part is knowing what happens when something goes wrong at 40 miles from the trailhead with no cell signal. That is the problem a satellite communicator solves that no other piece of gear addresses. *Photo via Unsplash. Unsplash License.*

The satellite communicator argument

The Garmin inReach Mini 2 is not the only satellite communicator on the market. It gets recommended here because it runs on the Iridium satellite network, which covers the whole globe pole to pole. The device weighs 3.5 oz and fits in a shirt pocket. It is not cheap for safety gear, and it needs an active satellite subscription plan for SOS and messaging; check Garmin’s current plans before you buy. That is a reasonable price for the ability to send rescuers your exact GPS coordinates from anywhere in the Wind Rivers.

The critical point about satellite communicators is the two-way communication. Older devices could only transmit an SOS. The inReach can receive messages. In a medical situation, SAR can get information from you about the injury, tell you where a helicopter can land, coordinate a timing window with you. In a weather situation, they can tell you to shelter in place for six hours and the front will pass. One-way SOS is a distress flare. Two-way messaging is a radio.

Garmin Response, the 24/7 emergency coordination center in Montgomery, Texas, that handles inReach SOS alerts (it was formerly the GEOS IERCC), coordinates with local rescuers worldwide. When you activate SOS, it receives your GPS position and your registered emergency contacts.

Leave your trip plan with someone before you go, so searchers know where you meant to be.

Grizzly country: the bear canister

The BearVault BV500 is certified by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, certification number 5339. It holds 700 cubic inches and weighs 2.5 lbs. Grand Teton National Park requires food, toiletries and trash in its backcountry to be stored in an IGBC-approved bear-resistant canister, and lends them free. Food-storage rules elsewhere vary by land manager, so check the specific unit before your trip.

The functional argument for a canister: a grizzly that food-conditions (learns that human camps contain food) becomes dangerous to other humans and often has to be killed. Leave the canister on flat ground well away from your tent and come back for it in the morning.

The BV500 has clear sidewalls. You can see your food inventory without opening the container, which matters on multi-day trips when you need to check what is left without spending time with odors released. The lid opens with two palm-press buttons. No coin required, unlike older designs.

Black bears and rodents will also access improperly stored food in Wyoming backcountry. The food-conditioning problem applies at any scale. The canister is not an excessive precaution. It is the minimum intervention for the problem it solves.

None of that addresses the other scenario: an actual encounter, not a food-storage lapse. Carry bear spray in a hip holster where you can reach it instantly, not buried in a pack pocket. If a grizzly closes distance, stand your ground and speak in a calm, low voice. When a charging bear is within about 30 to 60 feet, aim slightly downward so the spray forms a cloud between you. Do not run. If a grizzly makes contact, leave your pack on, lie flat on your stomach with your hands clasped behind your neck, and stay still. The National Park Service recommends carrying bear spray and does not recommend firearms for stopping an attack.

A grizzly bear standing over a weathered log in an aspen stand in Yellowstone National Park, head turned toward the camera, the shoulder hump clearly visible. — A grizzly in Yellowstone, photographed by a Park Service biologist in May. The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem supports roughly 1,000 of them, and their range runs into the Wind Rivers and the Absarokas. A bear that learns human camps hold food becomes a problem for every party that follows in that drainage, and it usually ends with the bear being killed. A canister is the cheapest way to keep from being the camp that taught it. *Photo: Jim Peaco, National Park Service, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.*

Water: the Sawyer Squeeze

High-mountain lakes and streams in Wyoming are not inherently clean. Giardia lamblia and Cryptosporidium are present in backcountry water sources throughout the Wind Rivers, Absarokas, and Beartooths. Both cause severe gastrointestinal illness that can be debilitating enough to prevent hiking out under your own power.

The Sawyer Squeeze filters to 0.1 micron absolute, which removes bacteria and protozoa. It weighs a few ounces and attaches directly to the 28mm thread on standard water bottles (Smart Water, Gatorade, most cycling bottles). Fill the bottle, screw on the filter, drink through it or squeeze into another container. No pumping, no chemicals, no wait time.

The caveat that matters: it does not remove viruses. Where human waste may be in the water, add a chemical treatment as well.

Backflush it as Sawyer directs and it lasts a long time; Sawyer backs it with a lifetime limited warranty.

Fire starting at altitude

The UCO Stormproof Matches are windproof and waterproof; UCO says each one burns for up to 12 seconds even in heavy wind, rain, or snow. They are a small expense for a meaningful reliability item.

Wyoming mountain weather moves fast. Afternoon thunderstorms are routine in summer. An August afternoon that starts at 70 degrees in Titcomb Basin can end with sleet and 40 mph wind before you make camp. The ability to start a fire in those conditions is not decorative.

Heavy grey cloud pressing down over the rolling forested ridges of the Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming, with a single band of sunlight still on the grass in the foreground. — Bighorn National Forest, with the light going. That band of sun on the grass is about fifteen minutes from gone. A buildup that looks like an afternoon shower from the trailhead can be sleet and 40 mph wind by the time you reach the pass, and fire-starting capability stops being a comfort item somewhere in that gap. *Photo by Fabien Fivaz, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 2.0.*

Before you go

Permit requirements vary by land manager, so check before you go. In the Bridger Wilderness, ordinary backpackers need no permit, but organized groups and overnight trips with pack or saddle stock do. Grand Teton National Park requires a backcountry permit for any overnight stay. Yellowstone backcountry requires a permit year-round. None of that paperwork replaces the next step.

Wyoming Search and Rescue operates through county sheriff’s offices, mostly with volunteers. There is no SAR fee in Wyoming; SAR is free to the people being helped. This does not mean calling for SAR is without consequence, a helicopter rescue in remote terrain involves real agency resources, but it means you should not hesitate to activate your communicator if the situation warrants.

Tell someone your itinerary before you leave. It takes five minutes and tells searchers where to start if a search becomes necessary.

That is the full list. Everything else is comfort.