Into the Lakes Basin: Eagle Cap Pt. 3 is the third post of our backpacking trip to Eagle Cap Wilderness in the Wallowas in 2016.
Minam River Trail To Minam Lake
Elizabeth and I had spent some time the night before deliberating over what we wanted to accomplish today. We already knew a second loop was out of the question and climbing the summit of Eagle Cap was a priority (the reason we came!).
Without the pressure of a second loop, we packed up and left camp and made our way along the Minam River Trail towards Minam Lake. This route would then connect us with trail #1661 that would take us over into the Lakes Basin area and Mirror Lake below Eagle Cap.
The Minam River trail stretches out from where we camped in a green corridor that follows the river, giving us brief glimpses of the surrounding hills for the first part of our morning.
There were quite a few trees down and evidence of a variety of animals. It was clear that very few hikers and no horses could have traveled this route recently.
We still had not seen anyone else since yesterday.
After about 6 miles, the trail begins its ascent up the river gorge and into a steeply lined valley. I couldn’t believe we didn’t see anyone camping or hiking here, it was breathtaking.
It was just a few miles from Minam Lake but you can tell very few folks venture down this way. I would gladly return here instead of camping at Minam Lake which you can tell sees a lot of traffic.
It was just one view after another.
I must admit we were hiking a rather slow pace, not only because Elizabeth’s shoe was blown but because it was so beautiful. We stopped for quite a few pictures and snacks, and I spent a lot of time detaching hitchhiking burrs off my pants. Mosquitos and black flies were out so I had to stay rather covered despite the heat.
My new treat this trip was a proscuitto, goat cheese and strawberry wrap. Yum! Did you know that Trader Joe’s sells goat cheese in individual packages?? Very convenient for hiking and will last several days in your pack. I have eaten proscuitto and goat cheese up to 4 days later on the trail.
We continued on as the trail climbed and arrived at Minam Lake at 7380ft in the afternoon and spent an hour or so on lunch and soaking our feet in it’s cool waters. The aptly named Brown Mountain above us made for an interesting background.
Up To Minam Pass
We couldn’t stay forever, so we made our way up and over the 3.2 miles to Mirror Lake.
I was hiking a bit faster than Elizabeth as the point and enjoyed a break along the way to put “ice” in my water bottle. It’s the little things.
Into The Lakes Basin And Mirror Lake
Reaching Minam Pass at 8560ft and looking down into the Lakes Basin had me reminiscing about my PCT adventure in 2013 and standing on Red Pass in the Glacier Peak Wilderness.
Wow. There is nothing like standing at places like this to make you realize your significance in this great expanse of a world. I play a very small part. There was still quite a bit of snow but the trail was easy enough to find. I could see a few pops of color from tents at Mirror, our first sign that we would be encounter other hikers today.
I stared at Eagle Cap and could glimpse a faint boot path in the snow heading towards it from Mirror Lake but it sure looked like a rather sketchy route. Hmmm…would it be in my future?
This peak was named because it was once thought to be the tallest in this wilderness but we now know that would be Sacajawea Peak (at 9838ft), one of 30 8000ft+ summits here. We found ourselves looking for a campsite at a very busy Mirror Lake around 7pm and settled for a rocky perch up from the lake that despite not being waterfront property had a nice view of both the lake and the summit.
Mirror Lake was beautiful and crowded, although there are almost 60 alpine lakes here to choose from. I imagine it’s popular because it’s close to the trailhead at 6.6 miles in.
This was my first time pitching my tent on rock and of course, it had to be when I had borrowed my boyfriend’s tent because mine needed repairs. Nothing like having to use rocks to stake it out. Don’t tell my bf, but I tried several different pitches, including putting rocks INSIDE the tent on the corners. I cut up my rain skirt into pieces that I could put under the rocks so they wouldn’t scratch the tent floor. This turned out to not be so effective (for setup) and I ended up with the rocks back on the outside and guy lines tied around them.
I did manage to find TWO corners I could actually stake into the ground. Wahoo! It was also a bit of a challenge because someone had had a campfire on one part of our site and I was trying to avoid getting black charcoal marks on a borrowed tent. Why, oh why, couldn’t this have happened when I had my own tent?
We got water, made dinner and chatted with another group of women out hiking. We mentioned that we were wanting to climb to Eagle Cap tomorrow (well, I was. Elizabeth had decided at this point to not go because of her shoes). Then the ladies proceeded to tell us that they were told by someone’s son not to because it would require an ice pick. Ice pick? I just rolled my eyes. I think someone’s son didn’t want his mother trying to climb mountains.
Although the skies were clear when we set up camp, as the sun set and we debated bedtime the clouds rolled in and obscured our view of Eagle Cap.
First you see her, then you don’t. What the…? That put a different spin on things. If I woke up to no view, I wasn’t going to waste the climb especially if Elizabeth was not able to go.
We decided the plan would be this: if I woke up to a view I would go and Elizabeth would wait a few hours and then hike out and I would meet up with her. A grey dawn meant dawdling around the Lakes Basin and then hiking out together.
I was simply hoping for no rain at this point because either would be fine. Only the morning would tell!
For more pictures from Into the Lakes Basin: Eagle Cap Pt. 3 and information on hiking in this stunning area, check out my Eagle Cap Wilderness page. For the final day of our backpacking trip in the Wallowas, read Up, Down, and Out: Eagle Cap Pt. 4.
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