Backpacking in Eagle Cap Wilderness

14 Sep 2025

September 14, 2025

We arrived in Enterprise in the evening after a seven hour drive and had a tasty but chilly dinner at a picnic table at the Terminal Gravity Brewery. They made a memorable vegetarian Reuben-style sandwich using sautéed grated beets instead of pastrami, and they have a dog menu that Daisy got some ground buffalo from.

September 15, 2025

The road up the Lostine River from the town of Lostine gets worse and worse as you drive. Several miles of washboard gravel gives way to the last few miles of rough rock. The road ends at the Two Pan Trailhead. We arrived after eleven and ate the lunches we’d bought at the Sugar Time Bakery in Enterprise, then started hiking at noon.

We hiked about six and a half miles following the East Fork of the Lostine River and camped near the upper end of a long meadow near its source.

We discovered that the camp stove had somehow not made it into the packs - it was not with the fuel canister which we had. There was a fire ring nearby so we gathered branches and then really struggled to start a fire. Finally we got it going and really appreciated it as the evening grew cold. We boiled water for a curry that Julie made and then had hot cocoa.

September 16, 2025

It got colder as the night wore on and we both made some adjustments to try to keep warm. It was a very cold morning. Water we put out for Daisy after she ate breakfast iced over while we struggled to start a fire again. Eventually we got it lit and boiled water for oatmeal and our morning drinks.

It took a long time for the sun to rise over the ridge and begin drying our tent which was wet on the outside from frost and inside from condensation.

We finally got moving up the trail just before ten. Once we reached the Lakes Basin area the views were incredible. We took a couple breaks because my legs tired quickly - maybe because the pack was substantially heavier, or maybe also due to all the squatting and other work trying to light fires.

We hiked about three and a half miles before choosing a campsite overlooking Douglass Lake. When we set up the tent we discovered that the main pole somehow lost one of the ferrule connectors so we splinted it with spare tent stakes and paracord.

We were a little better at starting the fire for dinner, but our lighters and napkin supply began running low. We ended up discovering that waxed paper bandage wrappers were our “lucky charm” for fire starting.

We boiled water for a Farm to Summit Macaroni with Green Chili dinner and hot cocoa. The macaroni was good but Julie was a little disappointed after one of the backpacking influencers she watches on YouTube had raved about it.

It was our thirtieth anniversary so we spent some time reminiscing about trips we had taken together while we enjoyed a mini Black Box Merlot.

September 17, 2025

We slept late and had cold-soaked oats and cold-mixed drinks for breakfast. My chai latte does eventually dissolve in cold water but it requires a lot of stirring. The morning was chilly again but not nearly as cold as the previous day.

Eventually the sun rose over the ridge and began warming us up. We didn’t get on the trail until ten again and we couldn’t figure out how it got so late because we left the tent up. I did have to re-make my breakfast drink because we left it sitting for a couple minutes to grab something from the tent and one of several aggressive little chipmunks knocked it over.

We followed the trail down to Lee Lake and then to Horseshoe Lake. We had a snack break in between the lakes and then had another beautiful break on August Island in Horseshoe Lake.

Julie spotted a little toad on the trail that was well camouflaged, at least until it moved.

We took the very steep and unmaintained trail up to Razz Lake. We thought we would be the only people up there because we could barely find this un-marked and mostly un-maintained trail, but we found somebody at the lake when we arrived. Razz Lake has amazing cliffs on one side and a number of fish were jumping from its deep green waters.

I took a quick (and cold!) swim to clean off the sweat and dirt, and Julie waded in and dunked her head so she could wash her hair away from the lake. We sat and enjoyed the sun while drying for a little while, but then a breeze came up and it started to get chilly, and it was time to head back to camp anyway. The hike ended up being 6.3 miles and 1100 feet ascent.

Back at camp I tried a new fire-starting technique of wrapping some twigs in a napkin and lighting that, then jamming it under a little teepee of branches. It worked a lot better, and we were able to cook a curry that Julie had prepared with vegetables she dehydrated, TVP (textured vegetable powder), coconut milk powder, peanut butter powder, and rice.

September 18, 2025

The night was a few degrees warmer than the previous ones had been. In the morning we used the last of our spare napkins to start a fire so we could have nice hot drinks and oatmeal. We knew we didn’t have to go too far so we were taking our time getting going but then, when we took the tent apart, another one of the poles had the little connector part (ferrule) disappear inside. We spent a significant amount of time crafting a skinny enough stick to push out the connector by whittling down some branches to try to poke it out from the other end. That technique eventually worked after a few false starts.

We finally started hiking at 10:30. We made our way around the east end of Douglas Lake and then headed to the west on the Lakes Basin Trail. Despite heading back the way we had come in to the basin, this trail offered some neat views that we hadn’t seen yet. After three miles, we arrived at Mirror Lake and scouted out campsites for a while. There was a neat one near Sunshine Lake, which is just before Mirror Lake, and well off the trail.

We eventually picked a really cool site perched up above Mirror Lake on the south west end.

Once we had settled on our spot, we set up the tent again. We tried the skinny branch technique to try to recover the little connector on the first pole that had failed but we couldn’t get it to work, and now there are parts of a branch stuck inside the pole. We made a new splint from three tent stakes and some cord and it worked better than the one we had done before with two stakes.

We ate a late lunch and then decided to go explore nearby since it was still early afternoon. We headed up the East Eagle Trail to Upper Lake and then continued a little further along the trail towards Horton Pass. We got some amazing views from part way up the ridge. We could see a few miles down the East Fork of the Lostine River and could also see the Matterhorn. It was interesting to see that Upper Lake, which is definitely at the upper end of the East Fork of the Lostine River valley, actually drains into Mirror Lake, which then drains to a different drainage. That is it really looked like Upper Lake would be the source of this fork of the Lostine but it is not.

We ended up hiking five and three quarter miles in total for the day.

September 19, 2025

Julie got up at five fifteen and watched the reflection of the moon on the lake. We both heard a strange whooshing noise that we have been unable to explain. I got up around six thirty and we watched the sun slowly rising across Mirror Lake.

No fires are allowed in this area so we had cold drinks and started soaking some oatmeal. We packed up and hit the trail a bit after nine. We walked a couple miles and ate our oatmeal at a nice little camp spot near the upper river crossing.

Just after we crossed the river we met the first of what would be many groups making their way up the trail - the area was going to be significantly busier for the weekend. We walked a few more miles and then took a lunch break at a camping area.

Shortly after the camp area the trail begins descending more steeply. I looked down from the top of a series of switchbacks and realized why the hike up had been so exhausting.

We did pretty well, but it was a seven mile hike and both Daisy and I started getting tired for the last couple miles. We arrived back at the car around three and drove back to the hotel in Enterprise. We planned to spend two nights so we would have a day to explore the area a bit more. After showering and catching up on email we drove to Terminal Gravity Brewery again but the place was packed on a Friday night. We found a Mexican restaurant with a patio and had a decent-tasting dinner with marginal service. While we ate a trio of deer casually arrived and began browsing on weeds in a gravel driveway across the street.

September 20, 2025

We drove to Joseph and cruised the main road remarking about how it seems so much more “artsy” than Enterprise. We stopped at a Farmer’s Market and bought some honey and nuts. We walked down to the Blythe Cricket, a place I have enjoyed a couple lunches at on motorcycle trips, and tried to get a drink and a snack but the line was too long.

We drove to Wallowa and parked at the Little Alps Trailhead State Park. We hiked up the Chief Joseph trail. This first goes a little way up the West Fork of the Wallowa River, then crosses the river, goes up the hill, and then heads north across the slope and above the town of Wallowa. It crosses BC Creek at a waterfall. We met a couple on the way up and had a brief conversation about the backpacking we had just finished.

We continued above the town and then took a very steep trail down to the Wallowa Lake State Recreation Area. We stopped at a picnic table near the lake and had lunch, then we walked through the town back up to the car.

We had dinner in Joseph at the Embers Brew House pub. The couple we’d met earlier on the trail were there eating and we ended up talking with them for a while about backpacking as “somewhat past middle age” people. They gave us a couple trail recommendations and we learned that they managed to pack several pounds lighter than we do.

It was a really nice trip in a part of Oregon that we have not spent much time in before.