West Fork Wallowa River, West Fork of Lostine River — Tuesday, Sep. 7, 2004

This was the Big Pants Trekkers eighth backpacking trip, and what a gorgeous hike it was. I hesitate to write about it, because it was so beautiful, unspoiled and relatively unknown (by Puget Sounders, anyway), that it seems a shame to let the secret out. Joseph, OR, the jumping off point for the north end of The Wallowa Mountains, is about seven hours driving time from Seattle. After a night at the Eagle Cap Chalets, we started at the Two Pan Trailhead, not sure what to expect. Boy, were we pleasantly surprised! This hike reminded us of the best of many hikes we've done together, including the Enchantments, Wyoming's Wind River Range, the Pasaytan, and the Rockwall hike in Canada's Kootenays. The trail ascends for about two miles, and just after 11 switchbacks it rises into the Lostine River Valley. Wow, wow, wow. The U-shaped greenery topped out with white granite ridges like a massive natural halfpipe. In the distance, the second highest peak of the Wallowas at 9500', Eagle Cap, comes into sight. (See photo, including two of the trekkers.) The trail was so breathtaking we didn't notice the high elevation and heavy breathing until we were almost at our desination for the night, Mirror Lake. Mirror Lake was the only crowded part of the trip, but there are so many great campsites on the granite benches above the lake, you would hardly know it. (See second photo, taken from our camp, of Mirror Lake with Eagle Cap above.) On the second day, we hiked 2.5 miles and 2000 feet up to the summit of Eagle Cap on a trail that is steep but stable the whole way. From the top you can see eight drainage valleys and the entire lakes basin area, all the way out to distant peaks in central Oregon and Idaho. Night two we decided to stay at Mirror Lake again (we LOVED our camp site!), then on day three we dayhiked up to Glacier Pass to get a better look down at Glacier Lake below. From there, we strapped the big packs on and headed back down four miles or so to Horseshoe Lake, framed by a steep granite face on one side, wooded slopes on another, and a backdrop of two soft peaks of varying shades of brown. The geography of the Wallowas is a curiosity to me - the mountains were every color including red, brown, white and gray - and sometimes they were striped with every color! On the fourth and final day we headed back to the car to complete the loop at the Wallowa Lake trailhead. From Six Mile Meadow to the car was the most boring part of the hike, so I would either recommend doing the loop this way and really zone out at the end, or skip this part of the hike and do both your entry and exit on the Lostine River or elsewhere - much prettier! Two of our party scooted ahead and had cold beers waiting for us at the trailhead - a gentle welcome back to the ""real world."" Joseph was a great place to decompress for a few days - friendly people, great restaurants, and a good local beer called Terminal Gravity. One note - this is a VERY horsey trail. The most horsey I've ever seen, actually. If you're averse to poop-jumping (and poop smelling) this isn't for you. On the other hand, we saw local outfitters taking groups in, including one from the town of Wallowa called ""Millar,"" and they looked like they were having a great time! We plan to visit again sometime, and make use of some four legged beasts to help with our loads.