Eagle Cap Wilderness--September 2012
Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2014 7:25 am
Day 1 to 3.5
Around Sept 20, 2012, 4 days after returning from Glacier NP, I embarked on my last Backpack of 2012. This time old friend Carl and his son joined me on a new semi loop trip in the Eagle Cap Wilderness in NE Oregon. A large portion of use in the Eagle Caps includes the “Lakes Basin” that is situated roughly between the two most prominent peaks in the wilderness--Matterhorn and Eagle Cap. While quite beautiful--I’ve visited the area on 3 different trips--it tends to be over populated with people as there are no quotas. After a 6 hour drive from Bend we found a room in a hotel and then visited Terminal Gravity brewpub in Enterprise for dinner and .... a brew.
Next morning we headed up to the trailhead, going beyond our starting point by 3 miles to the TH for Lakes Basin where Carl found a hidden spot in the creek to stash a 6 pack of beer as this was to be our exit point, the last half mile of our last day would share one of the major routes into Lakes Basin. There were lots of cars at this TH. Back at our TH there was not a single vehicle! Our route began at 5,200 feet elevation (roughly the equivalent of 8200 feet in the Central Sierra, in terms of vegetation and temperature) and involved a series of long switchbacks that took about 3 trail miles to gain 1200 feet before we began a gradual uphill all the way to our destination for the first two nights at a lake just above 7600 feet. The major disappointment of this trip was that the spectacular views were veiled by the pall of smoke from fires burning near Wenatchee in Washington State and in western Idaho. Next day it took us a while to figure out where my “target lake” for fishing was. Once found Cameron and Carl set of to climb the ridge and explore while I began to fish. Expecting relatively small brookies I was shocked that on one of my first casts my z-ray was struck by a substantial fish that turned out to be a pig of a rainbow, soon followed by another. That ended my luck with large fish but I caught several fat 10” fish over the next couple of hours. The two keepers provided the foundation of a great dinner. The following day was a travel day, backtracking our first day’s route a couple of miles then turning west, topping a ridge and dropping down to n. Minam Meadow. We had a hard time finding a suitable campsite because there were a lot of dead trees at established sites. Finally at the s. end of the meadow we found an old site about 50 yards off the trail. Given that it was about that time of the year we were serenaded all night by bugling elk.
The next morning we began the second of 3 substantial uphill days during the trip. To be continued
Mike
Around Sept 20, 2012, 4 days after returning from Glacier NP, I embarked on my last Backpack of 2012. This time old friend Carl and his son joined me on a new semi loop trip in the Eagle Cap Wilderness in NE Oregon. A large portion of use in the Eagle Caps includes the “Lakes Basin” that is situated roughly between the two most prominent peaks in the wilderness--Matterhorn and Eagle Cap. While quite beautiful--I’ve visited the area on 3 different trips--it tends to be over populated with people as there are no quotas. After a 6 hour drive from Bend we found a room in a hotel and then visited Terminal Gravity brewpub in Enterprise for dinner and .... a brew.
Next morning we headed up to the trailhead, going beyond our starting point by 3 miles to the TH for Lakes Basin where Carl found a hidden spot in the creek to stash a 6 pack of beer as this was to be our exit point, the last half mile of our last day would share one of the major routes into Lakes Basin. There were lots of cars at this TH. Back at our TH there was not a single vehicle! Our route began at 5,200 feet elevation (roughly the equivalent of 8200 feet in the Central Sierra, in terms of vegetation and temperature) and involved a series of long switchbacks that took about 3 trail miles to gain 1200 feet before we began a gradual uphill all the way to our destination for the first two nights at a lake just above 7600 feet. The major disappointment of this trip was that the spectacular views were veiled by the pall of smoke from fires burning near Wenatchee in Washington State and in western Idaho. Next day it took us a while to figure out where my “target lake” for fishing was. Once found Cameron and Carl set of to climb the ridge and explore while I began to fish. Expecting relatively small brookies I was shocked that on one of my first casts my z-ray was struck by a substantial fish that turned out to be a pig of a rainbow, soon followed by another. That ended my luck with large fish but I caught several fat 10” fish over the next couple of hours. The two keepers provided the foundation of a great dinner. The following day was a travel day, backtracking our first day’s route a couple of miles then turning west, topping a ridge and dropping down to n. Minam Meadow. We had a hard time finding a suitable campsite because there were a lot of dead trees at established sites. Finally at the s. end of the meadow we found an old site about 50 yards off the trail. Given that it was about that time of the year we were serenaded all night by bugling elk.
The next morning we began the second of 3 substantial uphill days during the trip. To be continued
Mike