This page should give you some basic information helpful to plan a backpacking trip in Wyoming's Wind River Range.
Getting there
We drive all the way from Palo Alto, CA and pretty much all in one trip (Google Maps). It takes about 16 hours to get to Pinedale, WY. We take 80 East all the way into Evanston Wyoming then head North on 189 through Big Piney. Google Maps would have you stay on 189 and not turn right until after Daniel onto 191 South. We usually head East sooner, just after Big Piney onto 351. This cuts across to 191 and you head North on that. We usually camp in some random field that we stumble into late at night way off 351. It wasn't perfect either time, but it did sort of work. Maybe you can find a better place to camp right near there.
Supplies
I would recommend buying a lot of your "basic" supplies in Pinedale. Definitely buy any essentials or hard to find items before you leave, but otherwise you can get all your veggies, fruit cheese in Pinedale. I wouldn't buy a topo map until Pinedale either. Pinedale's a great small western town. On the South side of town and on the West side of 191 they've got a huge combination grocery store, hardware store, appliance store and liquor store all under one big roof. Like a poor towns mall full of essentials. But you can get what you need here. Fresh vegetables, cheese, fruit, powdered drink mixes and butter, Topo maps, hunting and fishing licenses, sunglasses, fishing lures and poles, thermarests, stoves, pots and pans, the list goes on and on. There are some fancy health food stores in town too, but I never went in one. I think you can get your more gourmet foods there, but I'm not sure what the selection is.There's also a great outdoor gear store in town. It's a tiny shop but it's packed full of great stuff and knowledgeable people. It's fun to check out what they've got, and get route advice.
Eating in Town
There's an awesome diner in Pinedale, and unfortunately I can't remember the name of it. It's on the right (west) as you drive north on 191. It's past the outdoor gear store (which will be on your left) and near a gas station. The building is old and grayish with a gravel parking lot and some old antlers or cow horns or something. Great filling food. Beyond that I didn't find the food in Pinedale to be that great. We ate at a restaurant on the same side (west) of the street called Stockman's or something like that. Not great, but not bad especially after you've been hiking. There's a few other restaurants but we only tried one other and I would not recommend it.
Guide Books
We brought two guide books with us:
"Hiking Wyoming's Wind River Range" by Rod Adkison and published as part of the Falcon Guide Series. Good for understanding the area and finding most of the well defined trails and some of the less defined trails.
And:
"Climbing and Hiking Wind River Mountains" by Joe Kelsey. This book is heavier and focuses more on the rock climbing routes and peak bagging which is something sorely lacking in the Falcon Guide. A combination of the two guides is best. You could probably phone order either of them from the gear shop. You'll definitely need to supplement these two guides with topo maps available at the huge store.
Weather
I've only been there twice, both times in Mid-August. It was pretty good timing. If you go later you won't see as many wild flowers, it'll be colder, but there won't be many mosquitoes.In Mid August the weather is pretty much perfect. It can get cold and very occasionally snow but most of the time it'll be gorgeous sunny and relatively warm. You'll get at least a few hours of rain per week too. The thunderstorms can actually be pretty severe.
Trails
You really can't go wrong from any of the trail heads on the western side of the Winds. The Falcon Guide does a good job describing each of the trail heads and various areas. I don't want to spend time re-writing the guide book. The pictures of mine you'll see are from a total of about 36 days spent around various areas: Rainbow Lake, Middlefork Lake, Mount Bonneville, Green River Valley, Mount Hooker, Baptiste Lake, Shadow Lake, Summit Lake. All of these are great, and I would expect that there are lots of other great areas too.
More Photos
These are photos from the last two trips to the Wind Rivers, each trip was in August and lasted for 21 days in 2005 and 15 days in 2006.