After finishing the Loowit Trail, I was tempted to take a month off of hiking altogether, but after a good week of rest, I decided to go on and do another hike! Unfortunately, so much smoke blew into Washington, I ended up retreating into Oregon. Fortunately, that ended up meaning doing a 37 mile loop in the Eagle Cap Wilderness!
I usually do a lot more prep for hikes than I really did for this one, but thankfully, all the previous hiking and planning I did came in handy. I picked up a Green Trails map that had a route I had loosely looked up online and put together a trip that sounded good. That’s not a practice I can advocate–you should be well prepared for any trip into the wilderness. In reality, I took enough time to research some of the geology of the Wallowas (the range in which Eagle Cap lies) and read plenty of trip reports. That along with my own experience: even when I say I didn’t do much, I’m doing a lot of prep work. My standard is just that high.
The Pack
After hiking on the Loowit with the Mountainsmith Day lumbar pack, I became somewhat convinced that I could improve the setup. Ideally, I wanted to put the quilt inside of the pack. Over some thinking, I ended up putting together a pack weighing in at under 8lbs!
For this one, I got a Turkey size Oven Bag to line the inside of the pack, and in there, I just put everything from the quilt to the clothes and toilet paper. I put things that have their own bag or whatnot inside of the zip pocket in the pack. For food storage, I got a more durable REI 15L stuff sack and a 1 inch buckle that also would work with my existing bear can (yes, I tested that already). In all, it’s still a weird hodge-podge of ultralight, not-so-ultralight-but-somehow-still-becomes-ultralight, and why-do-I-just-have-to-be-so-damn-different.
Rather than lay it all out here, I already put together the rough idea on LighterPack.
Day One : Friday
3.5 miles
Once again, I decided to start the hike on Friday evening. Which meant finishing up work in my campsite elsewhere in the Blue Mountains and then making the drive to the trailhead. This one actually really surprised me here. To get to the trailhead was a long… long drive down dirt roads. I was glad I stopped in Baker City for gas, and finally made it to the trailhead shortly after 6pm.
It seems like most people who do do any loop resembling mine mostly stick to doing it clockwise, but I decided instead to go a counter-clockwise direction, heading first for Crater Lake.
There was still plenty of smoke in the air: enough to see and smell it as I climbed up the steep way. I had read that this part was largely unmaintained and overgrown, but I found it pretty simple. There was a lot of brushing through all the low growth, but nothing remarkably difficult.
Ultimately, the original goal was to get to Crater Lake and find a campsite, but after only about 3.5 miles, it was already getting quite late and I stumbled upon a beautiful little campsite in the forest. I setup my tarp expecting the possibility of rain and went to sleep.
I never really got significant rain on myself, but as I ate some dinner and went to sleep, nearby lightning occasionally lit up the sky in a wonderful show. None was ever even close enough for me to hear the thunder as I passed off to sleep.
Day Two : Saturday
20.6 miles
I was woken up at about 4am to the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing somewhere on the other side of my tarp-tent walls. I made some noise and something scattered off, but a larger, closer something stuck nearby and didn’t seem to be moving.
“IS THAT A GODDAMN BEAR?!” I made some more noise and grabbed my headlamp, turning it on.
It walked away slowly at first, but by the time that I was able to stick my head around with my headlamp and shine around, nothing remained. I went back to sleep and as if the whole thing was a bizarre fever dream, I completely forgot to check for tracks in the morning before setting out on the trail. Oh well!
Again, I set off on the trail by about 7am and finished the hike up to Crater Lake. From the start, my head wasn’t really into the hiking, but I enjoyed Crater Lake for a moment as I stopped to take a break above its shores. And from there, it was a nice, long slog.
On the upside of my head not really being in it, the slog seemed to go by really fast. At first, the loop went downhill before an easy crossing of the South Fork Imnaha River that I then followed upstream to Hawkins Pass.
It was in this section that all of the reading about the geology of the area really paid off, along with just having stared at far too many different mountains of different kinds at this point. The strange designs and different colors throughout these mountains are spectacular, and I really enjoyed hiking along, staring at all the different intrusions and formations.
The way up Hawkins Pass was steep, but the trail remained easy, and I just enjoyed the views on the other side, as I descended down to Frazier Lake. This area was its own kind of cool, and I stopped to eat lunch and enjoy the views for a bit before climbing on to Glacier Lake and Glacier Pass.
This whole way was something special, in itself. Climbing up a beautiful gorge to Glacier Lake, and then climbing above that… Glacier Lake looks like its floating on some mystical island from up near the top of the pass. Plenty of people surrounded the lake itself, so I didn’t stay long, but the views were absolutely spectacular.
Alas, coming down Glacier Pass, a really beautiful hike down that made me quite happy to be going counter-clockwise, actually, I made my way to Moccasin Lake and over to Mirror Lake. I searched around, found a campsite, I decided I had had enough. Even looking at my time and the mileage, I thought I even had the energy and the time to make it up to summit Eagle Cap, but really, I had hiked all day with my head just not really in the hiking. So, I setup camp, sat down, and spent some time meditating and eating dinner instead.
Day Three : Sunday
13 miles
Waking up early once again, I packed up and hit the trail. I headed immediately up Horton Pass, really just stopping to enjoy the absolutely incredible views all along the way. Again, the hiking was steep but easy. Especially compared to some of the hikes I have done recently before this, the trail was nice and easy. Entirely enjoyable, even!
Coming down Horton Pass, I enjoyed some of my last views. I had stopped for only a moment to contemplate summitting Eagle Cap in the morning, but I really just wanted to finish the hike and get out. Not my best weekend, I suppose. It happens.
Even as I came along the turn-off towards Hidden Lake, which is MUCH more hidden than my map would suggest, I decided to just continue on down the canyon, back to the trailhead. And alas, I made it and set off back to a comfortable campsite for the week.
Reflections
I never once was not enjoying the trail, even though in a large way, my mind wasn’t really in it for this one. I’m still pretty happy with having gone out there and put in the miles, and spent some healing time with nature. Maybe I didn’t do all the miles I quite gave myself the option to do (I didn’t summit Eagle Cap or go to Hidden Lake), but the important part is that I got out there. And I enjoyed every minute of it!
The Wallowas are an incredibly interesting mountain range, and hiking in them is incredible. Along this loop, the trail is pretty easy, but I found it fun to hike along. I’m glad I did do it counter-clockwise, and honestly, that’s probably the route I would go again. I got plenty of nice solitude on this route (except around Lake Basin area), and never even really had any knee problems.
I do want to come back here. Summitting Eagle Cap will remain on my list. Hidden Lake, I’m not so heartbroken about, but if I’m talking about coming back, I would certainly want to think about how I missed it this time. Of course, there’s tons more around the Lake Basin area and all over this much larger wilderness, too. Plenty of reason to come back!
