Unfettered By Trail: Eagle Cap Pt. 2 tells of the second day on our backpacking trip into Eagle Cap Wilderness in the Wallowas of Oregon State in 2016.
Rising In The Morning At Copper Creek
We knew we didn’t have big miles to make during this trip, so we slept in.
A little.
As in until 6am. It was still promising to be a warm day and early miles usually mean cooler miles. But not too early. We were reluctant to get up as we knew we were starting with a ford, one of several we had to do today. This morning had a different feel from our PCT hikes as neither one of us rushed to pack and get moving. It felt a little weird to not be as efficient as we had grown accustomed but at the same time pleasantly relaxing.
I left my camp shoes on as we started out because the ford was through the creek we had peacefully slept by last night. Can you see how cold my feet look?
Not too sketchy but quite a brisk wake up for first thing in the morning.
Our walk along Copper Creek was a tranquil way to start our day, the water reverberates down through the deep yet narrow canyonlike rock in refreshing cascades.
My favorite was this leaf shaped rock and the way the water streamed down over it.
We ended up having two fords and 2 log crossings today as we made our way up into Elkhorn Basin below it’s namesake peak. The trail eventually took us out of the trees and into much rockier and open terrain.
The only people we would see between now and Mirror Lake tomorrow would be this morning on Copper Creek, about 10 folks or so all on their way out.
The >fun< today started as we went over the first log crossing. Elizabeth thought it would be nice to take MY picture as I went over, taking her phone out of her pant pocket. I, then, took hers as she made her way over.
She’s smiling now.
It was about 5 minutes up the trail (after another log crossing) that she realized she didn’t have her phone in her pocket. Oh, that initial dread. Where did it fall between here and taking my picture on the other side of the creek? Was it a dry landing or water bath?
Blurp.
We dropped our packs and rushed back to see whether or not she would be needing to buy a new phone. As I made my way over through the brush and down to the bank, I searched for the missing black rectangle of life.
I soon yelled back to her that she was one lucky hiker. Her phone had landed about 10″ from the edge of the water. No having to explain a new phone purchase to her hubby! I joked that hopefully that was the most excitement we were going to have today.
I shouldn’t have done that.
Stopping For Second Breakfast
We continued on and stopped for a second breakfast on a granite perch around 9am and fought off bugs as Elizabeth heated up water for her oatmeal. E has had problems having an appetite while hiking but has learned she does better with warm food so she splurged the weight and bought an ESBIT cook set with Coghlan’s solid fuel pellets (that don’t stink!).
It turned out to be quite a help and she was able to eat regularly on our hike. I enjoyed some mooched warm water for my pumpkin spice granola, as well.
A nice treat and maybe one of these days I’ll decide it’s worth the weight. Or maybe I just need to make more of a habit of hiking with others (who carry a stove). Hmmm…
Sky Lake And Enchantment
After our break, we continued up switchbacks towards Sky Lake, the turn for Swamp Lake and an unnamed pass at 8500ft. The rock here reminds me of hikes in the North Cascades, even a little Enchantment like. Bright wildflowers stood out against the piles of rocky speckled grey granite.
There were patches of snow that obscured the trail (the melting landscape was mostly one large tarn) as we crossed several false summits and wondered exactly which way to go. Pink algae colored most of the receding snow, adding contrast to the blues and greens of the water and foliage emerging.
Boot prints were sporadic and there looked like several possibilities. My first inclination is usually to go straight up (as you will read about in my summit of Eagle Cap itself) but we took the more gradual route in keeping with the map as this was new terrain and we had a junction to meet up with.
Lunch At The Pass
The day stayed mostly overcast, and as we reached the pass towards the junction with the Granite Creek trail, we were threatened by storm clouds that did little more than blow and spit on us, although I put my rain skirt on just in case. They passed without much drama and we safely enjoyed the summit views for lunch. We could see a few hikers exploring the side trail to Swamp Lake and imagined it a nice overnight backpack from Two Pan.
A Foreshadowing Hiker
After snacking and watching the rain barely miss us, we continued across the snow fields clinging to the sides of the slope down toward our junction with the Granite Creek trail.
There were some faint boot paths to follow and we choose a route that had good runout. We saw the last person we would see for the next 30 hours or so: a solo woman with her two dogs, PLB and bear spray in tow. She seemed a little frazzled and told us she had come up the way we were going. That should have been our warning.
After taking pictures of our trail sign, we continued on through snow and tarn, following (and postholing) soft and pitted snow, turning and retracing at least once to avoid wet feet and stay on route.
The skies were beginning to blue by this point and things had warmed up considerably. We had fun looking for shapes in the rock structures we passed and wondering at the resilience of life clinging to it.
I will note that water was abundant for us thus far, I’m not sure if that would be the same later in the season.
The views were breathtaking as we continued down the steep granite lined trail. We could imagine the Minam River nestled below under the peaks we were seeing splayed out before us.
Unfettered By Trail
It wasn’t long before we realized that the trail we had chosen to loop us back to the Lostine and Lakes Basin had not been maintained for several years.
There were an abundance of downed trees, brush and saplings growing alongside the blocked path and it caused for various parallel options. I wish that I had taken more pictures of this but I was so enthralled with the scene at eye level (and I have tons of fallen tree pictures from my previous hikes this summer) that I forgot. This was one of the last pictures I took before the drama began.
The trail was running down along a gulch at this point and the map said that we would do so until about 6800ft when we would turn and follow the ridge for awhile and then drop down to the Minam River trail at about 4800ft. See that little patch of green in the lower left corner of the picture above? I was sure the trail would take us down past that and then we would turn. No problem.
At about 7500ft we went over a rather large pile of trees and came around to several trail options. Maybe a trail, maybe a dry creek bed, maybe a boot path by folks going over the same tree.
Decisions, decisions. In about 20 minutes, the path we (I) had chosen ran out and it was clear I had not chosen wisely. Time to sit for another snack and think this out (and study the map). It looked pretty straightforward where to pick up the trail but would it be smarter to try and trace back to where we might have left it and try again? I had my compass out along with the GPS on my phone and I was 99% sure I knew where we were based on elevation (7200ft) and terrain.
It was about 2:30 in the afternoon and it wasn’t like we didn’t have gear for staying overnight. I made the decision to continue down following the gulch to 6800ft and then cross over to find the trail as it turned to the ridge. Elizabeth seconded my decision on blind trust and promised herself she would be taking a navigation class herself this fall so she would at least be able to help me verify next time.
The terrain was angled here and alternated between soppy marsh and downed trees. Sometime about 30 minutes later, Elizabeth blew out the side of one of her Altras. We had to laugh even though it was such bad timing. Getting out of the car at the trailhead, she had quipped that this would probably be the last hike for those shoes. I guess they had listened to her deadline and decided it was time to give up the ghost. Here we were trying to find a trail on the steep side of the hill with a shoe threatening to let her foot escape out the side as we stomped through mud and over sharp, unforgiving snags.
We both knew the temporary fix would be duct tape, which we both carried. ALWAYS. However, her shoes were wet and it wouldn’t do much good at this point. We continued on without much luck, alternating between heading down and heading west and hoped her shoe would at least make it to wherever we ended up for the night.
At about 3:30pm, we were still fairly close to the gulch on our left but at a lower elevation than the trail would have turned and we had not crossed it. No trail yet. We sat down again to pull out the map. At this point I was figuring out latitude and longitude just to make sure we were where I thought we were. Hard to do with a foldout map the size of a dining room table. I hadn’t packed a ruler this trip so the following over from the side of the map to where we were was a little challenging, who knew?
This is the picture of where we sat, pretty much the only picture I thought to take during this time. I think at this point I joked to E how much fun it was hiking without being bothered with a trail. We were “unfettered” by trail, I quipped. I even joked that if we didn’t find it soon, we’d just head straight down. Elizabeth didn’t think that was too funny, especially with her shoe being in the condition it was.
Did I mention at this point I had had my compass out and had been checking it every few minutes? Well, something that I know I haven’t mentioned is that at some point in my navigation I did the same thing I did in this adventure, I switched east and west in my mind. Only for about 10 minutes, I swear. And although it didn’t necessarily make a difference in the direction we headed big picture, it played a major mind game as I freaked out because the gulch (and creek) flowing to our left was NOT where it should have been if we were where I thought we were on the map.
Rationally, I knew we were in the right place. But because I temporarily thought the east/west thing, I had a nagging fear I could be wrong and we could have been somewhere completely different. It was very unsettling, made even worse because I was not by myself and Elizabeth was trusting me to get us back on trail.
Saved By The Trail
Needless to say, it was another hour later as we were heading up a rather steep embankment, I looked up and could see the trail up above my head. I yelled to E that I had found it and we were saved. I began to crawl up, making switchbacks until I pulled myself up on the trail. I proclaimed it was the most amazing trail in the world.
Elizabeth followed me up, muttering that my supposed switchbacks were really just in my imagination and joined me on our salvation. I took celebratory pictures to prove we had made it. This is where the post title, Unfettered By Trail: Eagle Cap Pt. 2, comes in!
I momentarily thought about going back on the trail just to see where we had gone wrong but my tiredness thought better. It was 4:30 and we still had a ways to go until the river trail, there were no flat spots on this one to be found.
The overgrown trail continued on the ridge and our exhaustion was only buoyed by unique wildflowers and the thought that we only had downhill to go from here.
We would have stopped anywhere along here if it had been possible. We even joked that we could probably just set up on the trail itself as clearly very few people hiked this trail. We would see later both on the map and in person that this had to be true as the river trail was littered with so many trees and there was no trailhead nearby to access it, that there was very little motivation for anyone to take the Granite Trail.
The tightly switchbacked trail down to the Minam River was steep and covered with pinecones that made us careful with our steps. The roughly 1500ft descent seemed to last forever. Arriving at the junction, we had expected to see a sign here that should have said, “trail not maintained” but we were disappointed.
Elizabeth said she planned to call the forest service to complain. Turns out, the forest service DOESN”T EVEN LIST this trail (Granite Creek)! This is a prime example for not just going by a guidebook or map. Learn from us and do your homework.
The Lazy Minam River For The Win
You can probably guess that after turning east on the nice flat river trail and climbing over a few more trees, we took the first camp we came to despite it being a less than perfect horse camp. The Minam River rambles here making for another peaceful setting for spending the night and we ignored the ample (and thankfully old) manure deposits as we pitched our tents. We were so tired we cooked dinner right in camp (which we usually don’t do). Afterwards, we hung our food and threw ourselves into our tents for the night completely spent.
Elizabeth hoped her shoe would dry enough to be able to make temporary repairs so that we could complete our journey. She feared this was going to hinder where we hoped to go, if not send us home early. I told her not to worry, we would do what we could and it was all part of the adventure. I don’t think she was so sure. We DID know at this point that we would be lucky to finish this loop and there would be no second loop.
We were averaging 1 mile and hour, not near what we were used to and not conducive to the lofty goals we had set before setting out. We both agreed that was the longest 12 miles (yes, only 12 miles) we had ever done. Evaluating the map, we figured we could make it to Minam and Mirror Lakes tomorrow and possibly summit Eagle Cap before hiking out. If our trip continued in the same vein as today’s excitement, we’d be lucky to even make that
For more pictures from Unfettered By Trail: Eagle Cap Pt. 2 and information about hiking in the area, check out my Eagle Cap Wilderness. For our first day read: Getting There is Half the Battle: Eagle Cap Pt. 1 and for our next day read: Into the Lakes Basin: Eagle Cap Pt. 3.
Editor’s note: I am so blessed to have Elizabeth as a friend, especially one who is willing to hike with me again after I lead her so far out of her comfort zone.
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